Recorded February 13th, 2025.

Pay Attention!: Literary Studies, Neurohumanities and the ‘Distraction Economy’

Trinity Long Room Hub Visiting Research Fellow Prof Ronan McDonald (University of Melbourne, Australia) in conversation with Prof Christopher Morash (School of English, TCD) and Prof Shane O'Mara (TCIN, TCD).

‘Attention studies’ is burgeoning in academic and popular fora, not least because there is a common perception that we live in an era of digital distraction. Drawing on insights from neuroscience, this project considers the relationship between reading and attention in literary studies. It considers how reading orientates our mind, between various affective states that compel or distract: between willed concentration, raptured enchantment or receptive, wide-minded noticing. Opening up a cross-disciplinary conversation between literary studies, psychology and neuroscience,  it seeks to provide new purpose and direction for literary studies.
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About Ronan McDonald:
Ronan McDonald holds the Gerry Higgins Chair in Irish Studies at the University of Melbourne. He is widely published in Irish literary studies, with a particular interest in Irish modernism and Irish-Australian literature. He also has a research interest in the history of criticism and the value of the humanities. His books include Tragedy and Irish Literature (2002), The Cambridge Introduction to Samuel Beckett (2007) and The Death of the Critic (2008). Recent edited collections include The Values of Literary Studies: Critical Institutions, Scholarly Agendas (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Flann O’Brien and Modernism (2014). He is series editor of Cambridge Themes in Irish Literature and Culture. Current projects include an ARC Discovery Project with Prof Katherine Bode and Maggie Nolan, ‘Close Relations: Irishness in Australian Literature’. and a ARC Discovery Project, with Professor Simon During, on 'English: The History of a Discipline, 1920-70'. He is currently working on a book on ‘attention’ in literary studies.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Fellow In Focus: Prof Ronan McDonald

Opened in 2010, the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute is dedicated to advancing Trinity College Dublin’s rich tradition of research excellence in the Arts and Humanities, on an individual, collaborative and inter-disciplinary basis.

New tracks tagged #attention in literature