Biography
Jenny O'Connor has a PhD in Film Studies and is a lecturer in English and Communications in the School of Humanities at Waterford Institute of Technology. A member of the Analysing Social Change research group, she is currently working within the Lyrical Bodies project, which involves students and staff from SETU’s School of Humanities, and Dublin Theatre of the Deaf, investigating Waterford playwright Teresa Deevy’s ballet Possession to explore and analyse ableism and gender discrimination towards the Irish Deaf community and Deaf woman via theatre practice research. Her role here is to use digital storytelling to document, reflect on and communicate the experience of the academic project.
Dr O'Connor is also a member of the Transnational Education and Community Health Collaboratory (TEACH CoLab), a global teaching project that connects staff and students in academia across two institutions (the University of Washington, and SETU campuses in Waterford and Carlow) and examines specific and pertinent health-related issues through a cross-cultural lens.
Since 2017, she has hosted the English at SETU podcast series The Nerve, and produces an average of five episodes per semester. It has featured interviews and discussions with students and staff of SETU, as well as world-renowned authors and scholars.
Dr. O'Connor teaches on a variety of modules in the B.A. Arts/Psychology course. These include:
Introduction to Literary Criticism and Composition
Shakespeare: Drama and Film
Literature and Society
Critical Theory and Beyond
Literature of the Family
Independent Literary Study
In addition, she teaches on modules across a range of other courses, including Applied Computing (module: Narrative Construction), and Health Promotion and Public Health (module: Communication and Media Skills).
Dr O'Connor is a member of the PLACE (Practice-led, Active and Creative Engagements) working group, part of Analysing Social Change research group. Within this group, emerging and established researchers work across a number of different projects, using a variety of methodologies to produce both performative and traditionally academic research outputs. One such project is Lyrical Bodies, which involves students and staff from SETU's School of Humanities, and Dublin Theatre of the Deaf investigating Waterford playwright Teresa Deevy’s ballet Possession, a work never yet performed, to explore and analyse ableism and gender discrimination towards the Irish Deaf community and Deaf woman, in theatre practice. Her role here is within a digital storytelling capacity, to document, reflect on and communicate the experience of the academic project.
2006 - date: Lecturer in English, Communications and media modules in Department of Arts, Department of Health Sciences and Department of Computing, Maths and Physics at SETU.
2017 - date: Host of The Nerve, an English at SETU podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms.
2016 - 2019: External examiner, BA (Hons.) in Digital Humanities at Dundalk Institute of Technology.
May - July 2021: Stories-in-Motion (Storymapping) - online
Storycenter, Berkeley, California
This 12-week course focused upon the integration of mobile documentary media production with Geographical Information System storymapping projects.
June - August 2020: Certificate in Digital Storytelling - online
Storycenter, Berkeley, California
Advanced 12-week course in digital storytelling as participatory media practice, and as part of an academic curriculum. This course incorporated facilitation skills in managing digital storytelling workshops.
April - May 2020: Digital Storytelling Workshop - online
Patient Voices, Cambridge, UK
Basic 6-week introductory course in digital storytelling as reflective practice.
Carroll P., Early J., Murphy N., O’Connor J., Barry M. , Eagan-Torkko M. , O’Connor R., Richardson N., Stone A. (2022) ‘Connecting Classrooms and Communities across Continents to Strengthen Health Promotion Pedagogy: Development of the Transnational Education and Community Health Collaborative (TEaCH CoLab)’, Pedagogy in Health Promotion, 6(1) .
O’Connor, J. (2020) ‘Inescapable blackness: Race in Shakespeare’s Othello’ in SETU Shakespeare Study Guides, available: {filedir_27}OTHELLO.pdf
O’Connor, J. (2020) ‘What makes a king? Kingship in Macbeth’ in SETU Shakespeare Study Guides, available: {filedir_27}Macbeth.pdf
O’Connor, J. (2020) ‘Women in Hamlet’ in SETU Shakespeare Study Guides, available: {filedir_1}News_PDF/WIT_STUDY_GUIDE_-_HAMLET2.pdf
Murphy, N., O’Connor, J., Early, J., Carroll, P., Eagen-Torkko, M., Richardson, N., Barry, M. (2019) ‘Transnational Education and Community Health Collaboratory (TEaCH CoLab) - from the West Coast (US) to Waterford (Ireland)’ in International Virtual Exchange Conference Proceedings, available: https://emxpert.net/sageedit/journals/?token=86EEDF8A-5281-4DA4-B
O’Connor, J. (2013) ‘Becoming-woman, becoming-mad: Transformations in the interstice in the cinema of Neil Jordan’ in Bracken, C. and Radley, E., eds., Viewpoints: Theoretical Perspectives on Irish Visual Texts, Cork: Cork University Press, 199-214.
O’Connor, J. (2012) ‘Disobeying Gilles Deleuze: Is Quentin Tarantino the Voice of Dissent?’ in Brisset, S. and Doody, N., eds., Voicing Dissent: New Perspectives in Irish Criticism, Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 215-225.
O’Connor, J. (2009) ‘Repositioning Irish-America: Neil Jordan’s American- Irish and the Value of the Interstice’, in Barton, R., ed., Screening Irish-America: Representing Irish-America in Film and Television, Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 356-369.
O’Connor, J. (2008) ‘Slap and Tickle: Violence as fun in the movies’, in Throsby, K. & Alexander, F., eds., Gender and Interpersonal Violence: Language, Action and Representation, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 214-228.
O’Connor, J. (2008) ‘Quentin Tarantino: Gilles Deleuze’s cinematic “falsifier”?’ in Rhizomes, 16 (Summer), available: http://www.rhizomes.net/issue16/index.html
Murphy, J. (2003) ‘”The Quare Ones”: Finding a Male Homosexual Space within Irish Cinema’ in Ennis, F. and Hayes, R. (eds.), Film & Film Culture, 2, 69-77.
May - July 2021: Stories-in-Motion (Storymapping) - online
Storycenter, Berkeley, California
This 12-week course focused upon the integration of mobile documentary media production with Geographical Information System storymapping projects.
June - August 2020: Certificate in Digital Storytelling - online
Storycenter, Berkeley, California
Advanced 12-week course in digital storytelling as participatory media practice, and as part of an academic curriculum. This course incorporated facilitation skills in managing digital storytelling workshops.
April - May 2020: Digital Storytelling Workshop - online
Patient Voices, Cambridge, UK
Basic 6-week introductory course in digital storytelling as reflective practice.