Hi, I’m Jennifer Mooney, the Programme Chair of the MA in Children’s and Young Adult Literature. I’m a proud graduate of this MA, and it’s an honour to chair the programme that I enjoyed so much as a student.

 I developed the research I undertook for my MA thesis in my PhD, which examined gender and power in the works of Irish author Louise O’Neill. In 2022, I published a monograph developed from this research, Feminist Discourse in Irish Literature: Gender and Power in Louise O’Neill’s Young Adult Fiction. The book addresses the role of Irish YA literature in responding and contributing to some of the most controversial and contemporary issues in today’s modern society: gender and conflicting views of power, sexism, and consent.

I continue to research and teach in these areas, but most recently, my research has included a focus on race and ethnicity in Irish YA literature and genders and sexualities in the Irish YA novel, 1980-today. I have recently published on controversies of realism in contemporary YA literature and have work forthcoming on Irish writer Padraic Colum’s poetry and on YA poetry.

Before joining DCU in my current role, I worked as a part-time lecturer in English at Marino Institute of Education, where I taught the Postgraduate Children’s Literature course. Before that I worked as a primary teacher in Ireland and internationally.

I feel fortunate to be part of DCU’s long tradition of scholarship in children’s and young adult 

literature, and I am very proud of the School of English’s ground-breaking history in initiating the academic study of children’s and young adult literature as a postgraduate discipline in Ireland. Our MA students have a rich variety of experiences and interests, but share a love for children’s and young adult literature and have a keen interest in thinking critically and creatively in common. It is a great pleasure working with them each year!

DCU Prospectus - Back to MA in Children's and Young Adult Literature