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4. Jay Roszman

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Biography

I was born in Shelburne, Vermont. Some of my earliest childhood memories are visiting the Shelburne Museum to run along the decks of the last steamship to navigate Lake Champlain – the Ticonderoga. I attended Gettysburg College in the hopes of studying the American Civil War only to realise that people who studied the Civil War took things a little too seriously for me – including dressing up and reenacting on a weekly basis. Eventually, I landed on double majoring in political science and history. By chance I decided to study abroad in Bath, England and took a course on Irish Nationalism taught by the son of a mixed-marriage Ulsterman. That course would radically change my life as I became increasingly interested in the complexity and political urgency of Ireland's history. 

I spent a year at Queen's University Belfast working on an MA in Irish Studies – a deeply formative period where this island's past further enveloped me into its webs of paradox and contradiction. After taking two years to work as a community organiser in Burlington Vermont, I entered graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University to work toward my PhD under the supervision of David W. Miller. My dissertation began as a project interested in exploring the characteristics of agrarian violence in pre-Famine Ireland and slowly evolved into a story about the relationship between violence and British state policy immediately preceding the Famine. The dissertation earned the Adele Dalsimer Prize for Distinguished Dissertation from the American Conference of Irish Studies (2015) and my teaching earned the Michael J. Goldman Award for Teaching Excellence, an annual prize awarded to the best graduate student teaching from the History Department at CMU. I find time in the classroom the most rewarding part of my job, and it sustains me during the solitary aspects of research and writing.

My family and I moved to Cork in August 2018. I enjoy the outdoors, especially hiking, opportunities to travel, and the occasional concert.

My own experiences have animated some of the most compelling aspects of the historian's craft – the ways in which contingency, human agency, and large structural forces intersect to make our own complex microcosms, as well as the wider worlds that we inhabit.
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Research Interests

My first monograph Outrage in the Age of Reform: Irish Agrarian Violence, Imperial Insecurity, and British Governing Policy, 1830-1845 was published by Cambridge University Press in September 2022. The paperback was published in May 2024. It is a re-examination of the so-called 'decade of reform' that demonstrates how Ireland – especially Irish agrarian violence – shaped British political culture in previously unappreciated ways. 

My next project will explore the relationship between the British Empire and the constituent Queen's Colleges c. 1845-1921. 

I have a forthcoming article with English Historical Review that explores the relationship between Irish nationalism in the Age of O'Connell and its relationship to global humanitarian efforts, such as anti-slavery, and British imperial entanglements in the 1830s and 1840s. 

I am co-editor with Dr Heather Laird (UCC, School of English) of the recently published Dwellings in Nineteenth-Century, an edited collection arising from the Society for Nineteenth Century Ireland's 2021 conference held at UCC.

Research Grants

	Project	Funding Body	Start Date	End Date	Award
	The Queen's Colleges and the British Empire, 1845-1921	Royal Irish Academy	01-APR-22	30-NOV-22	€2,500.00

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Publications

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Books

	Year	Publication
	(2022)	Outrage in the Age of Reform: Irish Agrarian Violence, Imperial Insecurity, and British Governing Policy 1830-1845. Jay R. Roszman (2022) Outrage in the Age of Reform: Irish Agrarian Violence, Imperial Insecurity, and British Governing Policy 1830-1845. London: Cambridge University Press.   [Details]

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Book Chapters

	Year	Publication
	(2023)	'Introduction' Jay R. Roszman and Heather Laird (2023) 'Introduction' In: Dwelling(s) in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. [Details]
	(2024)	'The Irish Question and British Politics: 1800-1914' Jay R. Roszman (2024) 'The Irish Question and British Politics: 1800-1914' In: Tom Crook, Richard Gaunt, and Kathyrn Rix (eds). 19th Century British Politics. London: Routledge.   [Details]

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Edited Books

	Year	Publication
	(2023)	Dwelling(s) in Nineteeth-Century Ireland Heather Laird and Jay R Roszman (Ed.). (2023) Dwelling(s) in Nineteeth-Century Ireland Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.   [Details]

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Peer Reviewed Journals

	Year	Publication
	(2018)	'The curious history of Irish 'outrages': Irish agrarian violence and collective insecurity, 1761-1852' Roszman, JR (2018) 'The curious history of Irish 'outrages': Irish agrarian violence and collective insecurity, 1761-1852'. Historical Research, 91 :481-504 [DOI] [Details]
	(2017)	'IRELAND AS A WEAPON OF WARFARE': WHIGS, TORIES, AND THE PROBLEM OF IRISH OUTRAGES, 1835 TO 1839' Roszman, JR (2017) 'IRELAND AS A WEAPON OF WARFARE': WHIGS, TORIES, AND THE PROBLEM OF IRISH OUTRAGES, 1835 TO 1839'. Historical Journal, 60 :971-995 [DOI] [Details]

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Book Reviews

	Year	Publication
	(2023)	The Death Census of Black ’47: Eyewitness Accounts of Ireland’s Great Famine, by Liam Kennedy et. al. Jay R. Roszman (2023) The Death Census of Black ’47: Eyewitness Accounts of Ireland’s Great Famine, by Liam Kennedy et. al. Book Reviews [DOI] [Details]
	(2023)	The Great Famine in Ireland and Britain’s Financial Crisis, by Charles Read. Jay R. Roszman (2023) The Great Famine in Ireland and Britain’s Financial Crisis, by Charles Read. Book Reviews   [Details]
	(2023)	Charles Owen O’Conor, The O’Conor Don, by Aidan Enright. Jay R Roszman (2023) Charles Owen O’Conor, The O’Conor Don, by Aidan Enright. Book Reviews [DOI] [Details]
	(2022)	Imperial Boredom: Monotony and the British Empire. Jeffrey A. Auerbach. Jay R. Roszman (2022) Imperial Boredom: Monotony and the British Empire. Jeffrey A. Auerbach. Book Reviews [DOI] [Details]
	(2022)	Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative Party and the Northern Ireland Conflict, by Stephen Kelly. Jay R. Roszman (2022) Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative Party and the Northern Ireland Conflict, by Stephen Kelly. Book Reviews [DOI] [Details]
	(2020)	Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster, by Guy Beiner. Jay R. Roszman (2020) Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster, by Guy Beiner. Book Reviews   [Details]
	(2019)	Ribbon Societies in Nineteenth-Century Ireland and its Diaspora: The Persistence of Tradition. Jay R. Roszman (2019) Ribbon Societies in Nineteenth-Century Ireland and its Diaspora: The Persistence of Tradition. Book Reviews [DOI] [Details]

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Professional Activities

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Honours and Awards

	Year	Title	Awarding Body
	2022	Charlemont Grant	Royal Irish Academy
	2019	Eoin O'Mahony Bursary	Royal Irish Academy
	2018	William B Neenan Visiting Fellowship	Boston College Dublin
	2015	Adele Dalsimer Prize for Distinguished Dissertations	American Conference of Irish Studies
	2015	Michael J. Goldman Award for Teaching Excellence	Carnegie Mellon University
	2012	Emmet Larkin Dissertation Fellowship	American Conference of Irish Studies

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Professional Associations

	Association	Function	From / To
	American Conference of Irish Studies	Member	/
	American Historical Association	Member	/
	Irish Association of Professional Historians	Member	/
	North American Conference of British Studies	Member	/
	Society for the Study of Nineteenth Century Ireland	Committee Member	/

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Committees

	Committee	Function	From / To
	Adele Dalsimer Dissertation Prize Committee – American Conference of Irish Studies	Judge	2022 /
	Graduate Studies Committee	Vice-Chair	2020 /
	Society for the Study of Nineteenth Century Ireland	Treasurer	2019 /

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Employment

	Employer	Position	From / To
	University College Cork	Lecturer	13-AUG-18 /
	Carnegie Mellon University	Visiting Assistant Professor	14-AUG-17 / 13-AUG-18
	Carnegie Mellon University	Instructor	01-SEP-15 / 01-AUG-17

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Education

	Year	Institution	Qualification	Subject
	2015	Carnegie Mellon University	PhD	History
	2010	Carnegie Mellon University	MA	History
	2007	Queen's University Belfast (QUB)	MA	Irish Studies
	2006	Gettysburg College	BA	History, Political Science

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Journal Activities

	Journal	Role	To / From
	Irish Literary Supplement	Editor	01-APR-23 -
	Journal Of British Studies	Referee	-
	Éire-Ireland	Referee	-
	Irish Historical Studies	Referee	-

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Other Activities

	Description
	Served as manuscript referee for Anthem Press, Cork University Press, and Routledge.

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Teaching Activities

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Teaching Interests

I teach modules on aspects of Irish and British history during the long nineteenth century across all undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including courses on Ireland and Empire, the Great Famine, the British Empire, Historiography, and a dissertation seminar on the relationship between land and nationalism. 

I am the module organiser or co-organiser for: 

• HI 1015 - The Craft of History
• HI 2049 - The Great Famine - its Making, Meaning, and Memory
• HI 3077 - Ireland and Empire in the 19th-century
• HI 3200 - Dissertation Seminar - Land and Nationalism in 19th-century Ireland
• HI 6076 - Changing Directions in History: Transformative Historians and Their Work

I am currently co-supervisor of one PhD student, and one MPhil student. 

I welcome prospective PhD enquiries on topics related to 19th-c. Ireland, Britain, and Empire; political history; history of political thought and Ireland.‍

Recent Postgraduates

	Graduation Year	Student Name	Institution	Degree Type	Thesis Title
	2023	Margaret Lantry	University College Cork	DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY	'"Its inhabitants are a reading people": from Cork city bookshops and voluntary libraries to the Cork Public Library, c. 1792-1920