Born in the Baltic nation of Estonia, St. Joseph’s University associate professor of English Kersti Tarien Powell first encountered the works of John Banville, Irish author of the Booker Prize-winning novel “The Sea,” in the British Council library in the Estonian capital city of Talinn.
“It wasn’t even a library,” Powell says, looking back. “It was more like a bookcase that they had there, for people who just didn’t feel like taking their paperbacks home. It was a pretty haphazard collection, and somehow, they had two books by Banville there.”
Educated in Estonia, where she received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, Powell was accepted to pursue her doctor in philosophy degree at Oxford University. She had proposed doing her dissertation on Samuel Beckett. However, the summer before she went up to Oxford, that chance visit to the British Council library changed her perspective radically.
“In a blurb in one of the (Banville) books, someone compared Banville to Beckett, and I thought, oh, I should read this,” Powell says. “I did, and it was a life-changing moment. I immediately emailed my dissertation adviser and asked, what if we change? I’m very happy that he immediately said yes. And so, I ended up writing my dissertation on an author who is still very much alive and writing.”
That chance encounter led to an academic career in the States, first at Wake Forest, and later, in 2007, as associate professor in the English department at St. Joe’s. In 2020, she was appointed director of a new Irish studies minor at the Jesuit university on Hawk Hill.
Powell is firmly ensconced in the world of Irish literature. During her years at Oxford, she spent several summers in Dublin doing research, including, she says, “an incredibly interesting archive of Banville’s papers at Trinity College Library.” She authored “Irish Fiction: An Introduction,” intended as a general overview, covering a wide range of Irish authors, including Banville, Beckett, Joyce, Edna O’Brien, Colm Toibin, Roddy Doyle, and many more. She has also published several journal articles and book chapters dedicated to the subject.
What triggered such an interest in Irish literature? She says there are no easy answers.
One reason, she suggests, might be some similarities between Estonia and Ireland. Like Ireland, she observes, Estonia has a powerful neighbor. (Estonia shares a land border with Russia.) And after the former Soviet bloc nation regained its independence, she says, “Estonia was very much trying to emulate Ireland in becoming a ‘tiger’ economy.”
Yet another insight occurred to her more recently. Powell notes parallels between Troubles-era Northern Ireland as described in Anna Burns’ novel “Milkman,” which she taught for the first time this past semester, and the pre-independence Estonia of her youth. “When I first read ‘Milkman,’ I was astounded because I felt that I could recognize that society, the way Burns described it,” Powell explains. “In some ways, I had lived in that society. It was a very odd, uncanny moment of recognition in a way—the closed society, the sense of being watched. That resonated with me.”
But what truly drew Powell to Irish literature, she confesses, was the literature itself. Beckett, she says, was the starting point.
“It really is a rich kind of literary tradition,” Powell says. “It’s keeping me busy because my specialty is contemporary literature, and there are just so many incredible novels and plays and poems published every year coming out of Ireland. I find that I’m constantly updating my courses in Irish literature. It’s hard to keep up.”
The Irish studies program at St. Joseph’s University is an exciting outgrowth of that lifetime passion. Since the beginning, Powell says, SJU partnered with the Irish studies program at Villanova, which has remained one of the staunchest supporters. (This year, Sorcha Ní Ghallachóir, Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at Villanova University, also taught Irish language at St. Joe’s.) Many local Irish organizations have provided support, including, for example, the Irish American Business Chamber and Network and the Irish Diaspora Center.
The minor consists of six courses, which can be drawn from throughout the university catalogue. “If you’re really interested in Irish literature,” Powell explains, “it is entirely possible to take six courses in Irish literature. But we also include courses from many other programs. For example, we have a couple of theology courses that count for Irish studies. We have courses in political science and international relations that also count. We now also have three courses from our business school, the Haub School of Business. For instance, a student could do a course in international food marketing and do their course project on Irish food marketing and get credit for Irish studies. We also have one international business course that counts for Irish studies as well. Oh, and we have a course, Introduction to World Music, which has a section on Irish traditional music, so thatalso counts for Irish studies.”
St. Joseph’s University has a non-native language requirement, she notes, which is where Ní Ghallachóir’s Irish language instruction came in to play. Irish language satisfies the requirement. “If you’ve taken an Irish language course, that’s a conversation starter if it’s on your transcript when you go on a job interview,” she says. “Our students absolutely loved this opportunity to take Irish language. There was tremendous excitement about this class.”
If you think Irish studies means you always have your head stuck in a book, think again. A year ago, Powell was teaching “Hurl,” a play by Charlie O’Neill, which draws on the ancient Irish sport of hurling. Ciarán Porter, youth development director for the Irish Diaspora Center, arranged for hurling lessons.
“We had about 50 students out on the lawn, practicing hurling,” Powell recalls. “It’s a really tricky sport, but they had a great time. We understood the play a little bit better after having actually tried our hand at hurling. So, it was a great event.”
Many different majors are represented in the program, Powell says. “We do have quite a few English majors, but we also have many political science majors, quite a few business administration majors, some secondary education majors, and a couple of psychology majors. One linguistic major graduated last year, so there’s quite a variety.”
Where does the program go from here? Powell hopes it will expand over time, with more opportunities for undergraduate scholarship. She has directed honors theses that are Irish literature-related, and a recent student presented a poster at the American Conference for Irish Studies. St. Joseph’s University hosted that organization’s Mid-Atlantic and New England regional conference last fall.
Additionally, she says, “I am trying to encourage undergraduate research and make sure that students who are really interested in Irish studies, Irish literature and culture and history, get a chance to further their interest.”
