Irish Studies

Kevin Canty's seventh book, a novel called Everything, will be published by Nan A. Talese / Doubleday in summer 2010. He is also the author of three previous collections of short stories (Where the Money Went,  Honeymoon, and A Stranger In This World) and three novels (Nine Below Zero, Into the Great Wide Open, and Winslow in Love). His short stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, Tin House, GQ, Glimmer Train, Story, the New England Review and elsewhere; essays and articles in Vogue, Details, Playboy, the New York Times and the Oxford American, among many others. His work has been translated into French, Dutch, Spanish, German, Polish, Italian and English.

Modern American History; Immigration, Ethnicity, & Labor

I am the author of The Joyce Project (www.joyceproject.com), a developing multimedia hypertext of James Joyce's monumental novel Ulysses. Users of the site can scroll through the novel's 18 chapters and clink on links that take them to windows containing explanatory notes supplemented with photographs, maps, music, and other relevant audio-visual material. The notes point to other notes and to related details in far-off parts of the novel, encouraging users to perform the kinds of non-linear, highly connective reading that Joyce requires.

Ethnic and Third World Literature and Culture.  Colonials and Postcolonial Literature and Cutlure.  Critical Theory.  Theories of Globalization.  Irish and Native American History and Culture. 

Michael Murphy began teaching at The University of Montana in the fall of 1995. He brings to this University 18 years of professional involvement in theatre, film and television as an actor and director, both in New York City and Los Angeles.

In New York, he was a member of one of the premier theatre companies in the United States, the Circle Repertory Company. There he worked with many of the great playwrights of the country, including Lanford Wilson, Edward Albee, A.R. Gurney, Jr., John Bishop and Marsha Norman.

He was honored to perform at the Japanese National Theatre in Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” in 1985. During this period, he also was involved in more than thirty productions on and off Broadway, including a co-starring role in “Hide and Seek” with Elizabeth Ashley and in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Tony award-winning dramatic musical “Piaf.“ Michael was also an established film and television presence, appearing in numerous televisions series and films, including “Lisa,” “Boardwalk,” “Kate and Allie,” “Golden Girls,” “thirtysomething,” “Coach,” “L.A. Law,” “Father Dowling Mysteries,” and “Murphy Brown.” On moving to Los Angeles in 1988, he began directing for Circle Rep West and serving as Co-Artistic Director of that theater. Michael returned to Montana in 1992 and has been a vital contributor to the university, first as a graduate student, then as a professor. He has directed productions of “Three Sisters,” “Arcadia,” “K-2,” Uncle Vanya,” and the Montana Rep’s "Road" and “The Miracle Worker.” He has been featured in leading roles in UM's productions, including “Equus,” "Three-penny Opera," “A Little Night Music,”and “Sweeney Todd.”

Film Theory

Documentary Production

Phenomonology/Existentialism

I received my Ph.D. in philosophy,  and discovered early in my academic career that philosophy and film make great bedfellows.  Since then, I have drawn from the best of both arenas in structuring my philosophy and film studies courses.  I rely on philosophers to help students understand the great films, and use film to help illustrate great works in philosophy.   My production courses also have a strong philosophic bent, as it is often important for students to develop or discover the philosophic principles that undergird their dramas and documentaries.

I am also a documentary filmmaker.  My most recent documentary, "Be Thou Always as Guest," a portrait of a 91-year-old Montana rancher who began an impressive painting career at the age of 78,  aired on Montana PBS in May, 2010.

Irish language, nationalism, Gaelic culture, Irish literature in Irish, Irish history, Irish religious history and philosophy.

Contemporary British and Irish literature; Northern Irish/"Troubles" literature; transnational literature and theory; postcolonial theory; history of rhetoric; digital culture, hypertext theory, and electronic writing technologies.

Patrick C. Williams, a member of the music faculty at The University of Montana-Missoula since 1975, teaches composition, theory, aural perception, and 16th- and 18th-century counterpoint. He received his formal education at Eastern Michigan University and Eastman School of Music. His composition teachers include Samuel Adler, Eugene Kurtz and Anthony Iannaccone.

For 18 years, Professor Williams was a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing and the American Choral Directors Association, maintaining an active teaching and performing schedule as bass-baritone on the voice faculty, singing regularly as a recitalist, and as bass soloist in numerous works for chamber ensembles and regional orchestras. Two sets of songs were written for and dedicated to him by American composer and publisher, William Presser. In 1977 he founded and directed the UM Renaissance Ensemble, and in 2001, he created the UM Women’s Chorus. He was the recipient of the 1991 Distinguished Faculty Award for the School of Fine Arts.

Professor Williams’ catalogue of compositions includes numerous works for vocalists, instrumentalists, choirs of every kind, and chamber works for winds, strings, percussion, and full orchestra. As a sidelight to his work in contemporary composition, the composer takes great delight in writing 16th- and 18th-century-style motets, anthems, inventions and fugues as both teaching and performance pieces. He was selected as one of three national judges for the 2008 Music Teachers National Association student composition contest.

During the past 15 years, Williams’ personal composition projects and research in Celtic music have taken him to universities in Wales and Ireland. His most recent compositions: Garden Etudes for clarinet and violin, and a five-movement work for chamber orchestra, Pilgrimage, directly reflects his experiences in those countries as well as in France and Italy. His compositions have been performed in schools and universities across the nation and on National Public Radio.

A member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and The Society of Composers, Incorporated, Williams serves on the SCI National Council, and has publications with Colla Voce Music, Inc. and Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.

Nineteenth Century French Literature, The  Novel, Women Authors, Nineteenth Century Irish Literature

Nineteenth Century French Literature

I'm at work on a fifth novel and a collection of short  stories.

Creative writing, fiction

Website: www.deirdre-mcnamer.com