Directory
Maureen Ruprecht Fadem (she/her) is Professor of English at CUNY (Kingsborough) and a postcolonial, partition, and gender studies scholar. She works on contemporary, historical literatures of Ireland and African America chiefly, specializing in literary texts that represent partition borders—imperial, colonial, carceral, and capitalist. Her research concerns the poetics of conflict, trauma, and silence in poetry and narrative; political justice, particularly with regard to reparations; and social justice of race and gender. Maureen publishes widely. Her monograph Silence and Articulacy in the Poetry of Medbh McGuckian appeared in 2020 from Rowman and Littlefield. In 2021, Routledge, Inc. published two books by Maureen: the monograph Objects and Intertexts in Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved’: The Case for Reparations and the co-edited collection, The Economics of Empire: Genealogies of Capital and the Colonial Encounter. Among other recent publications, she brought out the journal article “Architecting the Carceral State” which looks at radical deployments of the fragment in prose work by Walter Benjamin and Medbh McGuckian (RISE 4, 2021). In addition, Maureen has two forthcoming books—the edited collection Imperial Debt (Liverpool UP, 2024) and The Routledge Companion to Toni Morrison (2025). She is also writing two new articles, one on James Joyce’s “The Dead” and the other on Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven. Maureen publishes opinion pieces, appears in interview, and presents at and organizes academic conferences. She’s currently serving a three-year term on MLA’s committee on Academic Freedom and Professional Rights and Responsibilities (CAFPRR). Before entering academia, she worked in the corporate world while raising her two children on her own, Dr. Cynthia Fadem, a geoarchaeologist, and Brooklyn restaurateur Mike Fadem. Maureen lives in Queens. #blacklivesmatter
Courses
Maureen is a member of the Honors faculty and often teaches Writing Intensive and Civic Engagement designated courses. She most often teaches college composition: English 24 and 93, most recently, and English 12 numerous times in past years. Professor Fadem also teaches various literature courses, including English 30, Introduction to Literature; English 32, World Literature; English 40, The Short Story; and English 77, The Roots of Black Literature. Starting in Spring 2015, Maureen will begin teaching courses in the Early College Program at Leon M. Goldstein High School.
Education
2012: PhD in English Literature, The Graduate Center, CUNY – PhD Program in English
Selected Publications and/or Other Resources
The Literature of Northern Ireland: Spectral Borderlands. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
“Provincializing the Nation-State: The Meaning of Partition.” In Synthesis, Special issue on “Living through the Interregnum." Volume 8, Fall 2014.
“Self-Contradiction in a Small Place: Anne Devlin’s ‘Other at the Edge of Life.’” Affecting Irishness: Negotiating Cultural Identity Within and Beyond the Nation. Eds. James P. Byrne, Padraig Kirwan and Michael O’Sullivan. New York: Peter Lang, 2009. 291 - 312.
Review Article: “’Poetry is Not a Luxury’: Meena Alexander’s Raw Silk.” Semicerchio, XXXII – XXXIII (September 2005): 129 – 131.
“The Interval.” Word. On Being a [Woman] Writer. Ed. Jocelyn Burrell. New York: The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2004: 180 – 201.
Review: Yann Martel, Life of Pi. South Asian Review, 24 (December 2003): 231 – 233.
"Sparrows and Hawks: Class, Gender and the Politics of Decolonization in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India.” South Asian Review, 23.2 (2002): 12 – 13.
“Translation, An Art of Negativity: A Conversation with Meena Alexander.” Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry, 45.2 (Spring/Summer 2002): 102 – 110.
Research Interests
Maureen's research is on Postcolonial Literature (especially that of Ireland, South Asia, Israel and Palestine), Partition Studies, Gender & Women's Studies, and Literary Theory.
Institutional Affiliations / Professional Societies
Current Memberships: the Modern Language Association (MLA); the American Conference for Irish Studies (ACIS). •Executive Committee Member for 1-year term, South Asian Literary Association, 2000 – 2001.