Dr Eva Urban-Devereux

Qualifications & Awards

Dr Eva Urban-Devereux is an Assistant Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at the Department of Creative Arts, Media and Music. From February to June 2023, she was appointed EUR CAPS Visiting Professor for the International Chair in Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Rennes 2 in France. She is also an honorary Visiting Scholar at The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast where she was previously a Senior Research Fellow. Eva Urban is a Life Member of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, an associate member of the research centre Anglophonie: communautés et écritures and of the Centre d'Etudes des Langues, Territoires et Identités Culturelles-Bretagne et Langues Minoritaires at the University of Rennes 2, France; and (since 2021) a contributing editor on the editorial board of the Cambridge University Press journal New Theatre Quarterly. She has held a three-year British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, a Region of Brittany Postdoctoral Research Fellowship and a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the Centre for Breton and Celtic Studies, University of Rennes 2; and she has lectured, tutored, and supervised research projects at University College Dublin, the University of Cambridge, the University of Rennes 2, Queen’s University Belfast, and Dundalk Institute of Technology.

Eva Urban is the author of two monographs: Community Politics and the Peace Process in Contemporary Northern Irish Drama (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2011), and La Philosophie des Lumières dans le Théâtre Breton: Tradition et Influences/Enlightenment Philosophy in Breton Theatre (TIR, Université Rennes 2, 2019) as well as numerous journal articles and chapters on political and intercultural drama, and Irish Studies.

Eva is currently writing her third research monograph, a book entitled Remorse Drama and Celtic Romanticism: Staging Conflict and Cosmopolitanism since the Scottish Enlightenment.

She holds a PhD in Drama and Theatre Studies (UCD), an MA (First Class Hons) in Modern Drama (UCD) and Hdip (2.1) in Drama from University College Dublin and also graduated with Distinction (Drama/Performance Practice/Acting, including classical acting, modern acting, devising, and education) from DIT Rathmines Conservatoire of Music and Drama (now TU Dublin).

Eva is an Academic, lecturer, researcher, writer, director, performer, and singer/songwriter (Finalist, Clonmel National Song Contest).

Performing credits include Medea (Project Arts Centre, Dublin); The Blood and Fire Show (Project Arts Centre, Dublin); The Silk Labyrinth (Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin); Robin Hood (Belfield Woodlands, Dublin); O'Flaherty VC (Shaw Conference, UCD); Giselle (West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge); Coppélia (Mumford Theatre, Cambridge); Alice in Wonderland (Mumford Theatre, Cambridge). Directing credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream, Mac Anna Theatre, Dundalk, I do not like thee, Dr Fell (Mac Anna Theatre, Dundalk); 4:48 Psychosis (Mac Anna Theatre, Dundalk); Nathan the Wise (Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, University of Cambridge): https://www.bsecs.org.uk/criticks-reviews/nathan-the-wise/; Robin Hood (Belfield Woodlands, Dublin); Hamlet (University College Dublin).

Published Books/Research Monographs

Eva Urban. La Philosophie des Lumières dans le Théâtre Breton: Tradition et Influences (Enlightenment Philosophy in Breton Theatre: Tradition and Influences). Rennes: TIR Université Rennes 2, 2019. 108 p.

Eva Urban. Community Politics and the Peace Process in Contemporary Northern Irish Drama. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2011. 303 p.

Research Articles and Chapters

Eva Urban. 'Embodied Gestures of Human Rights: Performing Remorse, Sentiment, and Sympathy in Romantic Regency Drama.' Forthcoming: NTQ, 2024.

Eva Urban. 'In Justice and Intersectionality: Performing Activism against Racism online in Northern Ireland'. In Expressions of Intersectional Justice in Modern and Contemporary Literature, Film and Theatre. Ed. Maha Alatawi and Eamonn Jordan. Forthcoming: Oxford: Peter Lang, 2024.

Eva Urban. 'La companie nord-irlandaise Kabosh: Les marges et le centre'. Scènes britanniques et irlandaises contemporaines, Théâtre Public, 241 Octobre 2021, 47-51.

Eva Urban. 'Shared Futures or a Rerun of the 1930s? Community, Trauma, and Reification in The People of Gallagher Street and Planet Belfast. In Northern Ireland after the Good Friday Agreement: Building a Shared Future from a Troubled Past? Ed. Lesley Lelourec and Grainne O'Keeffe-Vigneron. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2021. pp. 151-172. 

Eva Urban. 'Spectres of Fiction: New Political Contexts for the Playboy of the Western World'. Etudes Irlandaises, 45-1 2020, 103-117.

Eva Urban. 'Fractured Liminality in Kabosh's Green and Blue and Lives in Translation. In New Cartographies, Nomadic Methodologies: Contemporary Arts, Culture and Politics in Ireland. Ed. Anne Goarzin and Maria Parsons. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2020. pp. 127-144.

FitzGerald, Urban, Jenkinson, Grant, Maguire. 'Human Rights and Theatre Practice in Northern Ireland: A Round-table Discussion', NTQ (Cambridge University Press) Vol 36 Issue 4 November 2020. 279-291. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-theatre-quarterly/article/abs/human-rights-and-theatre-practice-in-northern-ireland-a-roundtable-discussion/7F8EAB6C243A9DE15080033D67886B70

Eva Urban. 'Multilingual Theatre in Brittany: Celtic Enlightenment and Cosmopolitanism'. NTQ (Cambridge University Press), Vol 34, August 2018. 283-297. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-theatre-quarterly/article/multilingual-theatre-in-brittany-celtic-enlightenment-and-cosmopolitanism/A8C79C4AAE9AB0669DD01C5DDEA98CFA

Eva Urban. 'Intercultural Arrivals and Encounters with Trauma in Contemporary Irish Drama'. The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Irish Theatre and Performance. Ed. Eamonn Jordan and Eric Weitz. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. pp. 555-574.

Eva Urban and Joseph Long (eds). Hélène Cixous. 'Humanity doesn't exist yet. Democracy as a kind of prophecy'. A Roundtable Discussion with Hélène Cixous. NTQ, Vol. 33 August 2017. pp. 203-215.

Eva Urban. 'Reification and Modern Drama: An Analysis, a Critique, and a Manifesto', NTQ, Vol 32, August 2016, 256-268. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-theatre-quarterly/article/reification-and-modern-drama-an-analysis-a-critique-and-a-manifesto/B9533A5D4CA5000AF8481E7F45E9BC07

Eva Urban. ' "The rest is all but leather or prunella": Political Protest in poetic songs from Brittany, Ireland, Scotland and England'. In Bretagne/Irlande: quelles relations? Brittany/Ireland: what relations?. Ed. Yann Bévant, Laurent Daniel. Brest: CRBC, 2016. pp. 197-210.

Eva Urban. 'Actors in the Same Tragedy': Bertrand Russell, Humanism, and The Conquest of Happiness'. NTQ, Vol 31 November 2015. 343-358.

Eva Urban. 'Acts of justice in Ireland: Social Utopia and Natural Law in a deconstructive staging of Tennyson's The Foresters: Robin Hood and Maid Marian.' In New Critical Perspectives in Franco-Irish Relations. Ed. Anne Goarzin. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2015. pp. 109-126.

Eva Urban. 'Lessing's Nathan the Wise: From the Enlightenment to the Berliner Ensemble.' NTQ, Vol. May 2014. 183-196. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-theatre-quarterly/article/abs/lessings-nathan-the-wise-from-the-enlightenment-to-the-berliner-ensemble/AC667EDCFBE83F6D853DAA10F852CC39

Eva Urban. Northern Irish Drama. Oxford Bibliographies in British and Irish Literature. Ed. Andrew Hadfield. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 29 p.

Eva Urban. 'Identité de l'Ulster forgée dans les tranchées: Regarde les fils de l'Ulster marchant vers la Somme de Frank McGuinness.' In La France et L'Irlande: Destins Croisées. Ed. Catherine Maignant. Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2013. pp. 163-178.

Eva Urban. 'The condition of female laundry workers in Ireland 1922-1996: A case of labour camps on trial.' Etudes Irlandaises, 37.2. Autumn/Winter 2012. 49-46.

Eva Urban. Post-war Irish Drama. Oxford Bibliographies in British and Irish Drama. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 51 p. 

Eva Urban. 'Staging the Peace Process in Contemporary Northern Irish Drama: Dave Duggan's play AH6905.' 'EncenandoO Processo De Paz No TeatroContemporâneo Da Irlanda Do Norte A Obra AH6905 de Dave Duggan.' Transl. by Isabel Canhoro. Caleidoscópio, Perspectivas interdisciplinares da Comunicação, 2008. No. 8, Edições Universitárias Lusófonas, 2008. pp. 85-92.

Eva Urban. 'The Performance of Power in Convictions.' Etudes Irlandaises. 32.2 Autumn 2007. 173-183.

Book Reviews

Eva Urban. 'Tom Maguire, The Theatre of Marie Jones.' Book review, NTQ, Vol. 32 November 2016. 396-397.

Eva Urban. 'Eugene McNulty: The Ulster Literary Theatre and the Northern Revival.' Book review. Irish Studies Review, 17 (1) 2009. 115-133.