Clair Wills Explained

Clair Wills
Alma Mater:	Somerville College, Oxford
Discipline:	Cultural studies
Notable Works:	That Neutral Island (2007) Lovers and Strangers: An Immigrant History of Post-War Britain (2017)

Clair Wills,, is a British academic specialising in 20th-century British and Irish cultural history and literature. Since 2019, she has been King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge.^[1] After studying at the Somerville College, Oxford, she taught at the University of Essex and Queen Mary University of London. She was then Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Chair of Irish Letters at Princeton University from 2015 to 2019, before moving to Cambridge.^{[2] [3] [4]}

Honours

In 2016, Wills was elected an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy (HonMRIA).^[5] In July 2020, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.^[6]

In 2008, Wills was awarded the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for her book That Neutral Island (2007).^[7] In 2018, she was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for her book Lovers and Strangers: An Immigrant History of Post-War Britain (2017).^[8]

Selected works

• Book: Improprieties: politics and sexuality in Northern Irish poetry . 1993 . Clarendon Press . Oxford . 978-0198112686.
• Book: Reading Paul Muldoon . 1998 . Bloodaxe . Newcastle upon Tyne . 978-1852243470.
• Book: That Neutral Island: A cultural history of Ireland during the Second World War . 2007 . Faber . London . 978-0571221059.
• Book: Dublin 1916: the siege of the GPO . 2009 . Profile Books . London . 978-1846680533.
• Book: The Best Are Leaving: emigration and post-war Irish culture . 2015 . Cambridge University Press . New York, NY . 978-1107048409.
• Book: Lovers and Strangers: an immigrant history of post-war Britain . 2017 . Allen Lane . London . 978-1846147166.
• Missing Persons, Or My Grandmother's Secrets. London: Allen Lane. 2024. ISBN 9780241640951.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Professor Clair Wills . Murray Edwards College . University of Cambridge . 22 June 2021 . en . 2019-09-03.
2. Web site: Professor Clair Wills FBA . The British Academy . 22 June 2021 . en.
3. Web site: Clair Wills . Institute for Ideas and Imagination . Columbia University . 22 June 2021 . en . 2020.
4. News: New Chair of Princeton's Fund for Irish Studies Announces 2015-16 Series Town Topics . 22 June 2021 . Town Topics . 3 September 2015.
5. Web site: Professor Clair Wills inducted into the Royal Irish Academy . Department of English . The Trustees of Princeton University . 22 June 2021 . May 2016.
6. Web site: The British Academy welcomes 86 new Fellows from across the humanities and social sciences . The British Academy . 22 June 2021 . en . 24 July 2020.
7. Web site: PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize . English Pen . 22 June 2021.
8. Web site: Orwell Prize 2018 Shortlists Revealed . The Orwell Foundation . 22 June 2021 . 18 May 2018.