2006/2007 Predoctoral Teaching Fellow
Sam Cahill
Sam Cahill is a Ph.D candidate in 18th-century English literature at the University of Notre Dame. She grew up in England, Texas, California and Nevada. She received her B.A (with high honors) from the University of Texas at Austin in 2001, earning a dual degree in Plan II (the Liberal Arts Honors Program at U.T) and English (special honors), with a minor in French.
While at U.T, in addition to her National Merit Scholarship, she received the Lois Ware Scholarship; was a College Scholar (1999-2001); served as President of the English Honor Society (Sigma Tau Delta); founded Spirit of Shakespeare (SOS), a student organization to support the Actors From The London Stage program; worked at The Daily Texan (“the oldest college daily in the South”) as a theater and poetry contributor; attended courses at Brasenose College, Oxford and L’Université Jean Moulin, Lyon 3 (Lyon, France); and was a member of the Academic Committee of the Liberal Arts Council; Analecta, U.T’s literary journal; Phi Beta Kappa; Phi Kappa Phi; and the National Society of Collegiate Scholars.
Her honors thesis, “Margin of Error: The Problem of Absolute Judgment Without Absolute Knowledge in Moby Dick and Light in August,” was directed by Melville scholar Joseph Moldenhauer and was informed by her studies in an intensive course on Faulkner’s oeuvre with Warwick Wadlington. She also gained familiarity with UT’s renowned Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center.
After receiving her B.A, she worked as a theater reviewer for Curtain Call and as Group Sales Manager for Playfest (the longest running children’s theater festival in Austin) both associated with Austin Circle of Theatres (ACoT), a non-profit theater organization. In her various positions in Austin she met theater figures from Arnold Wesker to Akaji Maro; political personalities from Ann Coulter to Barney Frank; and authors from Wayne Booth to David Horowitz.
Sam entered Notre Dame as a Presidential Fellow, becoming the Gender Studies Pre-doctoral Fellow/Academic Advisor in 2006. Scholar and novelist Margaret Doody is directing her dissertation, “‘Intelligent souls’: Women, Reason, and Identity in England’s ‘Long’ Eighteenth Century.” She has served as Teaching or Research Assistant to 18th-century scholars Christopher Fox and John Sitter. Subjects she has taught include composition, Gender Studies, and 18th-century English literature. The daughter of an Irish father and an American mother who spent many years in Singapore and Japan, she has valued her experiences tutoring international students (from Sardinia to Uganda!). Go Irish!