The previous incumbent of the Ryan Professorship in the Humanities was Kevin Murphy, professor of English. His project was entitled "The Irish Political Elegy: William Butler Yeats and Seamus Heaney." As Ryan professors are expected to do at the end of their three-year tenure in the position, Murphy gave a public presentation on his research topic. In April, a crowd of enthusiastic colleagues and students packed the Handwerker Gallery to hear Murphy's illuminating explication of two important poems -- Yeats' Easter 1916 and Heaney's Casualty -- a presentation that was greeted by enthusiastic applause.
