Biography
Niamh Ahern is a writer, editor, and postgraduate student currently reading for a DPhil in English. She completed a BA (Music, Psychology, and Afrikaans) and BA(Hons) in Afrikaans at the University of Cape Town as well an MSt (World Literatures in English) at the University of Oxford. Her Honours degree was supported by a Merit Bursary from the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns and the Prof JJ Smith Scholarship from UCT's Afrikaans and Netherlandic Studies Section.
Niamh is interested in the purpose of literature across languages, nations, and literary systems. Some of her related research interests include book history, South African literature, American literature, typography, literary form, and GLAM institutions. Her previous research projects include a comparative study of Afrikaans and Appalachian gothic novels and an investigation into the tension between symbolic transformation and material change as exemplified by the National English Literary Museum/Amazwi South African Museum of Literature.
Her literary pursuits also extend to non-academic settings. She has organised departmental book collections, built a website for the Dutch Library of Cape Town, and currently serves as the Production Editor of New Contrast, one of South Africa’s oldest literary journals.
At UCT, she served in various student leadership roles, including as Editor-in-Chief of Varsity Newspaper, Chairperson of the Student Psychiatry Society, and Social Sciences Director of the African Research Society. She was also a member of the UCT Symphony Orchestra and volunteered as a sporadic therapy dog handler.