Clare’s research is on Irish Literature, especially early twentieth century. She has a particular interest in book history, including questions about how literary texts get written; how, where, when and why they are read; and how, when and by whom they are published. Her research has been funded by the AHRC, the Leverhulme Trust, and the British Academy.
Serial Encounters: Ulysses and the Little Review (Oxford University Press, 2019) is an original study of James Joyce’s Ulysses, and looks at the critical and textual significance of the way in which Joyce’s evolving work was first serialised. Building on this, Clare curated Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses, a major exhibition which explored the formative and facilitating role which women played in enabling the realisation of Ulysses. This was on display at the Harry Ransom Center for the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin during 2022, the centenary of the publication of Ulysses in volume form. In related work, Clare participated in the BBC Arena Ulysses (2022) and lectured at the British Library on ‘Finding Miss Weaver: James Joyce and the Patron of Ulysses’.
At an earlier stage in her career, Clare edited The Irish Book in English, 1891-2000, volume 5 of ‘The Oxford History of the Irish Book’ (Oxford University Press, 2011).
Clare’s research contributes to the work of both the Cultural Currents: Nineteenth to Twentieth Century Research Group and the Editing and Textual Scholarship Research Group. She has just completed editing Joyce’s Poems for the New Penguin Joyce Series and is now completing an article on ‘Networks of Association and Intimacy: The Legacies and Letters of Harriet Shaw Weaver and Sylvia Beach’ based on research at Princeton in 2023.