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This collection of essays examines the theme of liminality in Irish literature and culture against the philosophical discourse of modernity and focuses on representations of liminality in contemporary Irish literature, art and film in a variety of contexts.
This book is the first truly interdisciplinary intervention into the burgeoning field of Irish ecological criticism. Providing original and nuanced readings of Irish cultural texts and personalities in terms of contemporary ecological criticism, Flannery’s readings of Irish literary fiction, poetry, travel writing, non-fiction, and essay writing are ground-breaking in their depth and scope. Explorations of figures and texts from Irish cultural and political history, including John McGahern, Derek Mahon, Roger Casement, and Tim Robinson, among many others, enable and invigorate the discipline of Irish cultural studies, and international ecocriticism on the whole. This book addresses the nee...
This book uncovers a new genre of ‘post-Agreement literature’, consisting of a body of texts – fiction, poetry and drama – by Northern Irish writers who grew up during the Troubles but published their work in the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement. In an attempt to demarcate the literary-aesthetic parameters of the genre, the book proposes a selective revision of postcolonial theories on ‘liminality’ through a subset of concepts such as ‘negative liminality’, ‘liminal suspension’ and ‘liminal permanence.’ These conceptual interventions, as the readings demonstrate, help articulate how the Agreement’s rhetorical negation of the sectarian past and its aggressive neoliberal campaign towards a ‘progressive’ future breed new forms of violence that produce liminally suspended subject positions.
In Transcultural Writers and Novels in the Age of Global Mobility, Arianna Dagnino analyzes a new type of literature emerging from artists' increased movement and cultural flows spawned by globalization. This "transcultural" literature is produced by authors who write across cultural and national boundaries. Dagnino's book contains a creative rendition of interviews conducted with five internationally renowned writers-Inez Baranay, Brian Castro, Alberto Manguel, Tim Parks, and Ilija Trojanow-and a critical exegesis reflecting on thematic critical, and stylistic aspects. By studying the selected authors' corpus of work, life experiences, and cultural orientations, Dagnino explores the implici...
Engendering Ireland is a collection of ten essays showcasing the importance of gender in a variety of disciplines. These essays interrogate gender as a concept which encompasses both masculinity and femininity, and which permeates history and literature, culture and society in the modern period. The collection includes historical research which situates Irish women workers within an international economic context; textual analysis which sheds light on the effects of modernity on the home and rising female expectations in the post-war era; the rediscovery of significant Irish women modernists such as Mary Devenport O’Neill; and changing representations of masculinity, race, ethnicity and interculturalism in modern Irish theatre. Each of these ten essays provides a thought-provoking picture of the complex and hitherto unrecognised roles gender has played in Ireland over the last century. While each of these chapters offers a fresh perspective on familiar themes in Irish gender studies, they also illustrate the importance and relevance of gender studies to contemporary debates in Irish society.
When Irish culture and economics underwent rapid changes during the Celtic Tiger Years, Anne Enright, Colum McCann and Éilís Ní Dhuibhne began writing. Now that period of Irish history has closed, this study uncovers how their writing captured that unique historical moment. By showing how Ní Dhuibhne's novels act as considered arguments against attempts to disavow the past, how McCann's protagonists come to terms with their history and how Enright's fiction explores connections and relationships with the female body, Susan Cahill's study pinpoints common concerns for contemporary Irish writers: the relationship between the body, memory and history, between generations, and between past and present. Cahill is able to raise wider questions about Irish culture by looking specifically at how writers engage with the body. In exploring the writers' concern with embodied histories, related questions concerning gender, race, and Irishness are brought to the fore. Such interrogations of corporeality alongside history are imperative, making this a significant contribution to ongoing debates of feminist theory in Irish Studies.
In the early twentieth century, thousands of women from the Samsui area of Guangdong, China migrated to Singapore during a period of economic and natural calamity, leaving their families behind. In their new country, many found work in the construction industry, with others working in households or factories where they were called hong tou jin, translated literally as “red-head-scarf,” after the headgear that protected them from the sun. In Singapore, the women have been celebrated as pioneering figures for their hard work and resilience, and in China for the sacrifices they made for their families. Remembering the Samsui Women looks at who these women really are and at how both countries have commemorated their experiences. It is an illuminating study of the connection between memory and nation, including the politics of what is remembered and what is forgotten.
What constitutes a ‘national literature’ is rarely straightforward, and it is especially complex when discussing writing for young people in an Irish context. Until recently, there was only a slight body of work that could be classified as ‘Irish children’s literature’ (whatever the parameters) in comparison with Ireland’s contribution to adult literature in the twentieth century. This volume looks critically at Irish writing for children from the 1980s to the present, examining the work of many writers and illustrators and engaging with all the major forms and genres. Topics include the gothic, the speculative, picturebooks, poetry, post-colonial discourse, identity and ethnicit...