Course syllabus
ENGLISH 266 Reinventing Ireland
Course Information 2017
Lecture times: Wednesdays 1-2pm
Fridays 2-3pm
(please consult SSO for room allocations)
Tutorial times: TBC (please consult SSO for details)
Convenor: Dr Jan Cronin, room 605, Arts 1.
Office hour: by appointment.
Email: j.cronin@auckland.ac.nz
Lecturers: Dr Jan Cronin
Prof Malcolm Campbell (1 guest lecture)
email: m.campbell@auckland.ac.nz
Tutor: TBA
Course delivery format
This course is taught via two lectures per week (weeks 1-12) and one tutorial per week (weeks 2-11).
Course Description
This course combines historical and theoretical frameworks to explore contemporary reinventions of Ireland and ‘Irishness’ through a range of novels, plays, short stories and poetry. Throughout the 20th twentieth and 21st centuries, Ireland has serially reinvented its social and political realities. Unsurprisingly, cultural narratives of ‘Irishness’ remain in a perpetual state of revision and reconfiguration. Between the early 1990s and the present, Ireland has seen an unprecedented acceleration of social and cultural change. Our focus is the retrospective negotiations of Irish history and identity that characterise Irish literature of the 1990s and the 2000s and the treatment of contemporary Ireland in Irish literature since 2000.
Our explorations are based around two nodes, which reflect the dynamics of reinvention: ‘Retrospective Negotiations’ and ‘The New Ireland (?)’. ‘Retrospective negotiations’ initially pairs early 20th century literary imaginings of Ireland with contemporary literary reinventions of late 19th and early 20th century Ireland and Irishness. We then explore contemporary reworkings of mid-late twentieth century Ireland and the emergence of Ireland as a postcolonial nation. ‘The New Ireland (?)’ reflects on Ireland’s rapidly changing identity since the millennium. We examine the collision between alternatively imagined communities, and the relationship between postcoloniality and multiculturalism in contemporary Irish literature
Course outcomes
- Advanced close reading skills in relation to multiple genres as demonstrated in lectures and practised in tutorials
- Ability to think critically about texts
- Ability to engage with theoretical concepts from the field of Irish studies
Prescribed Texts:
Sebastian Barry, The Steward of Christendom [play - contained in the Methuen Drama Anthology of Irish Plays (2008)]
Elizabeth Bowen, The Last September [novel]
Seamus Deane, Reading in the Dark [novel]
Roddy Doyle, The Deportees [short stories]
Brian Friel, The Home Place [play]
Claire Keegan, Walk the Blue Fields [short stories]
Patrick McCabe, Winterwood [novel]
Martin McDonagh, The Cripple of Inishmaan [play - contained in the Methuen Drama Anthology of Irish Plays (2008)]
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, The Fifty Minute Mermaid [poetry]
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, The Dancers Dancing [novel]
JM Synge, The Playboy Of The Western World [play - e-text through library]
Selected poetry of W.B Yeats available through 'Reading Lists'
General recommended reading
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (revised edition 2006)
Terence Brown, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History 1922-2002 (2004)
Claire Connolly (ed), Theorizing Ireland (2002)
Marianne Elliott, When God Took Sides: Religion and Identity in Ireland (2009)
Diarmaid Ferriter, The Transformation of Ireland (2005)
R.F. Foster, The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making it up in Ireland (2001)
Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland (1995)
Peadar Kirby, Luke Gibbons and Michael Cronin (eds) Reinventing Ireland: Culture, Society and the Global Economy, ed. (2002)
Edna Longley and Declan Kiberd, Multi-culturalism: the view from the two Irelands (2001)
David McWilliams, The Pope’s Children: Ireland’s New Elite (2005)
Kevin Whelan, ‘The revisionist Debate in Ireland’, Boundary 2 31.1 (2004)
Recommended viewing
The Wind that Shakes the Barley (Ken Loach, 2006)
Michael Collins (Neil Jordan, 1996)
Five Minutes of Heaven (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2009)
The Butcher Boy (Neil Jordan, 1997)
The Commitments (Alan Parker, 1991)
The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952)
In Bruges (Martin McDonagh, 2008)
Six shooter (Martin McDonagh, 2004)
Weekly Topics
NODE 1: RETROSPECTIVE NEGOTIATIONS
Week 1: March 8 & 10
Lecture 1: Introduction
Lecture 2: W. B. Yeats
(selected poetry available through 'Reading Lists') POETRY
NO TUTORIALS IN WEEK 1
Week 2: March 15 & 17
Lecture 1: ‘Historians Telling Tales’ (Malcolm Campbell)
Lecture 2: The Last September (1) NOVEL
TUTORIAL Topic: Poetry of W.B. Yeats (See 'Reading Lists' for material)
Week 3: March 22 & 24
Lecture 1: The Last September (2)
Lecture 2: The Home Place PLAY
TUTORIAL Topic: Context and key ideas [6 page extract from Kevin Whelan, ‘Between Filiation and Affiliation: the Politics of Postcolonial Memory’ (see 'Reading Lists')]
[In week 3, volunteers will be sought to rehearse scenes from Martin McDonagh’s work to perform in lectures in week 5].
Week 4: March 29 & 31
Lecture 1: The Steward of Christendom PLAY
Lecture 2: The Playboy of the Western World PLAY
TUTORIAL Topic: Comparative work: The Home Place and The Last September
Week 5: April 5 & 7
Lectures 1 & 2: The Cripple of Inishmaan PLAY
TUTORIAL Topic: The Steward of Christendom
Week 6: April 12
Lecture 1: The Dancers Dancing NOVEL
No Friday lecture: public holiday
TUTORIAL Topic: The Cripple of Inishmaan (with reference to The Playboy of the Western World)
MID-SEMESTER Break
FIRST ESSAY DUE MONDAY 1 May @ 4 PM
Week 7: May 3 & 5
Lecture 1: The Dancers Dancing NOVEL
Lecture 2: Reading in the Dark NOVEL
TUTORIAL Topic: The Dancers Dancing
Week 8: May 10 & 12
Lecture 1: Reading in the Dark NOVEL
TUTORIAL Topic: Reading in the Dark
NODE TWO: THE NEW IRELAND (?)
Lecture 2: Winterwood NOVEL
Week 9: May 17 & 19
Lecture 1: Winterwood NOVEL
Lecture 2: The Fifty Minute Mermaid POETRY
TUTORIAL Topic: Winterwood
Week 10: May 24 & 26
Lecture 1: The Fifty Minute Mermaid POETRY
Lecture 2: Walk the Blue Fields SHORT STORIES
TUTORIAL Topic: The Fifty Minute Mermaid
Week 11: May 31 & June 2
Lecture 1: Walk the Blue Fields SHORT STORIES
Lecture 2: The Deportees and Other Stories SHORT STORIES
TUTORIAL Topic: Walk the Blue Fields (with reference to The Deportees and Other Stories)
SECOND ESSAY DUE MONDAY 29 May @ 4PM
Week 12: June 7 & 9
Lecture 1: The Deportees and Other Stories SHORT STORIES
Lecture 2: Revision and Exam Preparation 2
NO TUTORIALS IN WEEK 12
Workload:
The University of Auckland's expectation for 15-point courses is that students spend 10 hours per week on the course. Students manage their academic workload and other commitments accordingly. Students attend two hours of lectures each week for 12 weeks and participate in a one-hour tutorial each week for ten weeks. This leaves seven hours per week outside the classroom in teaching weeks (and ten in non-teaching weeks) to prepare for tutorials, assignments and the exam.
Deadlines and submission of coursework:
Deadlines for coursework are non-negotiable. Extensions will only be granted for compelling reasons, such as illness, or other unforeseen emergencies, and a Doctor’s certificate (or equivalent) must be provided to the convenor.
An extension must be requested by email to the convenor in advance of the due date for the assignment, unless there is a genuine cause preventing this, in which case the extension should be sought as soon as is practicable after the due date. Any work handed in late without an extension will not be marked.
For further important information, see the course information document under 'files'.
Course summary:
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