Ireland

This course is specifically designed for visiting students to Ireland; as such, the course provides students with an insight into modern Irish society through an in-depth appraisal of its past history. This knowledge base allows students to become more familiar, and, in turn, feel more at ease, with the society in which they now find themselves interacting on a daily basis. The course is an introduction to fundamental aspects of Irish archaeology, heritage, history, and literature, from the first evidence of human activity on the island to the development of the socio-political frameworks which shape modern Ireland. Students examine the nature of the Irish landscape from the retreat of the glaciers to the impact of major historical events on modern society. The island has been subject to centuries of invasion, plantation, and demographic upheaval leading to some interesting blends of cultural and ethnic influence. Irish poetry is interwoven throughout the archaeological and historical explorations and includes the works of Heaney, Yeats, Hartnett, Kavanagh, and MacNeice.

This course is a chronological survey, examining writers and key representations of Ireland within their contemporary contexts and assessing the chief socio-political motivations and implications underpinning these national portraits. It focuses on two concepts: Irish literature is an active interpreter and interrogator of socio-political realities and, in turn, an active mobilizer of cultural ideals. Second, writers appropriate, modify, or reject previous literary conventions and images to accommodate their own engagement with social change. While the course focuses on themes relevant to the socio-political angle, such as nationalism, cultural identity, history, place, tradition and modernity, representations of women, and “eloquence and violence,” students are reminded that it is the writers' gifts of imagination and insight which make the issues memorable in the first instance.