Languages & Literatures 2011 | 1 | - Peter Lang

T
Hedda Friberg-Harnesk / Gerald Porter /
Joakim Wrethed (eds)
Beyond Ireland
Encounters Across Cultures
his collection looks beyond Ireland metaphorically
as well as geographically,
moving beyond nationalism towards the culturally
diverse, beyond a bilingual Ireland to
a polyvocal one, beyond the imagined community
towards a virtual one, beyond a territorial
Ireland to an excentric one . The focus
is on outsiders, ranging from Colm Tóibín’s
subversion of establishment norms to Paul
Muldoon’s immersion in Jewish discourse to
John Banville’s extensions of the parameters
of Irishness to the Lass of Aughrim finding a
new role through her exclusion from the domestic
hearth . The contributors to the volume
work mainly with poetry and prose fiction,
but genres such as autobiography, the
essay and song lyrics are also represented .
The issues addressed all look ‘beyond Ireland’
. In considering the creative frictions
and fictions that result from the dissolving
of old loyalties, these essays examine contested
concepts such as ‘the nation’, and attempt
to shed light on global forces that demand
cultural re-definitions and transformations
. The world order that let loose the
Celtic Tiger has brought, together with a diversified
Ireland, new forms of dependence .
It is one of the main aims of this book to explore
how Irish writers have regarded this diversification
and contested that dependence .
ContentS: Charles I . Armstrong: Drinking
Tea, Drawing Ideograms and Making
Waves: Pursuing the ‘Japanese Effect’ in Irish
Poetry • Billy Gray: ‘Less like marching, more
like meditation’: Zen Buddhism, Haiku, and
the Theme of Tolerance in the Work of Chris
Arthur • Åke Persson: Recalibrating the Mind:
Globalization, Viticulture, Wine-Tasting and
Change in Kate O’Riordan’s The Memory Stones
• Carmen Zamorano Llena: Multiculturalism
and the Dark Underbelly of the Celtic Tiger:
Redefinitions of Irishness in Contemporary
Ireland • Róisín Keys: ‘Why is a gramophone
Langue et littératures anglaises · Anglistik · English Language and Literatures
Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien, 2011 .
VIII, 334 pp .
Reimagining Ireland . Vol . 42
Edited by Eamon Maher
pb . ISBN 978-3-0343-0270-8
CHF 75 .– / € D 51 .10 / € A 52 .60 / € 47 .80 / £ 43 .– / US-$ 74 .95
like a parrot?’: Intermediality and (Inter)cultural
Identity in Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa
• Anne Karhio: ‘Immram’, ‘Haggadah’
and the New Jersey Suburb: Jewish and Irish
America in Paul Muldoon’s Poetry • Martin
Shaw: Warning Signs and Reflexivity in Nan
Joyce’s Anti-Traveller Protest Story • Lene
Yding Pedersen: Cultural Images and Cross-
Cultural Encounters in Colum McCann’s Zoli
• Ruben Moi: ‘Drawn by the colour and light’:
Ekphrases and Aesthetics in the Poetics of
Derek Mahon • Gerald Porter: Distant Transformations:
The Shifting Topologies of a
Diaspora Song • Joakim Wrethed: ‘Horribly
pleasurable transgression’: Metaphor, The-
ology and Evil in John Banville’s The Book of
Evidence • Hedda Friberg-Harnesk: Encoun-
ters Across Borders in a European Arena: John
Banville’s Kepler and Carl-Henning Wijk-
mark’s Dacapo • Britta Olinder: Cross-Cul-
tural Encounters and Clashes in John Hewitt’s
Work • Anders Olsson: Walk the Line: Ex-
perience and Interpretation in Colm Tóibín’s
Bad Blood • Ronald Paul: Frederick Engels
and the International Significance of Irish
History .
hedda FRiBeRg-haRneSK is Associate
Professor at Mid Sweden University, Härnösand
. Within the field of Irish Studies, her
primary research interest is the fiction of
John Banville .
geRald PoRteR is Professor of English
Literature and Culture at the University of
Vaasa, Finland . His main field of interest is
in the mediation of vernacular song, and he
has also published on constructions of national
identity and on literary representations
of social disorder .
JoaKiM wRethed is Visiting Assistant
Professor in English Literature at the University
of Stockholm, Sweden . His main fields
of research are Irish Studies, phenomenology,
aesthetics and metaphor theory .
Regula Fuchs
Remembering Viet Nam:
Gustav Hasford, Ron Kovic,
Tim O’Brien and the Fabrication
of American Cultural Memory
Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main,
New York, Oxford, Wien, 2010 . 262 pp .
European University Studies . Series 14:
Anglo-Saxon Language and Literature . Vol . 466
pb . ISBN 978-3-0343-0569-3
CHF 67 .– / € D 46 .20 / € A 47 .50 / € 43 .20 /
£ 38 .90 / US-$ 66 .95
H
ow does American culture deal with
its memories of the Vietnam War and
what role does literature play in this process?
Remembering Viet Nam is a fascinating exploration
of the ways in which authors of
Vietnam War literature represent American
cultural memory in their writings . The an-
alysis is based on a wide array of sources in-
cluding historical, political, cultural and lit-
erary studies as well as works on trauma . It
begins with an examination of American
foundation myths – their normative, formative
and, most of all, their bonding nature
– and the role institutions such as the military
and the media play in upholding these
myths . The study then considers the soldiers’
and war veterans’ minds and bodies and the
stories they tell as key sites in the debates
over the war’s place in American cultural
memory . The multilayered approach of Remembering
Viet Nam allows the investigation
of Vietnam War literature in its whole
breadth including the debates instigated by
the works examined and the influence these
narratives themselves have on American cultural
memory . Most importantly, the analysis
uncovers why American foundation myths
– despite their being thoroughly questioned
and even exposed as cultural inventions by
authors and reviewers of Vietnam War literature
– can still retain their power within
American society .
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