Languages & Literatures 2011 | 1 | - Peter Lang

Irene Gilsenan Nordin /
Carmen Zamorano Llena (eds)
Redefinitions of Irish Identity
A Postnationalist Approach
Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles,
Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien, 2010 .
VIII, 302 pp .
Cultural Identity Studies . Vol . 12
Edited by Helen Chambers
pb . ISBN 978-3-03911-558-7
CHF 69 .– / € D 47 .50 / € A 48 .80 / € 44 .40 /
£ 40 .– / US-$ 68 .95
R
ecently, the issue of postnationalism
has encouraged intense debate, which
has been reflected in the publication of numerous
books and articles in various fields
of study, including politics, history, philosophy
and anthropology . However, the work
produced in Irish literary criticism has been
much sparser . This collection of essays aims
to fill this gap and provide new insights into
the debate on postnationalism in Ireland
from the perspective of narrative writing .
The book collects thirteen essays by academics
from various countries, including Ireland,
the United States and Sweden . It analyses the
concepts of the postnational and the postnationalist
in relation to globalisation, as well
as the debate that postnationalist discourse
has opened in various fields of knowledge,
and its definitions and implications in the
contemporary Irish historical and literary
context . The literary forms under consideration
include essay writing, drama, fiction,
autobiography, film and poetry . The authors
whose work is analysed here include Dermot
Bolger, Hubert Butler, Ciaran Carson, Brian
Friel, Seamus Heaney, Marie Jones, Derek
Mahon, Frank McGuinness, Robert McLiam
Wilson, Conor McPherson, Sinéad Morrissey,
Nuala O’Faolain and David Wheatley .
ContentS: Irene Gilsenan Nordin/Carmen
Zamorano Llena: Introduction • Michael
Böss: Irish neutrality: From nationalism to
postnationalism • Billy Gray: ‘Close-cropped
grass comes up again fresh and sweet’:
Hubert Butler’s perspective on community,
nationalism and a globalised Ireland • Miriam
O’Kane Mara: The search for global Irishness
in Nuala O’Faolain • Seán Crosson: Anticipating
a postnationalist Ireland: Representing
Gaelic games in Rocky Road to Dublin (1968)
and Clash of the Ash (1987) • Damien Shortt:
‘Who put the ball in the English net?’: The privatisation
of Irish postnationalism in Dermot
Bolger’s In High Germany • Matt McGuire:
The postmodern promise of Robert McLiam
Wilson’s fiction • Carmen Zamorano Llena:
Langue et littératures anglaises · Anglistik · English Language and Literatures
Glocal identities in a postnationalist Ireland
as reflected through contemporary Irish poetry
• David Cregan: Divided subjectivities
and modern Irish masculinities: ‘The makings
of a man’ • Paula Murphy: ‘Scattering us
like seed’: Dermot Bolger’s postnationalist
Ireland • Grace Tighe Ledwidge: ‘What ish my
nation?’: Nationalism and neo-nationalism
in the novels of Colm Tóibín • Catherine Rees:
The postnationalist crisis: Theatrical representations
of Irish anxiety, identity and narrative
in the plays of Martin McDonagh and
Marie Jones • Irene Gilsenan Nordin: Elegy
and celebration: Landscape, place and dwelling
in the poetry of Moya Cannon • Ulf
Dantanus: The inner life of the nation: Reli-
I
Christophe Gillissen (ed .)
Ireland: Looking East
f Ireland’s relations with the Western
world have been the object of numerous
scientific publications, its links with the East
have been neglected by research . The aim of
this book is to redress that imbalance by proposing
studies of various aspects of Ireland’s
interactions with the East . It is a multidisciplinary
publication, dealing with some of the
historical, political, religious, cultural, demographic
and sociological connections between
Ireland – both North and South – and the East .
The chapters, which offer novel perspectives
for the field of Irish studies, are organised
in a chronological sequence, from the
mid-19th century to the present . They focus
on three main areas: the links between Ireland
and the Asian continent, notably India,
China and Turkey; its interactions with the
Jewish people and the state of Israel; and its
relations with Eastern European countries,
in particular Poland and Lithuania .
ContentS: Christine Kinealy: ‘Some Great
and Terrible Calamity’ . India’s Response to
Ireland’s Great Famine • Myrtle Hill: From
Down to Dohnavur . Amy Carmichael and
‘The Higher Christian Life’ • Catherine
gion, the otherworld and death in contem-
porary Irish drama .
iRene gilSenan noRdin is Professor of
English at the University of Dalarna, Sweden .
She is Director of DUCIS (Dalarna University
Centre for Irish Studies), and editor of Nordic
Irish Studies . Her scholarly work is mainly
concerned with contemporary Irish poetry .
CaRMen zaMoRano llena is Assistant
Professor at the University of Dalarna, Swe-
den, and has previously taught at the Univer-
sity of Lleida, Spain . She has published on
contemporary Irish and British poetry and
fiction . Her current research focuses on literary
representations of postnationalist identity,
ageing and the migrant experience .
Bruxelles, Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2010 .
169 pp ., num . fig . and tables
pb . ISBN 978-90-5201-652-8
CHF 46 .– / € D 31 .60 / € A 32 .50 / € 29 .50 / £ 26 .60 / US-$ 45 .95
Maignant : Le catholicisme irlandais contemporain
au risque des sagesses orientales •
Mathew Staunton/Olivier Decottignies: Letters
from Ankara . Scriptal Change in Turkey
and Ireland in 1928 • Audrey Whitty: The Albert
M . Bender Collection of Asian Art in the
National Museum of Ireland • Grace Neville:
‘To the East’ . Paris, Ireland and the Jews in
Derry O’Sullivan’s An La go dTainig Siad •
Christophe Gillissen : L’Irlande et le Moyen-
Orient à l’ONU • Catherine Piola: Recent Eastern
European Migration to Ireland and Demographic
Change • Loredana Salis/Maria Angela
Ferrario/Neringa Liubiniene: East Meets East
Going West . The Baltic Neighbours in Northern
Ireland • Marie-Claire Considère-Charon:
Irish MEPs in an Enlarged Europe .
ChRiStoPhe gilliSSen is a lecturer at the
English Department of the University of Paris
IV – Sorbonne, where he teaches British and
Irish civilisation . He has published several
articles on Irish foreign policy, notably on
Ireland’s bilateral relations with Britain and
with France, but also on its multilateral policy
at the United Nations and within the European
Union .
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