Title of Paper:
Myles na gCopaleen, flanerie and the language revival movement in post-independence Ireland.
Abstract:
Studies of Brian O’Nolan’s journalism have assessed his verbal wit in relation to the socio-political context of post-independence Ireland. This talk contributes to this contextualisation of O’Nolan’s work, under his pseudonym Myles na gCopaleen, and will address O’Nolan’s journalistic style through a consideration of how modernity enabled Ireland to develop a collective mass culture of general agreement that adhered to the social, cultural and political ethos of dominant cultural nationalism. I use Walter Benjamin’s definition of a flaneur to illuminate the relationship between modernity, nationalism and language in O’Nolan’s work. Benjamin defines a twentieth-century flaneur as a salaried employee, like a journalist, who produces news and literature for the entertainment and persuasion of his contemporaries. This form of flanerie encourages the notion that passive observation is adequate for knowledge of social reality. In contrast to this, Benjamin’s nineteenth-century flaneur’s goalless loitering and irresolution acted as a point of resistance to the homogenisation of mass production. I argue that O’Nolan, a twentieth-century salaried journalist, employs the tactics of mass production to consume the staged extravagances of post-independence nationalism in its promotion of ‘Irish Ireland’. Rather than adopting a passive acceptance of the values of cultural nationalism, O’Nolan’s use of parody, hyperbole and aimless narratives resist both modernity and nationalism’s control of national forms and identities. I will offer close readings of extracts from Cruiskeen Lawn, focusing on how O’Nolan highlights the ridiculous aspects of the Irish language movement which attempt to create a purer ethnicity, to emphasise the value of framing O’Nolan’s linguistic and journalistic response to modernity and nationalism in terms of a loitering flaneur.
Sunday 2 August 2009
ENG9PW: Colonial and Postcolonial Imagination: Africa
Please find below details on the module I will convene at the department of English Studies at University of Stirling in Sprin 2010:
Department of English Studies
ENG9PW: Colonial and Postcolonial Imagination: Africa
Convenor: Brian Rock
(Spring 2010)
This module explores some of the major writings from Africa of the period from independence from colonialism to the present. It will begin with Achebe’s classic text of historical and cultural reconstruction of a pre-colonial Nigerian society on the eve of colonisation. The module will then look at two major African poets (Soyinka’s epic mythologies, and Senghor’s Senegalese negritude poetics), before examining Ama Ata Aidoo’s play Anowa and Soyinka’s major tragic drama Death and the King’s Horseman. Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s controversial novel is an overtly political response to the post-colonial betrayal of the ideals of the struggle for Kenyan independence, and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel of a young woman’s coming of age mirrors wider issues in Zimbabwean society. The course will end with Okri’s disturbing visionary narratives of an African postcolonial present.
We will seek to examine the relationship between oral forms and literary texts, strategies of representing cultural histories, and the relationships between national and ethnic identities in emergent postcolonial states. The course will also encounter alternative and dissenting voices which express political and social discontent: insurgence, revolution, gender conflict, and the mythologies of the dispossessed. The aim of the course, first and foremost, is to introduce students to the vibrant, various, and accomplished literary culture of contemporary, postcolonial Africa. In addition, students taking this course will practise close readings of the set texts, engage with the critical positions within the field of postcolonial writing and theory, and encounter complex debates about how national and postcolonial identity is reflected in these writings.
Set Texts:
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Penguin)
Ama Ata Aidoo, The Dilemma of the Ghost and Anowa (Longman)
Wole Soyinka, Death and the King’s Horseman (Methuen)
Ngugi wa Thiong’o Matigari (Heinemann)
Tsitsi Dangarembga Nervous Conditions (Ayebia Clarke)
Ben Okri, Incidents at the Shrine (Vintage)
Course Reader includes:
Poetry from: Wole Soyinka, Idanre; Leopold Sédar Senghor, Nocturnes
Essays on colonial and postcolonial theory and topics.
A list of secondary reading will be issued at the beginning of the course, but the following are helpful and provocative introductions to the subject:
John McLeod 2000, Beginning Postcolonialism, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Ania Loomba 1998. Colonialism/Postcolonialism, London: Routledge
Stephanie Newell 2006, West African Literatures: Ways of Reading, Postcolonial Studies Series, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Caroline Rooney 2000, African literature, animism and politics London: Routledge.
Department of English Studies
ENG9PW: Colonial and Postcolonial Imagination: Africa
Convenor: Brian Rock
(Spring 2010)
This module explores some of the major writings from Africa of the period from independence from colonialism to the present. It will begin with Achebe’s classic text of historical and cultural reconstruction of a pre-colonial Nigerian society on the eve of colonisation. The module will then look at two major African poets (Soyinka’s epic mythologies, and Senghor’s Senegalese negritude poetics), before examining Ama Ata Aidoo’s play Anowa and Soyinka’s major tragic drama Death and the King’s Horseman. Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s controversial novel is an overtly political response to the post-colonial betrayal of the ideals of the struggle for Kenyan independence, and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel of a young woman’s coming of age mirrors wider issues in Zimbabwean society. The course will end with Okri’s disturbing visionary narratives of an African postcolonial present.
We will seek to examine the relationship between oral forms and literary texts, strategies of representing cultural histories, and the relationships between national and ethnic identities in emergent postcolonial states. The course will also encounter alternative and dissenting voices which express political and social discontent: insurgence, revolution, gender conflict, and the mythologies of the dispossessed. The aim of the course, first and foremost, is to introduce students to the vibrant, various, and accomplished literary culture of contemporary, postcolonial Africa. In addition, students taking this course will practise close readings of the set texts, engage with the critical positions within the field of postcolonial writing and theory, and encounter complex debates about how national and postcolonial identity is reflected in these writings.
Set Texts:
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Penguin)
Ama Ata Aidoo, The Dilemma of the Ghost and Anowa (Longman)
Wole Soyinka, Death and the King’s Horseman (Methuen)
Ngugi wa Thiong’o Matigari (Heinemann)
Tsitsi Dangarembga Nervous Conditions (Ayebia Clarke)
Ben Okri, Incidents at the Shrine (Vintage)
Course Reader includes:
Poetry from: Wole Soyinka, Idanre; Leopold Sédar Senghor, Nocturnes
Essays on colonial and postcolonial theory and topics.
A list of secondary reading will be issued at the beginning of the course, but the following are helpful and provocative introductions to the subject:
John McLeod 2000, Beginning Postcolonialism, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Ania Loomba 1998. Colonialism/Postcolonialism, London: Routledge
Stephanie Newell 2006, West African Literatures: Ways of Reading, Postcolonial Studies Series, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Caroline Rooney 2000, African literature, animism and politics London: Routledge.
NEICN conference details
This November I hope to present a paper on Patrick McGinley at 'Fantasy Ireland:
Imaginings and Re-Imaginings', the seventh annual Irish Studies conference organised by University of Sunderland in Association with NEICN (North East Irish Culture Network). See below for details on the conference's call for papers:
http://www.neicn.com/NEICN/conference2009.html
CALL FOR PAPERS:
Following the success of the previous six international Irish Studies conferences, the University of Sunderland, in association with NEICN, is soliciting papers for an interdisciplinary conference, which will run from 13-15th November 2009. The conference will begin with a plenary lecture on 13th November; there will be a book launch and wine reception on the Friday evening and a ceilidh and conference banquet on Saturday 14th November.
The conference organisers hope to represent a wide range of approaches to Irish culture from academics and non-academics alike. Performances, roundtables, collaborative projects, and other non-traditional presentations are encouraged in addition to conference papers. We welcome both individual submissions and proposals for panels. As with previous year’s conference, we welcome submissions for panels and papers under the thematic headings of Fantasy Ireland : Imaginings and Re-imaginings in the following areas: Literature, Performing Arts, History, Politics, Folklore and Mythology, Ireland in Theory, Gender and Ireland Anthropology, Sociology, Geography, Tourism, Art and Art History, Music, Dance, Media and Film Studies, Cultural Studies, and Studies of the Diaspora. North American and other international scholars, practitioners in the arts, and postgraduate students are all encouraged to submit proposals to the conference organisers.
Each session will include three or four 20-minute presentations each followed by discussion. A selection of the accepted papers will be subsequently published in the conference proceedings.
The University of Sunderland houses the North East Irish Culture Network, established in 2003 to further the study of Irish Literature and Culture (see www.neicn.com). It has held six previous conferences. Previous speakers include Terry Eagleton, Robert Welch, Luke Gibbons, Ailbhe Smith, Kevin Barry, Siobhan Kilfeather, Shaun Richards, Lance Pettitt, Stephen Regan, Lord David Puttnam, Andrew Carpenter, John Nash and Willy Maley, with readings from Ciaran Carson Medbh McGuckian, Bernard O’Donoghue and Eilis Ni Dhuibhne. In 2008, the English department at Durham was the recipient of a Leverhulme Major Research Grant to sponsor its project ‘Consumer Culture, Advertising and Literature in ireland 1848-1921’.
Keynote speakers confirmed to date include:
Dr Benjamin Colbert
Professor John Strachan (second annual Leverhulme plenary speaker)
Paper Submission
Please submit your proposals (title and 300-word maximum abstract) by 30th August to Dr Alison O’Malley-Younger: alison.younger@sunderland.ac.uk
copying in Mr Colin Younger: colin.younger@sunderland.ac.uk
Imaginings and Re-Imaginings', the seventh annual Irish Studies conference organised by University of Sunderland in Association with NEICN (North East Irish Culture Network). See below for details on the conference's call for papers:
http://www.neicn.com/NEICN/conference2009.html
CALL FOR PAPERS:
Following the success of the previous six international Irish Studies conferences, the University of Sunderland, in association with NEICN, is soliciting papers for an interdisciplinary conference, which will run from 13-15th November 2009. The conference will begin with a plenary lecture on 13th November; there will be a book launch and wine reception on the Friday evening and a ceilidh and conference banquet on Saturday 14th November.
The conference organisers hope to represent a wide range of approaches to Irish culture from academics and non-academics alike. Performances, roundtables, collaborative projects, and other non-traditional presentations are encouraged in addition to conference papers. We welcome both individual submissions and proposals for panels. As with previous year’s conference, we welcome submissions for panels and papers under the thematic headings of Fantasy Ireland : Imaginings and Re-imaginings in the following areas: Literature, Performing Arts, History, Politics, Folklore and Mythology, Ireland in Theory, Gender and Ireland Anthropology, Sociology, Geography, Tourism, Art and Art History, Music, Dance, Media and Film Studies, Cultural Studies, and Studies of the Diaspora. North American and other international scholars, practitioners in the arts, and postgraduate students are all encouraged to submit proposals to the conference organisers.
Each session will include three or four 20-minute presentations each followed by discussion. A selection of the accepted papers will be subsequently published in the conference proceedings.
The University of Sunderland houses the North East Irish Culture Network, established in 2003 to further the study of Irish Literature and Culture (see www.neicn.com). It has held six previous conferences. Previous speakers include Terry Eagleton, Robert Welch, Luke Gibbons, Ailbhe Smith, Kevin Barry, Siobhan Kilfeather, Shaun Richards, Lance Pettitt, Stephen Regan, Lord David Puttnam, Andrew Carpenter, John Nash and Willy Maley, with readings from Ciaran Carson Medbh McGuckian, Bernard O’Donoghue and Eilis Ni Dhuibhne. In 2008, the English department at Durham was the recipient of a Leverhulme Major Research Grant to sponsor its project ‘Consumer Culture, Advertising and Literature in ireland 1848-1921’.
Keynote speakers confirmed to date include:
Dr Benjamin Colbert
Professor John Strachan (second annual Leverhulme plenary speaker)
Paper Submission
Please submit your proposals (title and 300-word maximum abstract) by 30th August to Dr Alison O’Malley-Younger: alison.younger@sunderland.ac.uk
copying in Mr Colin Younger: colin.younger@sunderland.ac.uk
Abstract for NEICN conference, University of Sunderland, November 2009
Title of Paper: Fantasy landscapes for the English traveller: Patrick McGinley’s textual indebtedness to Flann O’Brien in The Trick of the Ga Bolga
Abstract:
Donegal born author and émigré Patrick McGinley (1937-) is currently undergoing a critical reassessment in Irish Studies, mainly thanks to the work of Thomas F. Shea. Often praised for his dry wit and dark psychological realism, McGinley develops fantasy landscapes and disquieting local and national identifications in his novels, which include Bogmail (1978), Goosefoot (1982), Foxprints (1983), The Devil’s Diary (1988) and The Lost Soldier’s Song (1994). Considering McGinley dedicated his fourth novel The Trick of the Ga Bolga (1985) ‘To Myles’, my interest lies in tracing the influence of the writings of Brian O’Nolan (Myles na gCopaleen/Flann O’Brien) on McGinley’s text. Set in the Emergency period, the novel re-imagines O’Nolan’s depiction of the Irish rural landscape as an absurd and indecipherable space for the traveller protagonist in The Third Policeman (1967). In McGinley’s novel, Englishman George Coote comes to Donegal seeking solitude and a discovery of a sense of self away from the chaotic modernity of World War Two. Just as the narrator of The Third Policeman has to navigate a landscape where things do not cohere, Coote, like the previous English traveller Arthur Spragg, attempts to decode the key to the mysterious trick of the Ga Bolga in order to uncover a sense of communion with the Irish landscape as an outsider. Coote must constantly re-imagine the Donegal landscape based upon the codes available to him, whether they be mythological, geographical, linguistic or sexual, as his level of integration into the community is reflected in his level of understanding of the trick. However, McGinley, like O’Nolan, blurs the narrative distinction between the real and the fantastic in his novel, as identities and meanings are obscured and refuse be easily reduced to the level of ‘truth’. Instead, rather than being a place of refuge for the English traveller during World War Two, McGinley’s unsettling landscapes play a sly and ambiguous game with the reader who, like Coote, must also traverse the text in search of meaning.
Abstract:
Donegal born author and émigré Patrick McGinley (1937-) is currently undergoing a critical reassessment in Irish Studies, mainly thanks to the work of Thomas F. Shea. Often praised for his dry wit and dark psychological realism, McGinley develops fantasy landscapes and disquieting local and national identifications in his novels, which include Bogmail (1978), Goosefoot (1982), Foxprints (1983), The Devil’s Diary (1988) and The Lost Soldier’s Song (1994). Considering McGinley dedicated his fourth novel The Trick of the Ga Bolga (1985) ‘To Myles’, my interest lies in tracing the influence of the writings of Brian O’Nolan (Myles na gCopaleen/Flann O’Brien) on McGinley’s text. Set in the Emergency period, the novel re-imagines O’Nolan’s depiction of the Irish rural landscape as an absurd and indecipherable space for the traveller protagonist in The Third Policeman (1967). In McGinley’s novel, Englishman George Coote comes to Donegal seeking solitude and a discovery of a sense of self away from the chaotic modernity of World War Two. Just as the narrator of The Third Policeman has to navigate a landscape where things do not cohere, Coote, like the previous English traveller Arthur Spragg, attempts to decode the key to the mysterious trick of the Ga Bolga in order to uncover a sense of communion with the Irish landscape as an outsider. Coote must constantly re-imagine the Donegal landscape based upon the codes available to him, whether they be mythological, geographical, linguistic or sexual, as his level of integration into the community is reflected in his level of understanding of the trick. However, McGinley, like O’Nolan, blurs the narrative distinction between the real and the fantastic in his novel, as identities and meanings are obscured and refuse be easily reduced to the level of ‘truth’. Instead, rather than being a place of refuge for the English traveller during World War Two, McGinley’s unsettling landscapes play a sly and ambiguous game with the reader who, like Coote, must also traverse the text in search of meaning.
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