English 225 - Spring, 2014

Topics in Irish Literature

Class Information

Instructor: Dobbins, Gregory
CRN: 42927
Time: R 3:10-6:00
Location: 120 Voorhies
Breadth: Later American
Focus: ID, Other National, Theory

Description

IRISH AMERICAN MODERNISM

This class is a bit of an experiment, and it is by no means certain to me that "Irish American Modernism" even exists in the first place-- and if it does, it is likely that all three of those words are each profoundly unstable. Some years ago, I was asked to write an essay addressing whether or not there was such a thing as a distinct Irish American Modernism, and if so,what it entailed. Sure, there were a number of Irish American writers that one could easily point out-- we will be considering many of them in this course-- but is it possible to formulate a theoretically informed concept of an Irish American Modernism that was both informed by broader Irish and American versions of that literary moment, but slightly and distinctly different? I have some tentative suspicions that have yet to cohere. They include: the sense that an Irish American Modernism will have a unique and crucial link to American Naturalism on the one hand and Irish experimentation on the other hand, and less so to Irish Naturalism and American experimentation; that the category of race and ethnicity, and the extent to which religious identity complicates such categories, is going to be understood differently than it is in either American or Irish modernism at large; that stereotypes connected to Irishness-- particularly stereotypes concerning the body or behavior (alcoholism, laziness, sexual repression, garrulousness, etc.)-- are crucial and central; and that the proximity of the Harlem Renaissance is of crucial importance as well.

At the time I was asked to write the essay, the answer seemed inconclusive, and the project had to be abandoned; it didn't help that there is very little scholarship (and certainly nothing very recent that has appeared since the advent of the so-called "New Modernist Studies"). I have remained interested in the question though, and this course presents an initial attempt to return to it in earnest as a possible new project. The details of the reading list are still to be determined, but I am certain of a few things and there are a number of possibilities that appear at this point.

-- We will absolutely definitely be reading works by the following writers: Kate Chopin (otherwise known as Katherine O'Flaherty before her marriage), Eugene O'Neill, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Flannery O'Connor, and Frank O'Hara. Is it possible to find anything beyond a shared Irish heritage that links these writers? We will see.

-- We will likely consider, at least as a point of juxtaposition, the representation of Irishness in the writing of non-Irish American Modernists (Eliot, Pound, Hemingway) and other American writers who have more recently been reconsidered as having an important relationship to Modernism (Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler).

-- We will be looking to recover obscure, semi-forgotten, underrated, or ignored writers who have some kind of relationship to both Ireland and the United States. J.P. Donleavy is probably the best known of this bunch.

-- Conversely, we may also take a long look at an ongoing genealogy of loosely "modernist" writers (most of them poets) who are primarily known as quintessentially "Irish" writers but nevertheless have spent most of their lives and writing careers in the United States: Denis Devlin, Brian Coffey, Thomas Kinsella, Brian Moore, Seamus Heaney, and Paul Muldoon among many others.

More specific details will be coming in the future, and I will revise this description as the narrative of the course becomes more specific. Watch this space for updates.

Grading

Seminar paper, weekly participation. There will definitely be reading assigned for the first class so that we don't waste a scheduled day of the quarter. It will most likely include works by Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, but details will become more specific well before the first class.

Texts

To be Determined Soon!, Watch this Space!