Beginning Irish Studies

An Introduction to the discipline of Irish Studies that will be of use to both students and academics. ‘A well organised, illuminating, comprehensive, and challenging monograph useful both to students and professional academics.’—Neil Sammells, founding editor of Irish Studies Review‘This is a book that the field needs, proposed by someone with the necessary skill and experience for the task.’—Patrick Bixby, Foundation Professor of Humanities at Arizona State UniversityBeginning Irish Studies offers an introduction to the interdisciplinary academic area of Irish Studies in a manner that will be of value to both students and scholars.The volume follows the established pattern of Manchester University Press’s ‘Beginnings’ series, outlining the history and development of the field and its criticism in discrete chapters that may be read in any order, and encouraging the reader to explore further by way of provocative invitations to think and reconsider key issues at the end of each chapter. The purpose of BeginningIrish Studies is both to instruct and to encourage the student and academic reader to build upon existing and new knowledge in order to engage with ongoing debates and developments within the nuanced study of Irish literature, culture, and politics. The various source texts addressed in each chapter range from literary, political, historical, and theoretical works. The methodology is wide-ranging as each chapter focusses on Irish Studies’ engagement with different literary and cultural thinkers and theories. The literary analysis will comprise both summarising influential readings of specific texts by established scholars and original insights offered by the author on other works of Irish literature that have received less scholarly attention. The scope of the text ranges from the Irish Revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to the third decade of the twenty-first century. Beginning Irish Studies provides a comprehensive introduction to the history and development of the increasingly influential academic discipline of Irish Studies and acknowledges its importance as a dynamic and constantly evolving method for analysing drama, literature, film and poetry in Ireland. It guides the reader to an understanding of the contextual underpinnings of this academic discipline – including gender, empire, eco-criticism, memory studies, and intersectionality– as well as the interpretation of these in cultural and critical theory. Beginning Irish Studies is both an introduction to the academic discipline of Irish Studies and an invitation to its readers to consider its further developments from various theoretical perspectives. It also endeavours to envisage the future Intersectional alliances that Irish Studies might make in the coming years across the international areas of literature, culture, and politics.

Pagina's: 328, Paperback, Manchester University Press (P648)