English 217

English 217 - Re-Imagining Ireland

Spring 2008
[More on Requirements] [Images and Links]

"Ireland is a strange country. It's a very, very old country; yet,
it's a new country, too." (John McGahern)
"Ireland is a first-world country with a third-world memory." (Luke Gibbons)

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES:
This course provides an introduction to contemporary Irish literature. At the same time, it provides a case study in the intersections between literature, politics, and culture. We will focus on post-independence literature and the extraordinary vitality of the contemporary Irish cultural scene. As a whole, the course foregrounds competing visions of Irish identity and of the role of literature in responding to, and at times promoting, cultural and/or political change.

Here are some of the questions we will explore: How do these Irish writers employ or interrogate conventional notions of home and country, of individual and national identity? How do they depict the violent and complex legacy of colonialism? How are distinctions between community 'insiders' and 'outsiders' maintained, subverted, or crossed in these works, and to what ends? What conceptions of Ireland, of what it means to be "Irish," and to be an "Irish" writer are at work in these texts?

Other topics include the uses (and abuses) of myth and history, the recurring dialectic between tradition and modernity ("the ever recurrent, never recoverable past"), the history behind the partitioning of the country and the aftermaths of partition, including the conflict in Northern Ireland, reactions to the loss of rural Ireland to urbanization and modernization, the eclipse of the Church in an increasingly secular, multicultural, and global Ireland, changing gender roles and relations, changing conventions surrounding the expression and representation of sexuality and sexual orientations, and contemporary Irish concerns with the prospects for the nation's multicultural (postnational?) future. Many of these themes and developments have been vividly dramatized in recent Irish films, some of which have been singled out for your attention on the syllabus.

TEXTS:
John McGahern, Amongst Women
Eavan Boland, Object Lessons
Deirdre Madden, One by One in the Darkness
Patrick McCabe, Breakfast on Pluto

Selected short stories (Ronan Sheehan,William Trevor, Eugene McCabe,
Mary Beckett, Joseph O'Connor, Emma Donoghue, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne,
Claire Keegan, and Colm McCann) (On Reserve at the Library)

Selected poems (John Montague, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland,
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, and Derek Mahon) (On Reserve at the Library)

REQUIREMENTS:
You will be expected to bring to each session, on an alternating basis, either a 1-page typed commentary in response to the readings for that session or a 1-page typed list of questions about the readings that you have created for the class to consider. You need to keep these in a portfolio to be submitted at the end of the term. A midterm audit of your portfolio is required, instead of a midterm exam. A final retrospective entry in your portfolio is required, instead of a final exam.

This course may be used to fulfill a skills requirement in oral communication. Contributions to student-led discussions (SLEDDS) are required; active ongoing class participation is also essential. You will often be called upon to read your commentaries and questions aloud and to read aloud from the works assigned for the day. Groups of students also will be responsible for leading class discussion on occasion. If you find it difficult to speak up in class, please come and talk with me as soon as possible. (Don't put it off!)

Active participation is not simply a matter of introducing ideas and raising questions. It also involves listening carefully to others and helping them to clarify their thoughts and extend their ideas. We will review guidelines for evaluating oral communication skills to make sure that the objectives are clear. Details about the requirements can be found under the More on Requirements link.

In keeping with College policy, you are expected to attend all of our class sessions. For details concerning the attendance policy, see below, under EVALUATION.

Please do not e-mail or fax me assignments. Feel free to e-mail or call me (x6238), or to stop by my office (Fletcher 313), if you have questions.

I will rely on e-mail to communicate with the class, using the class lists on my.sbc.edu. These addresses end with "@sbc.edu"; therefore, it is imperative that you check your Sweet Briar account on a regular basis. If you use some other e-mail supplier, it is your responsibility to make arrangements for your Sweet Briar mail to be forwarded to that address.

EVALUATION:
Approximate breakdown of final grade: Portfolios = 20%; group-led class discussions = 30%; class attendance and participation = 25%; midterm portfolio audit = 10%; final retrospective audit = 15%. To be eligible for a passing grade in the course, you must submit the audit reports and the portfolio and participate adequately in your SLEDDS and in regular class discussions.

Normally, deadlines will be extended and absences will be excused only in the case of involvement in official College business, an urgent personal problem, a family emergency, or a serious illness or contagious disease, verifiable, if necessary, by the Dean. Absences will limit what you can gain from the course and what you can contribute. More than two absences (excused or unexcused) may lower your final grade. If you are an athlete, within the first two weeks of class (earlier, if you have to miss class for a game before then), email me a schedule delineating the specific days you will be absent. If you do have to miss class for a game or for other official College business, you need to submit in advance any work that comes due on the dates you miss. In other words, an excused absence is not an automatic extension.

Late work for which no extension has been granted will receive an "F." The individual weekly commentaries and questions are not graded. Instead, they will be marked "+" (excellent), "√" (good), or "-" (fair). The portfolio you submit at the end of term with your commentaries and questions will receive a letter grade. Note that weekly commentaries or questions that are submitted late will receive an "F", since their primary purpose is to help you to contribute to our discussions. (An "F" is better than nothing, though, so do get them in, regardless.) You are allowed two absences (excused or unexcused), but never on days when your group is responsible for leading discussion. Missing your SLEDD will result in an individual zero for your grade for that SLEDD and an automatic 1/2 letter reduction from your final grade.

Plagiarism, even when unintentional, is a serious offense. If under the Sweet Briar Honor System, you are convicted of plagiarism in work you do for this course, you will most likely fail the course. If you are not sure what plagiarism is, please ask me.

22 "A Very Short History of Ireland" (xerox distributed in class); Ronan Sheehan, "Paradise"; William Trevor, "The News from Ireland"
[Film excerpt: "The Great Famine" – from the BBC's History of Britain (Simon Schama)]. The Great Irish Famine: Curriculum.

24 William Trevor, "Kathleen's Field"; Eugene McCabe, "Music at Annahullion" [+ Audio recordings]
[Recommended films: The Field; The Magdalene Sisters; Felicia's Journey]

29 Eugene McCabe, "Music at Annahullion" (cont.); John McGahern, Amongst Women
[National Library of Ireland: 1916 Online Exhibition]
[Recommended films: Fools of Fortune; The Last September; Michael Collins; The Wind That Shakes the Barley]
31 McGahern

FEBRUARY
5 McGahern. Group I SLEDD
7 McGahern [Audio file: McGahern interview with Hermione Lee]

12 The Wind That Shakes the Barley [From Irish Studies: A Glossary – Easter Rising; Ango-Irish War; Anglo-Irish Treaty;
Civil War; Constitution of the Irish Free State and Constitution of Ireland; Eamon De Valera; Michael Collins]

14 The Wind That Shakes the Barley (cont.) + "Whose Language?"; John Banville, "Living in Irish, Writing in English"; Selected poems by John Montague, "A Lost Tradition," "A Grafted Tongue"; Seamus Heaney, "Traditions"; Michael Hartnett, Excerpt from "A Farewell to English"; and Cathal o Searcaigh, "Here at Caiseal na gCorr Station"

19 Readings for 2/14 (cont.) + Selected Poems by Seamus Heaney. Video: Reading by Seamus Heaney
[From Irish Studies: A Glossary – Heaney biography; "The Troubles"]
21 Selected Poems by Seamus Heaney (cont.). Group 2 SLEDD

26 Selected Poems by Derek Mahon. Video: Reading by Derek Mahon. BBC: Northern Ireland Poets.
[From Irish Studies: A Glossary – Mahon biography]
28 Eavan Boland, Object Lessons (selections). Video: Reading by Boland
From Irish Studies: A Glossary – Boland biography]

MARCH
4 Object Lessons (cont.). Selected poems by Eavan Boland.    Group 3 SLEDD

6 Boland, Object Lessons (final chapter: "The Woman Poet: Her Dilemma") + poem "Anna Liffey." Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill essay "Why I Choose to Write in Irish" and poems, especially, "The Language Issue" + new xerox of "Nude" and "My Dark Master" (in Irish and in English translation) + interview excerpts.     [From Irish Studies: A Glossary – Ni Dhomhnaill biography]   Video: Reading by Ni Dhomhnaill
   ––>> Midterm Audit due by 5 p.m., Friday, March 7

18 Boland and Ni Dhomhnaill interviews; Boland, "The Lost Land"; John Montague, "Demolition Ireland" and "Last of the House."

20 Mary Beckett, "A Belfast Woman"; William Trevor, "The Distant Past." Group 4 SLEDD
[Recommended films: Cal; Bloody Sunday; Ormagh; In the Name of the Father]

8 McCabe.
[Recommended films: Breakfast on Pluto; The Butcher Boy; The Crying Game] Gay Ireland.
10 McCabe. Group 2 SLEDD

15 Excerpts from film version of Breakfast on Pluto. Claire Keegan, "Night of the Quicken Trees." Group 3 SLEDD
17 Colm McCann, "Fishing the Sloe-Black River"; Joseph O'Connor, from Cowboys and Indians

22 Emma Donoghue, "Going Back"; Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, "Irish, Irish, and Only Irish" and "The Girls Discuss the North of Ireland Question" from The Dancers Dancing. Group 4 SLEDD
24 "The Celtic Tiger"/ Metro Éireann/ "Ethnicity" – from The Field Day Anthology of Irish Literature. Excerpt from Roy Foster's Luck and the Irish.