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Course Criteria
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3.00 Credits
From the outset of colonization in both Ireland and North America literature was employed in similar fashion to romanticize, demonize and, more often than not, silence Irish and Native American cultures. Today, with the surge in post-colonial literatures, Irish and Native American literatures have found new voices that look to the past in order to explore the present. Instead of romanticizing cultural memories, these authors subvert and challenge heroic representations while dispelling stereotypes. Together these separate literary traditions intersect and diverge, challenging accepted perspectives of history and culture while blending stories with oral tradition, popular history and pop culture. With these intersections in mind, we will explore an array of literature from both Irish and Native American traditions, from novels to poetry to film. We will look at a variety of authors including Flann O'Brien, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, Leslie Marmon Silko, Sherman Alexie, and Simon Ortiz. Requirements include a midterm exam, one short paper (3-5 pages), one longer paper (8-10 pages), and a presentation.
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3.00 Credits
As one of the most dominant themes of modernity, the city figures as a poster child of trendsetters, go-getters, floozies, and philanderers. It is the embodiment of shabby chic. Wherever there's couture there are cutthroats, and if there's a ballroom there's bound to be a bordello. Baudelaire's Paris sets the tone for the modern city's fast-paced but staggering tempo, and 150 years later, it can still be heard in Bono's gravelly tones and nostalgic lyrics. This course focuses on four cities intimately connected through literature, art, music, and film. It will study both their tense political and social relationships with one another as well as their idiosyncratic cultures and geographies (including their landmarks, streets, transportation and water systems, etc.), and will think about the resonance of these cities' histories on global, contemporary culture. Readings include selections from Baudelaire and Apollinaire, works by Padraic O Conaire, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Liam O' Flaherty, Samuel Beckett, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, John Banville, and Michael McLaverty, and selected poems from Seamus Heaney, John Montague, Derek Mahon, and Ciaran Carson. Photos, paintings, and song lyrics will supplement the readings, and there will also be a few movie showings. Course requirements include class participation, weekly quizzes, one 10-12 page paper, and a midterm.
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3.00 Credits
As members of a school whose sports teams are called the "Fighting Irish" and whose mascot is a leprechaun, Notre Dame students are no strangers to performances of Irish stereotypes. Yet these types of performances extend far beyond the football field, and have histories of which many Domers are unaware. In the 19th century, the "stage Irishman" was a popular comic figure on the British and American stage. Drunken, fiery-tempered, and full of blarney, the stage Irishman represented a popular and enduring stereotype of what it meant to be Irish. This course will examine how Irish playwrights of the 20th and 21st centuries have reacted to the stage Irishman in creating their own versions of Irishness: sometimes by accepting (or cashing in on) the popular stereotype and sometimes by challenging it. Students will read works by some of the best-known Irish playwrights: W.B. Yeats, Sean O'Casey, and Brian Friel, while also exploring the work of some less familiar playwrights, like Lady Augusta Gregory and Dion Boucicault. Class participation will be a vital part of this course as students interpret, stage, and act out portions of plays, both as a regular part of class discussion and as a graded group presentation. Students will also be required to write three short response papers (2 pages each) and one longer paper (7-10 pages) on a text or production of their choice.
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3.00 Credits
This course introduces students to the themes, motifs, approaches and various forms common to the Irish short story as well as the critical debates associated with the genre. We begin with a survey of the literary history and cultural politics of Ireland in the nineteenth century and the emergence of the Irish short story and compare it to the American and French short story, before considering the relationship between folklore and literature and the origins of the modern short story form. Having discussed various theories of the short story, we proceed to examine the interactive relationship between orality and print culture, tradition and modernity, native and foreign, natural/authentic and artificial/other. Among the authors we read in detail are: George Moore, P.H. Pearse, James Joyce, Pádraic Ó Conaire, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Frank O'Connor, Sean O'Faolain, Liam Ó Flaithearta/Liam O'Flaherty, Seamus Ó Grianna, Seosamh Mac Grianna, Angela Bourke, Samuel Beckett, Máire Mhac an tSaoi, Pádraic Breathnach, Seán Mac Mathúna, Micheál Ó Conghaile, Alan Titley, Dara Ó Conaola and Eilís Ní Dhuibhne. Stories are read primarily as literary texts that shed light on evolving cultural, political and social conditions and provide incisive insights into the Irish literary and cultural tradition. This course is an ideal introduction to literary criticism and cultural studies. No prior knowledge of Irish or Ireland is required. All texts will be available in English.
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3.00 Credits
A survey of British poetry and poets of the first half of the twentieth century.
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3.00 Credits
Anyone who has ever engaged with a great work of literature knows that it opens up new avenues of thinking. But how does one think about thinking? Better yet, how does one write about thinking? We will ponder these questions as we take a careful look at works from perhaps the most recognizable figures of modernism: Marcel Proust, Dorothy Richardson, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf. As we investigate these authors' preoccupation with thought processes, we will think about the texts in relation to various psychoanalytical attempts, beginning with Sigmund Freud's, to conceptualize consciousness and unconsciousness (How do we distinguish the self from the other? Do our conscious and unconscious selves involve our intellect, emotions, sensations, perceptions, and/or dreams?). We will invade characters' minds to ask: How does one transfer an intangible thought to paper? How does one write a male's consciousness compared to a female's? What about an adult's compared to a child's? Can sentence structure, punctuation, and word choice articulate these differences? Finally, we will expand our inquiry to another media form to question: How does one film consciousness?
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3.00 Credits
This course will provide an outline of the field of Irish studies. We will look Ireland its internal and external relations through an interdisciplinary lens that connects literary, sociological, political, historical, and economic perspectives. We explore several key elements of the study of Ireland using critical scholarship, archival information, and a range of creative works including films (from The Quiet Man to Once), literature (from Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde to Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Seamus Heaney), and music (from 18th-century harpist Turlough Carolan to U2 and Dropkick Murphys). This course is open to students at every level and there are no prerequisites for this class other than an interest in Ireland and the Irish. While this is an introductory class, the interdisciplinary focus will also benefit students who have studied Ireland in other courses. Requirements will include brief response papers, a midterm and final exam.
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3.00 Credits
This course focuses on novels, memoirs and autobiographies that deal with Ireland, the Irish-language, folklore, history and cultural politics. Starting with the causes for the relatively late emergence of print culture in the Irish-language, we discuss the cultural, political and ideological forces that shaped these literary genres during the Irish Revival, the Free State and the post WWII period. We examine the impact of various literary movements on the Irish-language novel and use the memoirs and autobiographies to examine key-moments in Irish cultural life as framed in the controversies surrounding Michelle Smith, Cathal Ó Searcaigh, Máire Mhac an tSaoi and Hugo Hamilton. All texts will be read in English and no prior knowledge of Irish is required, but extra credit/classes are available for students willing to read the texts in their original format (See Language Across the Curriculum). Among the authors and texts to be studied are the following: Séadna, My Own Story, Exile, The Islandman, Twenty Years A'Growing, Peig, When I Was Young, The Poor Mouth, Schnitzer O'Shea, Cré na Cille, Lead Us Into Temptation, Lovers, A Woman's Love, Speckled People, Light on Distant Hills, Same Age as the State, Triple Gold, Remembering Ahanagran.
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3.00 Credits
Although the Gothic is most often associated with the Romantic period, the Victorian period was marked by a revival in interest in Gothic themes and literary strategies. This course explores how Victorian writers refashioned the Gothic to reflect the anxieties of their own period, creating in particular distinct domestic and urban versions of the Gothic. Texts will include Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights," Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla," Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "Lady Audley's Secret," Bram Stoker's "Dracula," Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and Oscar Wilde's "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" among others. Students will become familiar with Gothic influences in the art and architecture of the period.
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3.00 Credits
We will read Beckett's prose, poetry and drama in a (roughly chronological) conceptual or thematic way. Our main question will be how and why can we classify Beckett's text as literary or philosophical, and we will investigate this question through Beckett's own interest in philosophy (e.g. his first poem "Whoroscope" which deals with Descartes) as well as through some philosophers' interest on Beckett (Deleuze, Badiou, Adorno, etc). We will read some of his most famous works (e.g. Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Molloy, Happy Days), as well as some less known ones (e.g. Company, Rockaby, Worstward Ho). Finally we will look at some performances of his work, taken from the collection Beckett on Film. Considering his work as a major turning point in literary production, as well as a main reference in the history of 20th-century thought, we will finally try to understand what is literature after him, and how does the literary event invites us to think.
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