For more than four decades, Northern Ireland has been the source of an outpouring of imagery fired by its own history. From the poetry of the late sixties, including such seminal figures as Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon and Michael Longley, through the first rank of exploratory novels by the likes of Deirdre Madden, Bernard McLaverty, Eoin McNamee, Glenn Patterson, Robert MacLiam Wilson, and Eugene McCabe, to playwrights like Anne Devlin, Gary Mitchell and Owen McCafferty, the depth of literature from “the North” has been internationally recognized. As in other trouble zones, writers have posted their “dispatches from the front” of the conflict. In the realm of the visual arts, too, a powerful (and often divided) iconography has emerged, given expression in various media, from street murals to canvas, photography to film. The purpose of this course is to explore in all its manifest forms, the artistic response to a society in turmoil, and its recent attempts to make sense of the long-awaited peace.
Additional requirements:
REQUIRED FILMS
Cal. Dir. Pat O’Connor. 1985.
Mickeybo and Me. Dir. Terry Loane, 2004.
Resurrection Man. Dir. Mark Evans. 1997.
Method of presentation:
Lectures, seminars and a real emphasis on interaction (leading of discussions, group work and individual class contribution, as well as participatory involvement with guest speakers. It is anticipated that students will attend at least one play/cultural event in Belfast if they attend the Northern Ireland trip, and a second in Dublin, providing the subject matter is relevant.
Required work and form of assessment:
Classroom presentations and discussion (30%), mid-term exam (30%), final paper (40%)
content:
Part 1 Cal, Bernard MacLaverty’s novel about a Catholic living in a Protestant neighborhood in Northern Ireland. Film, directed by Pat O’Connor. (1985) This is an accessible introduction to the psychological and emotional schisms generated by the conflict, by one of the North’s best-known writers – and introduces a theme (love across the divide) which is to be re-worked in fiction repeatedly over the following decades.
Reading: Students are required to read the novel Cal in its entirety.
Part 2 Cal: Analysis of extracts from the novel together with a viewing of the second half of the film. The many aspects of division: social, ethnic, religious, and their manifestations in the novel. Is “innocence” possible in a violently fragmented society?
Reading: 3 or 4 short stories will be handed out for reading in preparation for the next class, by exponents such as Eugene McCabe, David Park, and Sean O’Reilly.
Part 3 Short stories from Northern Ireland. Some of the most powerful, taut, and haunting portrayals of the Troubles emerged in short story form. As a writer in this genre himself, Stephen McMahon will help guide an analysis of some of the best examples from across the political/social spectrum. Such stories impart a great deal of information (psychological, emotional, and historical) in a highly condensed form.
Part 4 Short stories from Northern Ireland (continued).
Reading: Extracts from Resurrection Man. Eoin McNamee. Faber, 1994.
Part 5 Resurrection Man (novel) together with its film adaptation. Set in 1970s Belfast, this story is centered around a member of the Loyalist terror group, the Shankill Butchers, and explores how acts of violence gradually corrode their own political justification until what was a means becomes an end in itself.
Part 6 Street Murals: Territorialism, propaganda, or art? Many commentators have seen the murals as nothing more than an expression of sectarian hatred, but, as the political climate changed and the move towards peace gained momentum, the symbolism of the murals evolved to reflect shifting priorities. As the iconography altered in the new political climate, it became clear that the murals were an important barometer of opinion on the ground. We will use jpegs together with the mid-term visit to some of the Belfast murals themselves.
Reading: selected poems from Contemporary Irish Poetry, ed. Paul Muldoon. Faber, 1986.
Part 7 The Government of the Tongue. Poetry by Seamus Heaney, Ciaron Carson, Paul Muldoon, Alan
Gillis, Medbh McGuckian. Guest speaker: Dr. Colin Graham
Reading: Part One (pages 5-71) of the novel Reading in the Dark.
Part 8 Reading in the Dark. Seamus Deane, Vintage, 1997.
Part 9 The visual arts and the Northern Conflict. From the photojournalism of the late 60’s, photography has always played a central role in reporting events and shaping opinion in and about Northern Ireland. Now painters, installation artists and sculptors are finding new ways to explore the political “terra incognita”.
Part 10 A world out of joint: the playwright’s response. Gary Mitchell, In a Little World of Our Own. Mitchell is the leading theatrical voice from the Protestant side, post-agreement. His plays inhabit an often paranoid and insular emotional landscape, driven by fears for the future.
Part 11 Playwright: Owen McCafferty, Mojo Mickeybo. McCafferty’s, like Mitchell’s, is a much-needed retrospective voice (this time on the Nationalist side of the divide) taking a post-agreement view of Northern Ireland’s recent past.
Part 12 Summary and Conclusions
Required readings:
Deane, Seamus. Reading in the Dark. London: Vintage, 1997.
Kelters, Seamus. Eyewitness: Four Decades of Northern Life. The O’Brien Press.
MacLaverty, Bernard. Cal. 1983.
McCabe, Eugene. Heaven Lies About Us. London: Vintage, 2005.
McCafferty, Owen. Mojo Mickeybo. 2001.
McNamee, Eoin. Resurrection Man. London: Faber, 1994.
Mitchell, Gary. In a Little World of Our Own. 1995.
Muldoon, Paul (ed.). Contemporary Irish Poetry. London: Faber, 1986.
Park, David. Oranges from Spain. London: Cape. 1990.
Rolston, Bill. Drawing Support: Murals in the North of Ireland. Belfast: Beyond the Pale Publications,
1992.
------. Drawing Support 2: Murals of War and Peace. Belfast: Beyond the Pale Publications, B
1995.
Recommended readings:
Allen, Nicholas. The Cities of Belfast. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000.
Buckley, Anthony. Symbols in Northern Ireland. Belfast: The Queen’s University of Belfast, 1998.
Cliffe, Brian (ed.). Representing the Troubles, 1970-2000. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999.
Kennedy Andres, Elmer. Fiction and the Northern Ireland Troubles since 1969: de-constructing the North. Four Courts Press.
Lance, Pettitt. “Television Drama and the Troubles” in Screening Ireland: Film and Television Representation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.
Magee, Patrick. Gangsters or Guerrillas? Representations of Irish Republicans in ‘Troubles Fiction’. Beyond the Pale Publications, Belfast 2001.
Ormsby, Frank, ed. A Rage for Order: Poetry of the Northern Ireland Troubles. Belfast: Blackstaff House, 1992.
Parker, Michael, ed. The Hurt World: Short Stores of the Troubles. Belfast: Blackstaff House, 1995.
Pelaschlar, Laura. Writing the North: The Contemporary Novel in Northern Ireland. Fonda Grafiche Multimediali, S.R.L. Trieste, 1998.
Notes:
This course is offered during the regular semester and in the summer. For summer sections, the course schedule is condensed, but the content, learning outcomes, and contact hours are the same.
For more than four decades, Northern Ireland has been the source of an outpouring of imagery fired by its own history. From the poetry of the late sixties, including such seminal figures as Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon and Michael Longley, through the first rank of exploratory novels by the likes of Deirdre Madden, Bernard McLaverty, Eoin McNamee, Glenn Patterson, Robert MacLiam Wilson, and Eugene McCabe, to playwrights like Anne Devlin, Gary Mitchell and Owen McCafferty, the depth of literature from “the North” has been internationally recognized. As in other trouble zones, writers have posted their “dispatches from the front” of the conflict. In the realm of the visual arts, too, a powerful (and often divided) iconography has emerged, given expression in various media, from street murals to canvas, photography to film. The purpose of this course is to explore in all its manifest forms, the artistic response to a society in turmoil, and its recent attempts to make sense of the long-awaited peace.
REQUIRED FILMS
Cal. Dir. Pat O’Connor. 1985.
Mickeybo and Me. Dir. Terry Loane, 2004.
Resurrection Man. Dir. Mark Evans. 1997.
Lectures, seminars and a real emphasis on interaction (leading of discussions, group work and individual class contribution, as well as participatory involvement with guest speakers. It is anticipated that students will attend at least one play/cultural event in Belfast if they attend the Northern Ireland trip, and a second in Dublin, providing the subject matter is relevant.
Classroom presentations and discussion (30%), mid-term exam (30%), final paper (40%)
Part 1 Cal, Bernard MacLaverty’s novel about a Catholic living in a Protestant neighborhood in Northern Ireland. Film, directed by Pat O’Connor. (1985) This is an accessible introduction to the psychological and emotional schisms generated by the conflict, by one of the North’s best-known writers – and introduces a theme (love across the divide) which is to be re-worked in fiction repeatedly over the following decades.
Reading: Students are required to read the novel Cal in its entirety.
Part 2 Cal: Analysis of extracts from the novel together with a viewing of the second half of the film. The many aspects of division: social, ethnic, religious, and their manifestations in the novel. Is “innocence” possible in a violently fragmented society?
Reading: 3 or 4 short stories will be handed out for reading in preparation for the next class, by exponents such as Eugene McCabe, David Park, and Sean O’Reilly.
Part 3 Short stories from Northern Ireland. Some of the most powerful, taut, and haunting portrayals of the Troubles emerged in short story form. As a writer in this genre himself, Stephen McMahon will help guide an analysis of some of the best examples from across the political/social spectrum. Such stories impart a great deal of information (psychological, emotional, and historical) in a highly condensed form.
Part 4 Short stories from Northern Ireland (continued).
Reading: Extracts from Resurrection Man. Eoin McNamee. Faber, 1994.
Part 5 Resurrection Man (novel) together with its film adaptation. Set in 1970s Belfast, this story is centered around a member of the Loyalist terror group, the Shankill Butchers, and explores how acts of violence gradually corrode their own political justification until what was a means becomes an end in itself.
Part 6 Street Murals: Territorialism, propaganda, or art? Many commentators have seen the murals as nothing more than an expression of sectarian hatred, but, as the political climate changed and the move towards peace gained momentum, the symbolism of the murals evolved to reflect shifting priorities. As the iconography altered in the new political climate, it became clear that the murals were an important barometer of opinion on the ground. We will use jpegs together with the mid-term visit to some of the Belfast murals themselves.
Reading: selected poems from Contemporary Irish Poetry, ed. Paul Muldoon. Faber, 1986.
Part 7 The Government of the Tongue. Poetry by Seamus Heaney, Ciaron Carson, Paul Muldoon, Alan
Gillis, Medbh McGuckian. Guest speaker: Dr. Colin Graham
Reading: Part One (pages 5-71) of the novel Reading in the Dark.
Part 8 Reading in the Dark. Seamus Deane, Vintage, 1997.
Part 9 The visual arts and the Northern Conflict. From the photojournalism of the late 60’s, photography has always played a central role in reporting events and shaping opinion in and about Northern Ireland. Now painters, installation artists and sculptors are finding new ways to explore the political “terra incognita”.
Part 10 A world out of joint: the playwright’s response. Gary Mitchell, In a Little World of Our Own. Mitchell is the leading theatrical voice from the Protestant side, post-agreement. His plays inhabit an often paranoid and insular emotional landscape, driven by fears for the future.
Part 11 Playwright: Owen McCafferty, Mojo Mickeybo. McCafferty’s, like Mitchell’s, is a much-needed retrospective voice (this time on the Nationalist side of the divide) taking a post-agreement view of Northern Ireland’s recent past.
Part 12 Summary and Conclusions
Deane, Seamus. Reading in the Dark. London: Vintage, 1997.
Kelters, Seamus. Eyewitness: Four Decades of Northern Life. The O’Brien Press.
MacLaverty, Bernard. Cal. 1983.
McCabe, Eugene. Heaven Lies About Us. London: Vintage, 2005.
McCafferty, Owen. Mojo Mickeybo. 2001.
McNamee, Eoin. Resurrection Man. London: Faber, 1994.
Mitchell, Gary. In a Little World of Our Own. 1995.
Muldoon, Paul (ed.). Contemporary Irish Poetry. London: Faber, 1986.
Park, David. Oranges from Spain. London: Cape. 1990.
Rolston, Bill. Drawing Support: Murals in the North of Ireland. Belfast: Beyond the Pale Publications,
1992.
------. Drawing Support 2: Murals of War and Peace. Belfast: Beyond the Pale Publications, B
1995.
Allen, Nicholas. The Cities of Belfast. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000.
Buckley, Anthony. Symbols in Northern Ireland. Belfast: The Queen’s University of Belfast, 1998.
Cliffe, Brian (ed.). Representing the Troubles, 1970-2000. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999.
Heathwood, Peter. Selected documentaries from the Peter Heathwood Research facility. http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/media/heathwood/index.html. 2005.
Kennedy Andres, Elmer. Fiction and the Northern Ireland Troubles since 1969: de-constructing the North. Four Courts Press.
Lance, Pettitt. “Television Drama and the Troubles” in Screening Ireland: Film and Television Representation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.
Magee, Patrick. Gangsters or Guerrillas? Representations of Irish Republicans in ‘Troubles Fiction’. Beyond the Pale Publications, Belfast 2001.
Ormsby, Frank, ed. A Rage for Order: Poetry of the Northern Ireland Troubles. Belfast: Blackstaff House, 1992.
Parker, Michael, ed. The Hurt World: Short Stores of the Troubles. Belfast: Blackstaff House, 1995.
Pelaschlar, Laura. Writing the North: The Contemporary Novel in Northern Ireland. Fonda Grafiche Multimediali, S.R.L. Trieste, 1998.
This course is offered during the regular semester and in the summer. For summer sections, the course schedule is condensed, but the content, learning outcomes, and contact hours are the same.