Synopses & Reviews
This book scrutinizes the way modern Irish writers exploited or surrendered to primitivism, and how primitivism functions as an idealized nostalgia for the past as a potential representation of difference and connection.
Review
"Irish Modernism and the Global Primitive is a very timely intervention in the new Irish studies. The topic of primitivism is everywhere in Irish and post-colonial studies, but only sporadically has it been given sustained attention; the strength of this collection is that it returns our attention to this fundamental topic at what is perhaps a key moment in the development of the new Irish studies. It is, overall, a wonderful and exciting collection."--Enda Duffy, Professor and Graduate Advisor, Department of English, University of California, Santa Barbara
Review
"There is no doubt that this collection is a must read if we are to understand and untangle the many paradoxes which lie at the core of modern Irish literature." - Papers on Joyce
"Irish Modernism and the Global Primitive accomplishes what it sets out to do: expand the discussion more or less initiated by Garrigan Mattar, expanding it especially in the direction of Joyce." - James Joyce Literary Supplement
Synopsis
"Through essays written by established and younger scholars, Irish Modernism and the Global Primitive examines the ways a variety of modern Irish writers exploited or surrendered to primitivism and examines the intersection of Irish Modernism and the global rhetoric of the primitive encounter. The twelve essays in this collection focus critical attention on the broader study of global primitive alterities, especially from Africa, from the East, and on extreme representations of "indigenous others" from the New World. Contributors demonstrate how primitivism functions variously as an idealized nostalgia for the past, as a threat of the foreign, or as a potential representation of difference and connection. This collection addresses the ways Ireland's past primitive heritage regularly, though ironically, moves into the Irish present."--BOOK JACKET.
About the Author
Maria McGarrity is Associate Professor of English, Long Island University.Claire A. Culleton is Professor of Modern British and Irish Literature, Kent State University.
Table of Contents
Ambivalent Primitives: Responding to the Celtic Revival * Queering the Revivalists Pitch: Joycean Engagements with Primitivism--John McCourt * Robots and Rebels: Technological and Organic Discourse in Pearses Political Essays--Barbara A. Suess * “Magnificent Words and Gestures”: Defining the Primitive in Synges
The Aran Islands--Elizabeth Gilmartin
* Primitivism, Ethnography, and Cultural Translation * The Ethnographic Roots of Joyces Modernism: Exhibiting Irelands Primitives in the National Museum and the “Nestor” Episode--Kathleen St. Peters Lancia * Visible Others: Photography and Romantic Ethnography in Ireland--Justin Carville * “The Loveliness Which Has Not Yet Come Into the World”: Translation as a Revisitation of Joyces (Irish) Modernism--M. Teresa Caneda-Cabrera * Primitive Emancipation: Religion, Sexuality, and Freedom in Joyces
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and
Ulysses--Maria McGarrity *
Gender, Primitivism, and the Body * “Reluctant Indians”: Irish Identity and Racial Masquerade--Greg Winston * Female Militancy and Irish Primitivism: Dorothy Macardles
Earth-Bound--Lisa Weihman * Domestic Gothic, the Global Primitive, and Gender Relations in Elizabeth Bowens
The Last September and
The House in Paris--Phyllis Lassner and Paula Derdiger * The Gaelic Athletic Association, Joyce, and the Primitive Body--Claire A. Culleton