English 238 - Modern Irish Literature

This survey course will introduce students to literature of modern Ireland beginning with Swift and ending with writers of the Irish literary revival and Irish modernists. The syllabus will also focus on Irish women writers and their literary interventions concerning colonial history, nationalism, and Unionism. We will pay particular attention to representations of ideas of Irishness through the categories of religion, race, gender, and culture. The course encourages students to think about how the genres, styles, and forms of Irish writing are determined by the experience of colonial trauma and the imperative to imagine national identity.

Course limited to sophomores, juniors and seniors