Department of English

This course will focus on some of the most powerful and exciting moments in Irish literature and film in the 20th century. Passion for the land, the pain and ambivalence of colonialism, domestic abuse, unemployment, music, mythology, political upheaval and the Troubles in Northern Ireland--all these will be the topics of our weekly discussions. We will view one film each week, in addition to reading one novel, play or collection of poems. These will be treated as thematic pair. Among these pairs are: The Field and W.B. Yeat's Catherine Ni Houlihan; The Commitments and James Joyce's Dubliners; Some Mother's Son and Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock; In the Name of the Father and Anne Devlin's Ourselves Alone; The Crying Game and Edna O'Brien's House of Splendid Isolation; The Secret of Roan Innish and poems by Seamus Heaney. Requirements are one midterm paper and one final paper.