ENGL 384 - Ireland in Literature, History, and Film

FDR: HL
Credits: 3
Planned Offering: Winter in alternate years.

Prerequisite: Three credits in 200-level English. This seminar seeks to immerse the student in the history and culture of Ireland through a range of media and methods. The primary focus of the course is on modern Irish literature–the seminal writings of the early 20th century, the so-called “Irish Renaissance”–but its secondary focus is on the world from which those writings emerged, and the world that followed upon those writings and was changed utterly by them. Through literary readings (both primary and secondary), texts of cultural history, memoir, and folklore, and through film (an increasingly potent form of expression in Ireland), we seek to understand the major movements in Ireland that led to its great cultural achievements in the 20th century, as well as the near-century that has followed the Renaissance and that still structures Ireland to this day. The seminar is also the prerequisite ENGL 388: Spring Term in Ireland taught in the following term, serving as orientation and preparation for that program and enabling students to be well-prepared when they arrive in Ireland. Conner