ENGL 388 - Exploring the West of Ireland

Credits: 4
Planned Offering: Spring 2012 and alternate years

Prerequisites: ENGL 384 and at least one course in English at the 200-level or higher or instructor consent. Non-majors welcome. Spring-term abroad course. This course focuses on the literature, landscape, and culture of Ireland. We spend four weeks in the southwest of Ireland, based in Dingle, County Kerry. We visit and study the dramatic Irish landscape of the Dingle Peninsula, the Blasket Islands, and the Ring of Kerry; prehistoric burial tombs and stone forts; Celtic and early Christian sites; the great medieval monasteries; Norman and Elizabethan castles; and such lovely Irish towns as Killarney, Dingle, and Galway. While travelling, we focus on sites associated with the great 20th-century Irish writers, such as Yeats’s tower of Thoor Ballylee, Lady Gregory’s estate of Coole Park, and the Aran Islands so beloved of J.M. Synge. We read a range of Irish literature, from medieval poetry and mythic saga to the great achievements of the Irish Revival and also work from more recent Irish writers such as Heaney and O’Brien. Students write two interpretive essays, several “site readings,” and a travel journal/experimental Web log of their travels. For more information, contact Professor Conner at connerm@wlu.edu and view: ireland.wlu.edu . Conner.

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