Modernist Studies Ireland’s: Works in Progress

Modernist Studies Ireland’s monthly forum for new on-going work in Irish modernist studies—Works in Progress—cordially invites you to its third session of this autumnal season, taking place on Tuesday, 20^th Nov., from 6-8 pm in The Bridge Room (THB), as per usual with nibbles and wine. This seminar will open to view the much understudied literary modernism of Irish language writers in the twentieth century. We’re honoured to welcome two speakers from NUI Galway’s Centre for Irish studies for the occasion. Hardiman and IRC scholar Eoin Byrne will be speaking about ‘Semantic Succour: The Languages of Irish Modernism’ in the context of the works of Samuel Beckett, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, and Brian Ó Nualláin (Flann O’Brien), illuminating the late-modernist cultural production during Ireland’s postcolonial moment. A multilingual approach to this cultural moment, Eoin’s paper posits, not only strengthens the New Modernist Studies’ ‘vertical expansion’; it also helps in better sketching the blurred borders between modernist and postmodernist aesthetics more generally. Our second speaker is IRC and Hardiman scholar Síobhra Aiken, who recently curated the exhibition Máirtín Ó Direáin: Fathach File/Reluctant Modernist, held in NUI Galway from March-July 2018, and currently on tour. Síobhra’s talk, entitled ‘“Ní file ach filíocht an bhean”: Towards a Gendered Reading of Irish Language Modernist Poetry’, will put the gendered streak of Irish language modernist poetry centre stage. Please join us for what promises to be a most intriguing event, keen to shine a light on many severely neglected dimensions of Irish modernism and its critical apprehension.