Amnesia and the Nation: History, Forgetting, and James Joyce

Review

“Anything published by Cheng will rouse the interest of Joyce scholars and Irish Studies scholars…and this book will not disappoint….It could be assigned in public school history courses across the South. The writing itself is masterful, always scholarly yet always accessible even to a non-expert reader.” (Joe Kelly, Professor in the Department of English, College of Charleston, USA, author of Our Joyce)
“Vincent J. Cheng skillfully weaves together the dynamic of remembering and forgetting with literature. Most surprising in this finely executed work is the connection he draws between the history of the Irish with the history of race… in the United States. Cheng brings fresh insights to our knowledge of Irish literature and American race relations.” (Viet Thanh Nguyen, Aerol Arnold Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, USA, author of The Sympathizer (Pulitzer Prize, 2016) and Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War)
“Vincent Cheng offers a remarkably detailed and sophisticated study of the ‘desirability or usefulness of forgetting’…. His discussions are infused with a wealth of research and criticism, all presented in accessible formulations and clear prose that make this work a pleasure to read.”(Margot Norris, Chancellor’s Professor, Emerita, University of California, Irvine, USA, author of Virgin and Veteran Readings of “Ulysses” and other studies)

Product Description

This book examines the relationships between memory, history, and national identity through an interdisciplinary analysis of James Joyce’s works―as well as of literary texts by Kundera, Ford, Fitzgerald, and Walker Percy. Drawing on thinkers such as Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Luria, Anderson, and Yerushalmi, this study explores the burden of the past and the “nightmare of history” in Ireland and in the American South―from the Battle of the Boyne to the Good Friday Agreement, from the Civil War to the 2015 Mother Emanuel killings.

From the Back Cover

This book examines the relationships between memory, history, and national identity through an interdisciplinary analysis of James Joyce’s works―as well as of literary texts by Kundera, Ford, Fitzgerald, and Walker Percy. Drawing on thinkers such as Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Luria, Anderson, and Yerushalmi, this study explores the burden of the past and the “nightmare of history” in Ireland and in the American South―from the Battle of the Boyne to the Good Friday Agreement, from the Civil War to the 2015 Mother Emanuel killings.



About the Author

Vincent J. Cheng is Shirley Sutton Thomas Professor of English at the University of Utah, USA. He is the author of many scholarly articles and books, including Inauthentic: The Anxiety Over Culture and Identity; Joyce, Race, and Empire; and Shakespeare and Joyce. His work addresses the intersections of postcolonial studies, race studies, twentieth-century literature, and contemporary culture.