‘Kicking Bishop Brennan Up the Arse’: Negotiating Texts and Contexts in Contemporary Irish Studies (Reimagining Ireland)

Product Description This collection of essays reconsiders aspects of Irish studies through the medium of literary and cultural theory. The author looks at the negotiations between texts and their contexts and then analyses how the writer both reflects and transforms aspects of his or her cultural milieu. The essays examine literary texts by W. B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, James Joyce and Sean Ó’Faoláin; media texts such as Father Ted, American Beauty and a series of Guinness advertisements; as well as cultural and political contexts such as globalisation, religion, the Provisional IRA and media treatment of murders in Ireland. The author also looks at aspects of the postcolonial and feminist paradigms and makes use of a theoretical matrix based on the work of Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan. About the Author The Author: Eugene O’Brien is Head of the Department of English Language and Literature and Director of the Irish Studies Centre at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. His publications include The Question of Irish Identity in the Writings of William Butler Yeats and James Joyce (1998), Seamus Heaney: Creating Irelands of the Mind (2002), Seamus Heaney and the Place of Writing (2003) and Seamus Heaney Searches for Answers (2004).