The Irish Novel at the End of the 20th Century

Roddy Doyle once said about Ireland in the 1990s that he -went to bed in one country and woke up in a different one” (Deportees xi), poignantly summarizing the period of transition that Ireland went through. The changes that occurred in Irish society and politics can also be seen in the fiction of these years. Novelists began to engage in a reimagining of the nation and Irish identity and started giving voices to the suppressed and the minorities.-If you surround huge areas of expression with silence for so long and then a society suddenly opens up … a lot of people are going to start writing clearly and dramatically. That’s what has happened here.”, Irish writer Colm Tóibín said at the end of the 1990s. In this seminar, we will read novels by both male and female writers, mostly from the Republic of Ireland. Those novels 'center the margins', they raise topics like domestic violence, rape, homosexuality and discrimination, abuse or mental illnesses and feature female protagonists or characters from the working classes, for instance. To back up our reading of the novels, we will also have a look at the historical background, the social reality of the 1990s and Ireland's particular history and position in Europe. Please purchase Roddy Doyle's The Woman who Walked into Doors (ISBN 978-0-749-39599-5) and Colm Tóibín's The Blackwater Lightship (978-0-7432-0332-3) and start reading Doyle's novel. The titles of the other novels we will read will be announced at the beginning of the semester; further texts will be made available on moodle. Anglistik - Literaturwissenschaft Beachten Sie, dass Sie diesen Kurs nach den Prüfungsordnungen ab 2011 nicht besuchen dürfen, wenn Sie die für dieses Modulelement laut Fachspezifischen Bestimmungen und Modulhandbuch notwendigen Voraussetzungen noch nicht erfüllen. 2 LP/ 3 LP (-Studienleistung”): active participation, exam 3 LP (-Prüfungsleistung”): term paper (13 - 15 pages) 5 LP ‘old’ BA: active participation, exam, short term paper (6-8 pages) 7 LP ‘old’ BA and 5 LP ‘old Lehramt’: active participation, exam, term paper (13-15 pages) Universität Siegen WiSe 2014/15 M.A. Boller Alessandra M.A