HUMA 730 (M1) - Special Studies

Stdy/Contemp Irish Lit & Film

Credits: 4.0
Term: Spring 2020 - UNHM Credit (15 weeks) (01/21/2020 - 05/11/2020)
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
Class Size:   8  
CRN: 54593
Selected topics not covered by existing courses, with subjects to vary. Prereq: one 400- or 500-level HUMA course or junior standing.
Section Comments: Cross listed with ENGL 693.
Repeat Rule: May be repeated for a maximum of 8 credits.
Equivalent(s): HIST 679, HUMA 690, HUMA 695, JUST 695
Cross listed with : ENGL 693.M1
Only listed campus in section: Durham, Manchester
Attributes: Writing Intensive Course
Instructors: STAFF

Times & Locations

Start Date End Date Days Time Location
1/23/2020 5/7/2020 R 6:01pm - 9:00pm PANDRA P531
Additional Course Details: 

Although there is a time overlap between ENGL693/HUMA 730 and ENGL716 for spring 2020, students interested in taking both courses should contact Professor Walsh to work out an accommodation and to receive permission for a registration override. 

This class examines the many ways in which contemporary Irish literature and film conserves, revisits, and rewrites the past. As Emily Pine notes in The Politics of Irish Memory, the Irish obsession with the past has been creating “alternate and more complex narratives” that explore memories “that were for too long ‘forgotten,’ or sidelined, by Irish history and culture.”  Particularly vexed have been such national traumas as the 1920s civil war, the violent Republican and Loyalist conflicts preceding the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the notorious scandals connected with the Catholic church, and the economic downturn that followed the heady era of the “Celtic tiger.”

Under the headings of “Revolution, Civil War, and Memory,” “Men, Women, and the Church,” “Folklore and Fantasy,” and “Love, Kinship, Trouble(s),” we will study such writers as Flann O’Brien, Eavan Boland, Seamus Heaney, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Edna O’Brien, Colm Tóibín, John McGahern, Clare Keegan, Kevin Barry, Donal Ryan, Eimear McBride, and Stacey Gregg.  Films will include The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006; Ken Loach), Bloody Sunday (2002; Paul Greengrass), Breakfast on Pluto (2005; Neil Jordan); The Magdalene Sisters (2002; Peter Mullen), Six Shooter (2004; Martin McDonagh), and The Guard (2011; John Michael McDonagh). 

Fulfills the diversity requirement for the B.A. in English Teaching major as well as the Theory/ Poetics requirement for the Literary Studies option and the Digital Language Arts option within the Literary Arts and Studies major.

Special note: this class is the same as ENGL 797/800 Special Topics, Contemporary Irish Literature and Film (last offered in 2018).  Students who have taken the ENGL 797/800 class above will not be able to take English 693 / Huma 730 for credit.