The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (1991) is a three-volume, 4044 page collection of Irish literary, political, religious, philosophical and cultural texts, spanning the period of 550 AD to 1990. Its publisher, the Field Day Theatre and Publishing Company, stresses the need for an interventionist theatre and critical discourse, which has the aim of representing and interrogating the current condition of Ireland, particularly that of the North of Ireland. Basing its analyses of the Irish/British situation on a belief that it is a colonial problem, Field Day, throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s, produced plays and published pamphlets in which various aspects of Ireland's colonial experience were interrogated. The idea of an anthology was raised formally in 1984 as a way of constructing a narrative out of the cultural production of the various groups and sects that have inhabited the island. Such a collection would be a syncretic statement of Irish written culture and could contribute towards debates on the questions of identity and cultural/religious/national affiliation facing the people(s) of Ireland. The Field Day Anthology's publication in November 1991 was greeted by the type of criticism rarely encountered by any text. The loudest voices of opposition came from critics angry at both the text's sins of omissions and its perceived ideological baggage and agenda. The text was characterized as a nationalist narrative, as antagonistic towards or ignorant of the particular circumstances and traditions of the North, and as a monocular colonially-obsessed production. Foremost among the criticisms was the perception that the text did not adequately represent women's writing. Following the storm of protest, Field Day announced that a volume devoted to women's writing would be produced. At the time of writing, this volume has yet to appear. While I am sympathetic of many of the criticisms, I also believe that the production was attacked for reasons other than its own particular merits or demerits. I argue in Chapter 4 that it is essential to retain a view of the anthology as a multiple and complex production, rather than as a wholly coordinated programme. While I am interested in the institutional background of the anthology, and in the controversies it provoked (I devote Chapter 2 to these issues), my chief concern is to analyze the anthology as a text that engenders questions on, for example, on the nature of the canon (Chapter 3), on questions of post-colonial agency (Chapter 6), and on writing's relationship to Irish history and historical revisionism (Chapter 5).

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Proefschrift--Amsterdam. / "Stellingen": 2 leaves laid in. Includes bibliographical references (p. [99]-108, v. 1).

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<p> This thesis examines Sherlock Holmes texts (1886&ndash;1927) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and their recreations in the television series <i>Sherlock </i> (2010) and <i>Elementary</i> (2012) through a postcolonial lens. Through an in-depth textual analysis of Doyle&rsquo;s mysteries, my thesis will show that his stories were intended to be propaganda discouraging the British Empire from becoming tainted, ill, and dirty through immersing themselves in the &ldquo;Orient&rdquo; or the East. The ideal Imperial body, gender roles, and national landscape are feminized, covered in darkness, and infected when in contact for too long with the &ldquo;Other&rdquo; people of the East and their cultures. Sherlock Holmes cleanses society of the darkness, becoming a hero for the Empire and an example of the perfect British man created out of logic and British law. And yet, Sherlock Holmes&rsquo; very identity relies on the existence of the Other and the mystery he or she creates. The detective&rsquo;s obsession with solving mysteries, drug addiction, depression, and the art of deduction demonstrate that, without the Other, Holmes has no identity. As the body politic, Holmes craves more mystery to unravel, examine, and know. Without it, he feels useless and dissatisfied with life. The satisfaction with pinpointing every detail, in order to solve a mystery continues today in all media versions. Bringing Sherlock Holmes to life for television and updating him to appeal to today's culture only make sense. Though society has the insight offered by postcolonial theory, evidence of an imperial mindset is still present in the most popular reproductions of Sherlock Holmes <i> Sherlock</i> and <i>Elementary</i>.</p><p>

<p> Literary study has long been concerned with the construction of meaning and identity through language. In the realm of postcolonialism, for instance, it is necessary to consider the ways that racism and sexism are hegemonic constructs that are transmitted and solidified through language. Furthermore, literary texts such as <i>Heart of Darkness</i> by Joseph Conrad and <i>Season of Migration to the North</i> by Tayeb Salih engage themselves with revealing the ways that racism, sexism, and colonial discourse function through determinacy or certainty. Moreover, Conrad and Salih are engaged in undermining these enterprises of authoritative discourse by revealing the underlying indeterminacy of language and meaning-making. In other words, they show that meaning exists as humanity constructs it. Thus, it is necessary to consider the ways that they question racism, sexism, and colonialism as movements of thought, discourse, and action that have no rational foundations; and it is necessary to consider the ways that they seek to frame the resistance of these forces in their characters.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation advances Gothic studies by 1) arguing that Gothic is an imperial discourse and tracing back its origins to imperial activity, 2) by establishing a Hinterland Gothics discourse framework within the Gothic Imagination, 3) and by defining three particular discourses of Hinterland Gothics: the Gotach (Irish), G&oacute;tico (Mexican-American Mestizx), and the Ethnogothix (African Diaspora), and subsequently, revealing how these Hinterland Gothics undermine, expose, and thwart imperial poltergeists. The primary texts that I analyze and reference were published in the past thirty years and are either of the Young Adult or New Adult persuasion, highlighting imperative moments of identity construction in bildungsroman plots and focusing on the more neglected yet more dynamic hyper-contemporary era of Gothic scholarship, namely: Siobhan Dowd&rsquo;s <i>Bog Child </i> (2008), Celine Kiernan&rsquo;s <i>Into the Grey</i> (2011), Marina Carr&rsquo;s <i>Woman and Scarecrow</i> (2006), Emma P&eacute;rez&rsquo;s <i> Forgetting the Alamo</i> (2009), Virginia Grise&rsquo;s <i>blu</i> (2011), Emil Ferris&rsquo;s graphic novel <i>My Favorite Thing is Monsters </i> (2017), Gloria Naylor&rsquo;s <i>Mama Day</i> (1988), Helen Oyeyemi&rsquo;s <i>White is for Witching</i> (2009), Nnedi Okorafor&rsquo;s <i>Binti</i> (2015) and <i>Binti: Home</i> (2017), and Nicki Minaj&rsquo;s 54^th Annual Grammy Awards performance of &ldquo;Roman Holiday&rdquo; (2012). The cold spots in the white Eurocentric canon where Other presences have been ghosted will be filled, specters will be given flesh, and the repressed will return, indict, and haunt, demanding recognition and justice.</p><p>

<p> In recent years, having evolved beyond solely play-based interactions, it is now possible to analyze video games alongside other narrative forms, such as novels and films. Video games now involve rich stories that require input and interaction on behalf of the player. This level of agency likens video games to a kind of modern hypertext, networking and weaving various narrative threads together, something which traditional modes of media lack. When examined from the lens of reader-response criticism, this interaction deepens even further, acknowledging the player&rsquo;s experience as a valid interpretation of a video game&rsquo;s plot. The wide freedom of choice available to players, in terms of both play and story, in 2007&rsquo;s <i>Mass Effect,</i> along with its critical reception, represents a turning point in the study of video games as literature, exemplifying the necessity for player input in undergoing a narrative-filled journey. Active participation and non-linear storytelling, typified through gaming, are major steps in the next the evolution of narrative techniques, which requires the broadening of literary criticism to incorporate this new development.</p><p>

Place is not simply the physical reality of the topographical and human geographical features located at a particular position in space. It is also the experience of the associations, images, and memories incorporated in the landscape, with a large input from the observer. Our personal and cultural histories are important in this experience of place, which is therefore both subjective and intersubjective. The sense of place in literature is often particularly expressive of this power of association and imagery — perhaps, because of its concentrated form, especially in poetry. Literature, however, in choosing its imagery, is not only reflective of the historical, cultural and personal associations of place, but is also creative in shaping these associations of place. Literature, because it is selective and imaginative, has the power to alter our experience of place. Many of the works of the Irish literary revival possess an unusually strong sense of place — it was a literary movement which sought to emphasise Ireland and Irish themes. The selectivity and imagination of the writers, particularly because of the romantic and mythological heritages stressed in the revival, resulted in a representation of the Irish landscape -- indeed a vision of Ireland -- which is rich in symbol, association, and image. This Ireland of the imagination was also attractive and powerful enough to become part of Irish nationalist ideology. A romantic vision of the Irish landscape and its people developed by W.B. Yeats, A.E., J.M. Synge and others became part of the nationalism of militant revolutionaries such as Patrick Pearse, leader of the Irish insurrection of Easter 1916 — important in Irish history because it shifted the dominant expression of nationalism from constitutionalism to militancy. It was through the use of force rather than through constitutional methods that a separate Irish nation was established in 1922. This thesis, therefore, has three main themes. Firstly, place is an experience of the imagination -- of association, of memory, and of image. Secondly, literature is important in shaping that imagination because of its symbolism and its power in creating imagery. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the ideas of a movement of the imagination such as the Irish literary revival can have a large effect on the ideas, and therefore the ultimate actions, of a movement of action such as, that of the Irish militant nationalists. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate