EL 487: Trauma and Literature, Spring 2014
Hande Tekdemir, [email protected] Office hours: Monday 15:00-16:00 (please make an appointment) Wednesday 10:00-12:00 @ TB 529
Course Objectives:
This class aims to focus on the representation of The Great Famine (1845-1852?) in Irish and English literatures. We will pay attention to the absence of and silence about the famine as well as its haunting presence in the selected readings. First, here is what we will NOT do: Believing that trauma cannot be chronologically structured; texts will not be studied in a historical timeline. Neither will we discuss English and Irish reactions separately, but consider the points where they converge and diverge. A few articles on trauma theory will accompany the literary texts, but the class will mostly focus on a close-reading of the primary sources.
Ideally, we will have two major goals throughout the semester: 1) First goal is to discuss the function and role of literature in narrating trauma. To that end, we will discuss literary texts (poetry, drama, fiction) in comparison with other artistic media such as songs, film, sculpture, memorials, caricature) and historical texts. More than “what happened,” at the time of the famine, we will discuss the potential (or lack of potential) in literature in narrating a traumatic history. 2) Second goal is to consider “Irishness” as a historical and cultural concept, shaped by the literary and non-literary texts. As part of an “English Department,” we will broaden our perspective to consider the contribution of the Irish to the English literature and culture.
The readings are highly suggestive. While class discussion will focus on this particular event and its literary & artistic representation, I would like your group projects to contextualize trauma and literature with reference to Turkish culture and politics in the past and the present.
Evaluation and Requirements:
Class participation and in-class assignments % 10 Midterm Paper % 35 Final exam % 35 Group project (about one or a group of trauma victim(s) % 20 (needs to be on a topic that concerns local and/or national history)
Schedule of Readings:
Course Reader is available at Günel photocopy shop. Some of the readings will be available online at CIMS.
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Week 1: The Specters of the Irish Famine:
Feb. 17-19 Christine Kinealy, “The Great Irish Famine: a dangerous memory?” in The Great Famine and the Irish Diaspora in America
Poems: “The Funerals,” “Siberia” by James Clarence Mangan; “The Famine Year” by Jane Francesca Elgee (Lady Wilde); “At a Potato Digging” by Seamus Heaney; “The Feast of Famine” (1870) anonymous; “The Old Story” by William Pembroke Mulchinock
Please watch the film Out of Ireland, dir. By Paul Wagner (available on youtube)
Week 2: The Specters of the Irish Famine (cont.): Famine Roads
Feb. 24-26 “Famine Roads and Famine Memories” (1898) by Emily Lawless section from Battle of Connemara (1878) by Kathleen O’Meara
Poems: “That the Science of Cartography is Limited,” “The Quarantine,” “Famine Road,” by Eavan Boland
“Theses on the Philosophy of History” by Walter Benjamin
Week 3: Introduction to Trauma Theory: Mourning for the remains
March 3-5 “Mourning and Melancholia” by Sigmund Freud
Introduction in Loss: The Politics of Mourning by David L. Eng and David Kazanjian
“Trauma and Experience” by Cathy Caruth in Trauma: Explorations in Memory
Week 4: Promises and Pitfalls of Identifying “Famine Literature”
March 10-12 Section from “Landlords and Tenants” in Recollecting Hunger
“Black Potatoes,” “A Sketch of Famine” in Shamrock Leaves (1851) by Mrs. Hoare
Poems: “The Dying Mother’s Lament” by John Keegan; “A Dialogue between an Irish Agent and a Tenant” by James Martin; “A Mystery” by Denis Florence MacCarthy; “Famine and Exportation” by John O’Hagan
Week 5: Anglo-Irish Relations during the Pre-Famine Period and Colonization of Irish Language
March 17-19 Brian Friel, Translations (play)
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Week 6: Irish immigration and Diaspora
March 24-26 Under the Hawthorn Tree (1998 movie)
Poems: “Lament of the Irish Emigrant” by Lady Dufferin; “Home Again” by Mary Kelly section from Paddy’s Lament, Ireland 1846-1847:Prelude to Hatred by Thomas Gallagher
Week 7: Biopolitics, Anglo-Irish relations: English guilt & denial
March 31-April 2 section from The Irish Crisis (1847) by Charles Trevelyan section from “Society Must Be Defended” by Michel Foucault (lecture on 17 March 1976) section from Poor Paddy’s Cabin (1854) and Ailey Moore (1856)
Poems: selection from “The British contribution” in Hungry Voice
Week 8: Famine Novel: Confirmation of or Resistance to Official English records?
April 7-9 Sections from Castle Richmond (1860) by Anthony Trollope, Castle Daly: The Story of an Irish Home Thirty Years Ago (1875) by Annie Keary, Castle Cloyne: Or, Pictures of the Munster People by M. W. Brew (1885)
Christopher Morash, “Malthus and the Famine Novel” in Writing the Irish Famine
Week 9: Irish stereotyping: Keening and “Irish” grief
April 14-16 Tim Murphy, Famine (play)
Sinead O’Connor, Famine (song) section from Apes and Angels: The Irishman in Victorian Caricature
Poems: “For the Commander of the ‘Eliza’” by Seamus Heaney; “Mr. Maloney’s Account of the Crystal Palace” by William Thackeray
SPRING BREAK
Week 10: The “genre” of the famine: Irish Gothic + Allegory of the Famine
April 28-30 “Poor Clare” (1856) by Elizabeth Gaskell section from Black Prophet (1847) by William Carleton
Poem: “Inheritor and Economist” by Samuel Ferguson
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Week 11: National Disaster, Nationalism and Catastrophe: Millenarian Famine Poetry by Mangan and Young Ireland poets
May 5-7
Poems (TBA)
Chapter 2 in Nationalism and Minor Literature by David Lloyd
Week 12 : Commemorating the Famine today
May 12-14
Guest lecturer: Emily Mark-Fitzgerald
John Behan, “Coffinship” (1997, Famine memorial)
“The ‘Irish Holocaust’: Historical Trauma and the Commemoration of the Famine” by Emily Mark-Fitzgerald
Week 13:
May 19 holiday
May 21 wrap-up
Suggested Reading List: (please consult me if you can’t find them in the library) Eagleton, Terry. Heathcliff and the Great Hunger: Studies in Irish culture. 1996. Fegan, Melissa. Literature and the Irish Famine, 2002. Grada, Cormac. The great Irish famine, 1995. Kelleher, Margaret, Feminization of Famine: Expressions of the Inexpressible?, 1997. Lloyd, David. “The Indigent Sublime: Specters of Irish Hunger” Representations, No. 92 (Autumn 2005) 152-185. McLean, Stuart. The event and its terrors: Ireland, famine, modernity, 2004. Morash, Christopher. Writing the Irish Famine, 1995. Morash, Christopher and Richard Hayes ed. Fearful Realities: New Perspectives on the Famine, 1996. O’Flaherty, Liam. Kıtlık (Famine), 1937 Smith, Cecil Woodham. The Great Hunger, 1962.
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