Modern Irish Literature, Culture, and Law

This seminar will explore a wide range of modern drama, poetry, and fiction by Irish authors. We will read plays by John M. Synge, Sean O'Casey, Brian Friel, and Eva O'Connor; fiction by Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Anna Burns, and Sally Rooney; and poetry by W.B. Yeats, Patrick Kavanagh, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, Paul Muldoon, and Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi. We will probe the roles of Irish history, culture, and law in shaping Irish authors and their writings. Themes will include sexual identity and sex crimes; human rights; contracts, blackmail, and defamation; political and domestic violence; masculinity; and abortion rights.