In this paper, we investigate the common narrative in literary history that the inner lives of ch... more In this paper, we investigate the common narrative in literary history that the inner lives of characters became a central preoccupation of literary modernism. We operationalise this notion via a proxy, tracing the use of verbs relating to inner life across 10 language corpora from the ELTeC collection, which comprises novels from the period between 1840–1920. We expected to find an increase in the use of inner-life verbs corresponding to the traditional periodisation of modernism in each of the languages. However, different experiments conducted with the data do not confirm this hypothesis. We therefore look at the results in a number of more granular ways, but we cannot identify any common trends even when we split the verbs into individual categories, or take canonicity or gender into account. We discuss the obtained results in detail, proposing potential reasons for them and including potential avenues of further research as well as lessons learned.
As COVID-19-related closures affected theatre and performance venues worldwide, the question of h... more As COVID-19-related closures affected theatre and performance venues worldwide, the question of how theatrical practices might be adapted to these new circumstances became particularly pertinent in the context of immersive theatre and site-specific performance, forms which heavily draw on the audience’s experiential encounter with site and performers for its process of meaning-making. Focussing on ANU Productions’ The Party to End All Parties (2020) as a hybrid form of site-specific pandemic theatre set in the cityscape of Dublin, this article investigates how the production translated the “host/ghost” relationship as a central aspect of site-specific theatre to the virtual realm. It demonstrates how this notion is transformed into a thematic thread woven into the performance, arguing that it engages with the host/ghost relationship through spatial as well as temporal “ghosting,” which blurs the lines between the contemporary setting of lockdown Dublin and the historical landmark of...
This article proposes to address the tension between digital co-presence and embodied spectatorsh... more This article proposes to address the tension between digital co-presence and embodied spectatorship inaugurated by the pivot to online and hybrid forms of (post-)pandemic performance through the lens of the postdigital. The term is developed as a way of accounting for the complex mediatized co-presence between performer and audience in a representative example of this genre, Dead Centre's To Be a Machine (Version 1.0). As its theoretical framework, the article brings together the concept of ‘postdigital performance’ (Causey) with co-presence as a central element of liveness and spectatorship. It puts forth the hypothesis that To Be a Machine (Version 1.0) constructs a postdigital sense of co-presence that is characterized by a blurring of the lines between embodied and virtual spectatorship, temporal co-presence and real-time interaction with the remote audience, and an increased sense of emotional alignment with the remote audience in lieu of physical proximity.
Diese Arbeit bietet einen Überblick über herausragende und außergewöhnliche Leserinnen in der höf... more Diese Arbeit bietet einen Überblick über herausragende und außergewöhnliche Leserinnen in der höfischen Literatur um 1200. Die Hauptforschungsfrage mit der sich diese Arbeit beschäftigt ist, inwiefern ein Zusammenhang zwischen exzessiv dargestellter Körperlichkeit und weiblicher Lektüre besteht und durch welche sprachlichen, strukturellen oder kontextuellen Mittel dieser Zusammenhang in den Texten verhandelt wird. Die in dieser Arbeit angeführten Lesesituationen lassen sich im Wesentlichen in die folgenden Kategorien einordnen: unproblematische Vorlesetätigkeit im höfischen Kontext (Iwein), gefährliche Lektüre außerhalb des höfischen Kontexts (Titurel) und Belesenheit bzw. Bildung im Kontext körperlicher Ekstase (Sibylle) oder als Bedrohung der höfischen vreude (Cundrie). Abseits von diesen Beispielen gibt es jedoch einige Lesekonstellationen, bei denen etwa das gemeinsame Lesen eines Paares im Mittelpunkt steht, oder über Literatur gesprochen wird, ohne dass in dem Moment ein konkr...
Publishing in Joyce's <i>Ulysses</i>, 2017
Publishing in Joyce's “Ulysses”: Newspapers, Advertising and Printing gathers twelve essays b... more Publishing in Joyce's “Ulysses”: Newspapers, Advertising and Printing gathers twelve essays by Joyce scholars exploring facets of the printing and publishing trades that pervade the substance of the novel.
In The Senses of Modernism (2003), Sara Danius speaks of the 'myth of the antitechnological bias'... more In The Senses of Modernism (2003), Sara Danius speaks of the 'myth of the antitechnological bias' in modernism, rightly calling for a re-evaluation of the long-held idea that technology can be seen as the 'other' of modernist art at the beginning of the 20 th century (except for the specific case of Futurism and its politically charged 'cult of speed'). My own paper will explore the significance of specific technical devices and machines (the printing press, the tram, and the automobile) in two texts from the high modernist and late modernist period. Leopold Bloom's ambivalent relationship towards new technologies in Joyce's Ulysses (he is at the same time fascinated with the possibilities of technological inventions like the gramophone or the printing press and—somewhat pragmatically— annoyed when a tram blocks his view of a woman's stocking) will be juxtaposed with a more positive attitude towards technology that the characters in Virginia Woolf's The Years (1937) display. In this later text, the incessant buzz and rush of London traffic, as a metaphor for fast-paced metropolitan life rooted in the present acts as a counterbalance to the Pargiters' oppressive perpetuation of tradition and as a temporary alleviation of the burden of the past. On a larger scale, I will demonstrate that technology not only plays an important role as a plot device in these texts, but also contributes to the " dispersal, interruption and fragmentation " (Peach, ed. The Years xiv) of their narrative.
In this paper, we investigate the common narrative in literary history that the inner lives of ch... more In this paper, we investigate the common narrative in literary history that the inner lives of characters became a central preoccupation of literary modernism. We operationalise this notion via a proxy, tracing the use of verbs relating to inner life across 10 language corpora from the ELTeC collection, which comprises novels from the period between 1840–1920. We expected to find an increase in the use of inner-life verbs corresponding to the traditional periodisation of modernism in each of the languages. However, different experiments conducted with the data do not confirm this hypothesis. We therefore look at the results in a number of more granular ways, but we cannot identify any common trends even when we split the verbs into individual categories, or take canonicity or gender into account. We discuss the obtained results in detail, proposing potential reasons for them and including potential avenues of further research as well as lessons learned.
As COVID-19-related closures affected theatre and performance venues worldwide, the question of h... more As COVID-19-related closures affected theatre and performance venues worldwide, the question of how theatrical practices might be adapted to these new circumstances became particularly pertinent in the context of immersive theatre and site-specific performance, forms which heavily draw on the audience’s experiential encounter with site and performers for its process of meaning-making. Focussing on ANU Productions’ The Party to End All Parties (2020) as a hybrid form of site-specific pandemic theatre set in the cityscape of Dublin, this article investigates how the production translated the “host/ghost” relationship as a central aspect of site-specific theatre to the virtual realm. It demonstrates how this notion is transformed into a thematic thread woven into the performance, arguing that it engages with the host/ghost relationship through spatial as well as temporal “ghosting,” which blurs the lines between the contemporary setting of lockdown Dublin and the historical landmark of...
This article proposes to address the tension between digital co-presence and embodied spectatorsh... more This article proposes to address the tension between digital co-presence and embodied spectatorship inaugurated by the pivot to online and hybrid forms of (post-)pandemic performance through the lens of the postdigital. The term is developed as a way of accounting for the complex mediatized co-presence between performer and audience in a representative example of this genre, Dead Centre's To Be a Machine (Version 1.0). As its theoretical framework, the article brings together the concept of ‘postdigital performance’ (Causey) with co-presence as a central element of liveness and spectatorship. It puts forth the hypothesis that To Be a Machine (Version 1.0) constructs a postdigital sense of co-presence that is characterized by a blurring of the lines between embodied and virtual spectatorship, temporal co-presence and real-time interaction with the remote audience, and an increased sense of emotional alignment with the remote audience in lieu of physical proximity.
Diese Arbeit bietet einen Überblick über herausragende und außergewöhnliche Leserinnen in der höf... more Diese Arbeit bietet einen Überblick über herausragende und außergewöhnliche Leserinnen in der höfischen Literatur um 1200. Die Hauptforschungsfrage mit der sich diese Arbeit beschäftigt ist, inwiefern ein Zusammenhang zwischen exzessiv dargestellter Körperlichkeit und weiblicher Lektüre besteht und durch welche sprachlichen, strukturellen oder kontextuellen Mittel dieser Zusammenhang in den Texten verhandelt wird. Die in dieser Arbeit angeführten Lesesituationen lassen sich im Wesentlichen in die folgenden Kategorien einordnen: unproblematische Vorlesetätigkeit im höfischen Kontext (Iwein), gefährliche Lektüre außerhalb des höfischen Kontexts (Titurel) und Belesenheit bzw. Bildung im Kontext körperlicher Ekstase (Sibylle) oder als Bedrohung der höfischen vreude (Cundrie). Abseits von diesen Beispielen gibt es jedoch einige Lesekonstellationen, bei denen etwa das gemeinsame Lesen eines Paares im Mittelpunkt steht, oder über Literatur gesprochen wird, ohne dass in dem Moment ein konkr...
Publishing in Joyce's <i>Ulysses</i>, 2017
Publishing in Joyce's “Ulysses”: Newspapers, Advertising and Printing gathers twelve essays b... more Publishing in Joyce's “Ulysses”: Newspapers, Advertising and Printing gathers twelve essays by Joyce scholars exploring facets of the printing and publishing trades that pervade the substance of the novel.
In The Senses of Modernism (2003), Sara Danius speaks of the 'myth of the antitechnological bias'... more In The Senses of Modernism (2003), Sara Danius speaks of the 'myth of the antitechnological bias' in modernism, rightly calling for a re-evaluation of the long-held idea that technology can be seen as the 'other' of modernist art at the beginning of the 20 th century (except for the specific case of Futurism and its politically charged 'cult of speed'). My own paper will explore the significance of specific technical devices and machines (the printing press, the tram, and the automobile) in two texts from the high modernist and late modernist period. Leopold Bloom's ambivalent relationship towards new technologies in Joyce's Ulysses (he is at the same time fascinated with the possibilities of technological inventions like the gramophone or the printing press and—somewhat pragmatically— annoyed when a tram blocks his view of a woman's stocking) will be juxtaposed with a more positive attitude towards technology that the characters in Virginia Woolf's The Years (1937) display. In this later text, the incessant buzz and rush of London traffic, as a metaphor for fast-paced metropolitan life rooted in the present acts as a counterbalance to the Pargiters' oppressive perpetuation of tradition and as a temporary alleviation of the burden of the past. On a larger scale, I will demonstrate that technology not only plays an important role as a plot device in these texts, but also contributes to the " dispersal, interruption and fragmentation " (Peach, ed. The Years xiv) of their narrative.
With its penchant for dissecting rehearsed attitudes and subverting expectations, Flann O’Brien’s... more With its penchant for dissecting rehearsed attitudes and subverting expectations, Flann O’Brien’s writing displays an uncanny knack for comic doubling and self-contradiction. Focusing on the satirical energies and anti-authoritarian temperament invested in his style, Flann O'Brien: Problems with Authority interrogates the author's clowning with linguistic, literary, legal, bureaucratic, political, economic, academic, religious and scientific powers in the sites of the popular, the modern and the traditional.
By taking O’Brien’s riotous clashes with diverse manifestations of authority as an entry point, the volume draws together disparate elements of the writer's work. Each chapter reflects on some aspect of his iconoclastic impulses; on the impertinent send-ups of pretension and orthodoxy to be found in his fiction, columns, and writing for stage and screen; on the very nature of his comedic inspiration.... Among the topics addressed are O’Brien’s satirical use of the pseudonym, the cliché and the Irish language; his irreverent repackaging of inherited myths, sacred texts and formative canons; and his refusal of literary and ideological closure.
The emerging picture is of a complex literary project that is always, in some way, a writing against the weight of received wisdoms and inherited sureties. Together, these essays invite us to reconsider O’Brien’s profile as, at once, a local comedian, a critic of provincial attitudes, a formal innovator and an inimitable voice in the twentieth-century avant-garde. Most pressingly, Flann O'Brien: Problems with Authority compels us to consider the many ways in which O’Brien’s texts bring into sharp relief the kinship between comic genius and an anti-authoritarian temperament. Contents
Editors’ introduction RUBEN BORG, PAUL FAGAN, JOHN MCCOURT
PART I
‘neither popular nor profitable’: O’Nolan vs. The Plain People
‘irreverence moving towards the blasphemous’: Brian O’Nolan, Blather and Irish popular culture CAROL TAAFFE
‘No more drunk, truculent, witty, celtic, dark, desperate, amorous paddies!’: Brian O’Nolan and the Irish stereotype MAEBH LONG
Lamhd láftar and bad language: bilingual cognition in Cruiskeen Lawn MARIA KAGER
‘the half-said thing’: Cruiskeen Lawn, Japan and the Second World War CATHERINE FLYNN
Physical comedy and the comedy of physics in The Third Policeman, The Dalkey Archive and Cruiskeen Lawn KATHERINE EBURY
PART II.
Mixed inks: O’Nolan vs. his peers
‘widening out the mind’: Flann O’Brien’s ‘wide mind’ between Joyce’s ‘mental life’ and Beckett’s ‘deep within’ DIRK VAN HULLE
Phwat’s in a nam?: Brian O’Nolan as a Late Revivalist RONAN CROWLEY
Fantastic economies: Flann O’Brien and James Stephens R. W. MASLEN
The ideal and the ironic: incongruous Irelands in An Béal Bocht, No Laughing Matter and Ciarán Ó Nualláin’s Óige an Dearthár IAN Ó CAOIMH
More ‘gravid’ than gravitas: Collopy, Fahrt and the Pope in Rome JOHN MCCOURT
PART III.
Gross impieties: O’Nolan vs. the sacred texts
‘a scholar manqué’?: further notes on Brian Ó Nualláin’s engagement with Early Irish literature LOUIS DE PAOR
In defence of ‘gap-worded’ stories: Brian O’Nolan on authority, reading and writing ALANA GILLESPIE
Reading Flann with Paul: modernism and the trope of conversion RUBEN BORG
The Dalkey Archive: a Menippean satire against authority DIETER FUCHS
‘walking forever on falling ground’: closure, hypertext and the textures of possibility in The Third Policeman TAMARA RADAK
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By taking O’Brien’s riotous clashes with diverse manifestations of authority as an entry point, the volume draws together disparate elements of the writer's work. Each chapter reflects on some aspect of his iconoclastic impulses; on the impertinent send-ups of pretension and orthodoxy to be found in his fiction, columns, and writing for stage and screen; on the very nature of his comedic inspiration.... Among the topics addressed are O’Brien’s satirical use of the pseudonym, the cliché and the Irish language; his irreverent repackaging of inherited myths, sacred texts and formative canons; and his refusal of literary and ideological closure.
The emerging picture is of a complex literary project that is always, in some way, a writing against the weight of received wisdoms and inherited sureties. Together, these essays invite us to reconsider O’Brien’s profile as, at once, a local comedian, a critic of provincial attitudes, a formal innovator and an inimitable voice in the twentieth-century avant-garde. Most pressingly, Flann O'Brien: Problems with Authority compels us to consider the many ways in which O’Brien’s texts bring into sharp relief the kinship between comic genius and an anti-authoritarian temperament.
Contents
Editors’ introduction RUBEN BORG, PAUL FAGAN, JOHN MCCOURT
PART I
‘neither popular nor profitable’: O’Nolan vs. The Plain People
‘irreverence moving towards the blasphemous’: Brian O’Nolan, Blather and Irish popular culture CAROL TAAFFE
‘No more drunk, truculent, witty, celtic, dark, desperate, amorous paddies!’: Brian O’Nolan and the Irish stereotype MAEBH LONG
Lamhd láftar and bad language: bilingual cognition in Cruiskeen Lawn MARIA KAGER
‘the half-said thing’: Cruiskeen Lawn, Japan and the Second World War CATHERINE FLYNN
Physical comedy and the comedy of physics in The Third Policeman, The Dalkey Archive and Cruiskeen Lawn KATHERINE EBURY
PART II.
Mixed inks: O’Nolan vs. his peers
‘widening out the mind’: Flann O’Brien’s ‘wide mind’ between Joyce’s ‘mental life’ and Beckett’s ‘deep within’ DIRK VAN HULLE
Phwat’s in a nam?: Brian O’Nolan as a Late Revivalist RONAN CROWLEY
Fantastic economies: Flann O’Brien and James Stephens R. W. MASLEN
The ideal and the ironic: incongruous Irelands in An Béal Bocht, No Laughing Matter and Ciarán Ó Nualláin’s Óige an Dearthár IAN Ó CAOIMH
More ‘gravid’ than gravitas: Collopy, Fahrt and the Pope in Rome JOHN MCCOURT
PART III.
Gross impieties: O’Nolan vs. the sacred texts
‘a scholar manqué’?: further notes on Brian Ó Nualláin’s engagement with Early Irish literature LOUIS DE PAOR
In defence of ‘gap-worded’ stories: Brian O’Nolan on authority, reading and writing ALANA GILLESPIE
Reading Flann with Paul: modernism and the trope of conversion RUBEN BORG
The Dalkey Archive: a Menippean satire against authority DIETER FUCHS
‘walking forever on falling ground’: closure, hypertext and the textures of possibility in The Third Policeman TAMARA RADAK