Wilson, J. M. (2011) Riding the celtic tiger: Anne Enright’s The Gathering and globalizing the contemporary Irish novel. Panel Presentation presented to: Postcolonialism, Economies, Crises: Interdisciplinary Perspectives: 2nd Biennial Conference of the Postcolonial Studies Association, University of Birmingham, 07-08 July 2011. (Unpublished)
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Panel Presentation) |
|---|---|
| Abstract: | Concomitant with the rise of neoliberalism, Booker prize winning novels, since the 1980s, have consistently mediated global awareness of national contexts within a globalised economy. This paper will discuss the globalization of literature through the celebrity status of the Booker prize. It focuses, in particular, on the contemporary Irish writer, Anne Enright and her 2007 Booker prize novel, The Gathering. I will argue that the ephemeral nature of the text, expressed through the intimate details of the domestic, the psychological and familial, appear at odds with the contemporary national preoccupation with excessive materialism, consumerism and overspending. Does Ireland’s relationship to global economic conditions reflect national, cultural and social pathologies reflected in its literature? Does globally recognized Irish literature represent an alternative vision of Ireland that resists the vicissitudes of the global economy, even while these images depend on global forces? If Enright’s novel gained international fame just as Ireland teetered on the cusp of economic decline, then I suggest that the novel resists this by recuperating and celebrating the rich legacy of Irish literary culture, and indeed, Irish culture more broadly. The text becomes a site of contradictory images of Ireland, asserting a timelessness that is paradoxically reaffirmed only by the novel’s timely emergence onto an international scene only too conscious of Ireland’s economic woes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Anne Enright,The Gathering, Celtic Tiger, globalisation, Booker Prize |
| Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PR English literature > PR6050 1961-2000 |
| Creators: | Wilson, Janet M |
| Faculties, Divisions and Institutes: |
University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Research Centre > Centre for Critical and Creative Writing University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Faculty of Education & Humanities > English and Creative Writing Faculties > Faculty of Education & Humanities > English and Creative Writing Research Centres > Centre for Critical and Creative Writing |
| Date: | 4 July 2011 |
| Date Type: | Presentation |
| Event Title: | Postcolonialism, Economies, Crises: Interdisciplinary Perspectives: 2nd Biennial Conference of the Postcolonial Studies Association |
| Event Dates: | 07-08 July 2011 |
| Event Location: | University of Birmingham |
| Event Type: | Conference |
| Language: | English |
| Status: | Unpublished |
| References: | Works Cited Enright, Anne. The Gathering. London; Vintage, 2008. Ewins, Kristin. ‘Original Sins.’ Review of The Gathering, TLS, DATE ISSUE Gardam, Sarah G. ‘“Defaulting to the Oldest Scar”: A Psychoanalytic Investigation of Subjectivity in Anne Enright’s The Gathering.’ Etudes Irelandaises 34.1 (2009): 99-111. Gibbons, Luke. ‘The Global Cure? History, Therapy and the Celtic Tiger’, in Reinventing Ireland: Culture, Society and the global economy. Eds. Peadar Kirby, Luke Gibbons and Michael Cronin. London: Pluto Press, 2002. 89-106. Ryan, Matthew. ’What am I Like?: Writing the Body and the Self.’ Anne Enright. Ed. Claire Bracken and Susan Cahill. Irish Writers in their Time. Dublin and Portland OR: Irish Acadmic Press, 2011. 165-184. Schwall, Hedwig. Review of Anne Enright, The Gathering. Irish University Review 37.2 (Autumn /Winter 2007), 594-98. |
| URI: | http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/id/eprint/5232 |
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