Crossroads

The highly performative categories of 'Irish culture' and 'Irishness' are in need of critical address, prompted by recent changes in Irish society, the arts industry and modes of critical inquiry. This book broaches this task by considering Irish expressive culture through some of the paradigms and vocabularies offered by performance studies.

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction: Performance Studies and Irish Culture; F.Walsh with S.Brady PART I: TRADITION, RITUAL AND PLAY Performing Ireland: A Performative Approach to the Study of Irish Culture; J.Santino Performing Tradition; B.Sweeney Sporting ''Irish'' Identities: Performance and the Gaelic Games; S.Brady ''It''s beyond Candide it''s Švejk'': Wise Foolery in the Work of Jack Lynch, Storyteller; M.Wilson Traditional Irish Music in the 21st Century: Networks, Technology, and the Negotiation of Authenticity; S.Spencer PART II: PLACE, LANDSCAPE AND COMMEMORATION ''Tapping Secrecies of Stone'': Irish Roads as Performances of Movement, Measurement, and Memory; J.Morrison Commemoration and the Performance of Irish Famine Memory; E.M.FitzGerald Embodying the Past for the Tourist Gaze: Performing History and Commemorations of Violence at Free Derry Corner; M.Spangler St Patrick''s Purgatory and the Performance of Pilgrimage; D.Cregan PART III: POLITICAL PERFORMANCES Word, Voice, Book, and Act: De Valera and the Oath; A.Pulju Between the Living and the Dead: Performative ''in-betweens'' in the Work of Alastair MacLennan; C.Szabó The Bio-politics of Performing Irish-ness; M.Causey PART IV: GENDER, FEMINISM, AND QUEER PERFORMANCE Ghosting Bridgie Cleary: Tom Mac Intyre and Staging this Woman''s Death; C.McIvor Challenging Patriarchal Imagery: Amanda Coogan''s Performance Art; G.C.Novati Homelysexuality and the ''Beauty'' Pageant; F.Walsh PART V: DIASPORA, MIGRATION, GLOBALIZATION Taking Northern Irish Identity on the Road: The Smithsonian Folklife Festival of 2007; E.Moore Quinn Who''s Laughing at What?: Currents of Humour in African-Irish Theatre; E.Weitz Parading Multicultural Ireland: Identity Politics and National Agendas in the 2007 St Patrick''s Festival; H.Maples Index