Irish and Celtic Culture, Film, and Music

Department - LART
Offered - Fall
Course number - LSOC-341

This interdisciplinary course is a study of how writers,filmmakers, musicians, political figures, and Irish (and Irish-American) citizens continue to struggle with the diversity and tensions of Irish and Celtic identity. The focus of the course will vary from year to year to include a broad range of topics centered on the fusion in Irish and Celtic life of culture, politics, religion, drama and film, and music. Sample topics include: films by Jim Sheridan, Neil Jordan, Alan Parker, Paul Greengrass; contemporary Celtic music, from Altan and Silly Wizard to Sinead O'Connor; works by such authors as Joyce, Yeats, Frank McCourt, Martin McDonagh, Edna O'Brien, Seamus Heaney, and Roddy Doyle; Irish genealogy; the Great Famine; the resistance to British rule; the Irish Civil War; the IRA and Sinn Fein; "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland; Scottish national identity; and the songs of Robert Burns. Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Cape Breton, Appalachian, and other traditional musicians will visit the class to perform and discuss Celtic music and society.

Credits: 3
Course Chair: Darla Hanley
Prerequisites: LENG-201
Required of: None
Electable by: All