Ireland in Focus: Film, Photography, and Popular Culture

Eóin Flannery · Michael Griffin

Jun 2009 · Syracuse University Press

About this ebook

From an analysis of the Guinness brand’s reflection of Irish identity to an exploration of murals and film portrayals of political prisoners, this pioneering collection of essays seeks to present Ireland’s relationship to visual culture as a whole. While other works have explored the imagistic history of Ireland, most have restricted their lens to a single form of visual representation. Ireland in Focus is the first book to address the diverse range of visual representations of national and communal identity in Ireland. The contributors examine the politics of visual representation from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Drawing from the areas of cultural theory, postcolonial studies, art criticism, documentary and archival history, and gender studies, the essays provide novel insights on a variety of visual-cultural forms, including film, theater, photography, landscape art, political murals, and the visual iconography of commercial marketing. Bringing together established scholars and emerging young critics in the field, Ireland in Focus breaks new ground in showcasing the essential dynamism of visual culture and its relationship to Irish studies

About the author

Eóin Flannery is a lecturer in English literature at Oxford Brookes University. He is the author of Versions of Ireland: Empire, Modernity, and Resistance in Irish Culture and Enemies of Empire. Michael Griffin is a lecturer in English in the Department of Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Limerick, where he also codirects the English and History Program. He has published widely in journals such as Field Day Review, Utopian Studies, and The Review of English Studies.