Postcards Home: Remembering Ireland

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

How is a country remembered? How do time and distance shape what we remember? This course will examine how Ireland is remembered in public and private memory. The course will draw on the memory of the diaspora, of what it means to be Irish American. It will explore representations of Ireland through songs, memoirs, photographs, films, paintings, statues and monuments. Students will have the opportunity to carry out oral interviews with a family member, friend, community member, and write their own memory studies. The course will be anchored in the work of philosophers such as Paul Ricoeur and Barbara Cassin. It will explore the notion of nostalgia. How does it function? How does it influence us? It will also explore what gets remembered at times of commemoration of historical events, such as the 1916 Rising or the Great Famine.