Sláinte?: Alcohol(ism) & the Irish

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

A cliché, a painful truth, an old story, a new one—this course explores alcohol and alcoholism in Irish literature, Irish society and Irishness, examining how alcohol infuses the stories Irish people tell and those told about them, and asking what happens if we take alcohol(ism) seriously as a framework and topic of analysis. We will think about the romance and conviviality of drink and drinking and counterposed crusades against drinking, as well as the unromantic and destructive dimension so central to recent writing. We will think about alcohol(ism) in relation to political authority and nationalism, as well as in relation to colonial resistance. We will ask how this "inheritance" travels into Irish America, and even to this campus, asking what legacies are being lived out, and why, and what we make of that. The course will feature a diverse set of texts across a span of Irish literary tradition, including older and contemporary, fiction and memoir, poetry and prose, verbal, visual and musical media, in texts originally composed in Irish (Gaelic) and English (but all read in English, though students who know or are learning Irish are encouraged to examine the texts in Irish). On the way students will work on their speaking, analytical and writing skills, and on being good listeners, peer editors and collaborators in making sense of our texts and world. Course work will include short writing assignments and analytical papers, a presentation, and a creative assignment.