Irish Shame

3 credit hours · Undergraduate

This course explores how colonial occupation was justified, resented, and resisted in Irish writing. It also examines the role of ‘shame culture’ in Ireland’s decolonization movements and the formation of the partitioned postcolonial Irish state. Additionally, it considers the troubling involvement of Irish settlers in colonialism elsewhere, such as Canada’s residential schools system. To address these issues, we analyze Irish literature, the discourses of ‘the civilizing process,’ and early Government of Canada reports related to colonization.