Since Mary McAleese embraced the expatriate and emigrant Irish in her inaugural Presidential address, much has been made of the global Irish family. This exciting collection of essays by a group of eminent scholars explores the teaching and research of Irish  literature in a region of the world that has scouted the attractions of western culture since the sixteenth century. Three or four centuries later those attractions, as far as the Irish are concerned, have become specific.

It is reasonably well-known that in his own life-time W.B. Yeats was invited to take up a Professorship in Japan; that Ulysses has been translated at least three times into Chinese; that the plays of George Bernard Shaw apparently strike a chord with students in Hong Kong; that the fairy-tales of Wilde are reverenced in China; and that the Irish influence on Australian literature has been pervasive if not profound.

But what is not well-known are the contexts for these and other interrelations. Irelands in the Asia-Pacific explores these in a sequence of articles grouped under the headings of: Writing an Irish Self; Joyce at large; Post-Colonial readings of Irish Literature; Antipodean Connections; Teaching Irish Literature in the Asia-Pacific; and Irish Literature Down-Under.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Section 1: Writing an Irish Self

Shakespeare and the Irish Self. Terence Brown

‘Not a disease but a social necessity!’ Shaw and the Function of the Artist. T.F. Evans

The Silver Mirror & the Woven Veil: Oscar Wilde & the Art of Criticism. Julie-Ann Robson

Reading Food: Feast and Famine in Irish Women’s Writing. Joan Coldwell

Eavan Boland: the Complex State of the Woman Poet. Maurice Harmon 

Section 2: Joyce at Large

Bloom’s appeal to the peoples of the world. Jin Di

National Apostate vs National Apostle: Joyce and St. Patrick. Bruce Stewart

Mothers/Mirrors: Sources of Self-Image in Irish Modernism. Diane Stubbings

James Joyce and the Dreamwork of Language: The Book from the Twenty-first Century. Donald E. Morse

Section 3: Post-Colonial Readings of Irish Writing

Post-Colonial Interpretation: The case of The Playboy. Nicholas Grene    

Irish Post-Colonial Drama: A Hungarian View. Csilla Bertha   

Ireland, Post-Colonial Transformation and Global Culture. Bill Ashcroft

Section 4: Antipodean Connections

John, Willy, Lily, George, Gilbert ... and Arthur: My Australian Connections. Ann Saddlemyer          

Ascendancy Down-Under: George Bernard Shaw’s Irish & Australian Relations. A.M.Gibbs

The Port Phillip Gentlemen: Still Neglected. Jarlath Ronayne  

The Emigrant’s Friends: Three Women. Maureen Murphy               

The Scotch-Irish in 18th century America and their Counterparts in 19th century Australia: A Comparative Study of Relations between Colonists and Natives on Two Frontiers. James E. Doan     

Section 5: Teaching Irish Literature in the Asia-Pacific

The Reception of W.B. Yeats in Modern China. Linda Pui-ling Wong            

Modern Irish Literature in an Asian Context: Relevance and Advantages. Andrew Parkin

The ‘Sense of Happiness’ must not Disappear: Teaching Irish Literature in Japan. Taketoshi Furomoto

Re-reading Irishness: The problem of Lafcadio Hearn and Japan. George Hughes 

Japan as Celtic Otherworld: Lafcadio Hearn and the Long Way Home. Ciaran Murray

Section 6: Irish Literature Down-Under

‘The weight of social opinion on [his] side’?: Ulysses, Censorship, Modernism and Canonisation, Australian-style. Frances Devlin-Glass        

Through The Irish Looking Glass: School Experience of Irish Literature, History and Culture in Australia. Donna Gibbs        

The Burden of Tyre and ‘the Loyal Gael’: The Expatriate Muse in the work of Christopher Brennan. Justin Lucas

‘Too Cold and Wide for the Tender Plant of the Irish Language to Thrive in?’ The Teaching of the Irish Language in Australia: 1880-1960. Jonathan M. Wooding              

Notes and References – Notes on Contributors – Index   

This collection of papers was given at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, at a conference convened under the aegis of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures (IASIL).

25/01/05