Aintzane Legarreta Mentxaka
American College Dublin, Liberal Arts, Faculty Member
- Lecturer, American College Dublinedit
Academic monograph. ........................ Different generations and historical moments have elicited various readings from Kate O’Brien’s lusciously rich and demandingly ambiguous legacy. Once she was a specimen in the bestiary of... more
Academic monograph.
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Different generations and historical moments have elicited various readings from Kate O’Brien’s lusciously rich and demandingly ambiguous legacy. Once she was a specimen in the bestiary of Irish contrarians, later a tall sharp pike brandished by feminist academics, then a pied-a-terre for Catholic Ireland’s postcolonial scouts, and later still a caped crusader for non-normative dissidents. Kate O’Brien’s lively critical afterlife is still missing something: a thorough analysis of her aesthetics, now distinctive, now consonant with those of her peers. This book reviews salient critical concerns, places mortar in the gaps, and suggests some possible extensions in the work-in-progress that is a full assessment of Kate O’Brien.
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'Key Irish Women Writers: Kate O'Brien'
(commissioned monograph)
'Key Irish Women Writers' series
Series editors: Kathryn Laing and Sinead Mooney
EER publishers
To appear in 2021.
ISBN 9781913087364
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Different generations and historical moments have elicited various readings from Kate O’Brien’s lusciously rich and demandingly ambiguous legacy. Once she was a specimen in the bestiary of Irish contrarians, later a tall sharp pike brandished by feminist academics, then a pied-a-terre for Catholic Ireland’s postcolonial scouts, and later still a caped crusader for non-normative dissidents. Kate O’Brien’s lively critical afterlife is still missing something: a thorough analysis of her aesthetics, now distinctive, now consonant with those of her peers. This book reviews salient critical concerns, places mortar in the gaps, and suggests some possible extensions in the work-in-progress that is a full assessment of Kate O’Brien.
................................
'Key Irish Women Writers: Kate O'Brien'
(commissioned monograph)
'Key Irish Women Writers' series
Series editors: Kathryn Laing and Sinead Mooney
EER publishers
To appear in 2021.
ISBN 9781913087364
Research Interests: Irish Studies, Gender Studies, Censorship, Spanish Studies, Irish Literature, and 11 moreBasque Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Intermediality, Women's Literature, Literary Theory, Modernist Literature (Literary Modernism), Irish History, Modernism, British and Irish History, Women and Gender Studies, and Anti-Authoritarianism
Palo Alto (CA): Academica Press, 2016 Academic monograph considering the ambivalent identifications of colonial subjects when confronted with 'foreign' ethnic distinctiveness, and how this ambivalence is articulated in literature. The... more
Palo Alto (CA): Academica Press, 2016
Academic monograph considering the ambivalent identifications of colonial subjects when confronted with 'foreign' ethnic distinctiveness, and how this ambivalence is articulated in literature. The book focuses on the Irish writer Kate O'Brien and her engagement with Basque culture.
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Academic monograph considering the ambivalent identifications of colonial subjects when confronted with 'foreign' ethnic distinctiveness, and how this ambivalence is articulated in literature. The book focuses on the Irish writer Kate O'Brien and her engagement with Basque culture.
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Research Interests:
A historical play about Mary Rosse (photographer, architect, designer, blacksmith) and Mary Ward (microscopist, astronomer, entomologist), two women from mid-nineteenth century Ireland who were world-wide pioneers in science, technology,... more
A historical play about Mary Rosse (photographer, architect, designer, blacksmith) and Mary Ward (microscopist, astronomer, entomologist), two women from mid-nineteenth century Ireland who were world-wide pioneers in science, technology, and art, and were life-ling friends. 'A Pair of New Eyes' was conceived as a multimedia period drama, and aimed at bringing these forgotten women's achievements back into public consciousness. However, rather than staged biography, the play uses historical information to offer an existential parable. The 'A Pair of New Eyes' premiered in the Sean O'Casey Theatre Dublin in November 2013, staged by Born to Burn productions. A second run of the play, with a slightly revised text, took place in Smock Alley Theatre Dublin in August 2014, with additional performances at 'The Hermitage' Enda's Park Rathfarnham, and Birr Town Theatre in County Offaly, Ireland, in Aug-Sept 2014. The play was received enthusiastically by the public. The book of the play, by artisan publisher Gur Cake Editions, is a limited edition of the original production text, including director's notes, and footnotes on the historical sources for the play.
Academic monograph recontextualising the work of Kate O'Brien, with sections on modernism, intermediality, history, life-writing, activist literature, and philosophy. The focus of the study is the novel 'Mary Lavelle' (1936).... more
Academic monograph recontextualising the work of Kate O'Brien, with sections on modernism, intermediality, history, life-writing, activist literature, and philosophy. The focus of the study is the novel 'Mary Lavelle' (1936).
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Jefferson (NC): McFarland, 2011
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Jefferson (NC): McFarland, 2011
Research Interests: History, Irish Studies, Philosophy, English Literature, Women's Studies, and 12 moreModernism (Literature), Irish Literature, Basque Studies, Women's writing, Literature, Postcolonial Literature, Modernism, Basque History, Feminist Criticism, Life Writing (Literature), Women and Gender Studies, and antiauthoritarian criticism
-“‘Modernist Silence’ in Irish New Woman Fiction”. Irish Women’s Writing at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Alternative Histories, New Narratives. Kathryn Laing and Sinéad Mooney eds. EER Press, 2020.
Research Interests: Women's Studies, Irish Literature, Literary Stylistics, Modernist Literature (Literary Modernism), Modernism, and 8 moreLiterary History, Women's Writing (Literature), Feminist Literary Theory and Gender Studies, Modernist Studies, First-wave feminism, History and epistemology of literary theory (narrative theory), Early Modernism, and The New Woman
Convergences in the work of Kate O'Brien and Virginia Woolf range from literary influences and political alignments, to a shared approach to narrative point of view, structure, or conceptual use of words. Common ground includes... more
Convergences in the work of Kate O'Brien and Virginia Woolf range from literary influences and political alignments, to a shared approach to narrative point of view, structure, or conceptual use of words. Common ground includes existentialist preoccupations and tropes, a pacifism which did not hinder support for the left in the Spanish Civil War, the linking of feminism and decolonization, an affinity with anarchism, the identification of the normativity of fascism, and a determination to represent deviant sexualities and affects. Making evident the importance of the connection, O'Brien conceived and designed The Flower of May (1953), one of her most experimental and misunderstood novels, to paid homage to Woolf's oeuvre.
Research Interests:
Egypt has been embedded in Western consciousness for the last two centuries, and its (pre-colonial) culture has reinvigorated the European and North-American store of myth to an immeasurable extent. The essay investigates the discreet but... more
Egypt has been embedded in Western consciousness for the last two centuries, and its (pre-colonial) culture has reinvigorated the European and North-American store of myth to an immeasurable extent. The essay investigates the discreet but powerful interventions of Western popular culture in translating Egypt for Western consumption, both building and resisting stereotypes. It discusses Bram Stoker’s critically neglected Egyptian novel 'The Jewel of Seven Stars' (1903), and three popular renderings of Egypt produced around a hundred years later, which rewrite stereotypes from within: the film 'The Jewel of the Nile' (1985), the novel 'The Map of Love' (1999), and the documentary 'The Hidden History of Egypt' (2002).
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Everywhere, the Eye of Horus, the all-seeing all-controlling predatory westernised eye. Everywhere too, the resisting judeo-arabic Hamsa hand.... Western popular culture continues to produce discreet but powerful interventions translating Egypt for Western consumption, both building and resisting stereotypes, in novels, films, and TV documentaries. When they are considered through a feminist, anti-authoritarian, and postcolonial lens... these cultural interventions open up as political interventions, which aim at making audiences think, or rethink, or suspend our thinking.
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A.L.Mentxaka, “Egypt in Western Popular Culture: From Bram Stoker to The Jewel of the Nile”. 'Otherness' Journal. Vol. 6. No. 2 (Winter 2018): n.p.
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Everywhere, the Eye of Horus, the all-seeing all-controlling predatory westernised eye. Everywhere too, the resisting judeo-arabic Hamsa hand.... Western popular culture continues to produce discreet but powerful interventions translating Egypt for Western consumption, both building and resisting stereotypes, in novels, films, and TV documentaries. When they are considered through a feminist, anti-authoritarian, and postcolonial lens... these cultural interventions open up as political interventions, which aim at making audiences think, or rethink, or suspend our thinking.
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A.L.Mentxaka, “Egypt in Western Popular Culture: From Bram Stoker to The Jewel of the Nile”. 'Otherness' Journal. Vol. 6. No. 2 (Winter 2018): n.p.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Egyptology, Queer Studies, Women's Studies, Film Studies, and 15 morePopular Culture, Postcolonial Studies, Sexuality, Gender and Sexuality, Gay And Lesbian Studies, Lesbian Studies, Gender, Popular Fiction, Egypt, Postcolonial Literature, Popular Literature, Feminist Literary Theory and Gender Studies, Film and Media Studies, Queer Film, and antiauthoritarian criticism
“Miriam left the gaslit hall and went slowly upstairs”. With the opening sentence of Dorothy Richardson’s Pointed Roofs, written in 1913 and published in 1915, the English novel left the gaslit halls of Victorian fiction, and moved... more
“Miriam left the gaslit hall and went slowly upstairs”. With the opening sentence of Dorothy Richardson’s Pointed Roofs, written in 1913 and published in 1915, the English novel left the gaslit halls of Victorian fiction, and moved towards the attic of the human mind. The inventor of the ‘stream of consciousness’ method, Richardson was the first novelist to radically alter punctuation in order to reproduce thought. She also dismantled plot, disrupted structure, and played around with words and sentences much like a composer or a painter creating new combinations. Woolf declared that Richardson had invented a new sentence, “a psychological sentence of the feminine gender”. It was to become the template sentence of modernist fiction in English.
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Essay commissioned for the collection 'Remaking the Literary Canon in English: Women Writers, 1880-1920'. María Elena Jaime de Pablos and Antonella Cagnolati eds. Madrid: Síntesis, 2018, pp. 51-62.
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Essay commissioned for the collection 'Remaking the Literary Canon in English: Women Writers, 1880-1920'. María Elena Jaime de Pablos and Antonella Cagnolati eds. Madrid: Síntesis, 2018, pp. 51-62.
Research Interests:
Jazz is rarely discussed in modernist studies, yet its importance to the movement is crucial, as revolutionary intervention on Western music, for its aesthetic contribution, its relationship with popular culture, and its relevance to... more
Jazz is rarely discussed in modernist studies, yet its importance to the movement is crucial, as revolutionary intervention on Western music, for its aesthetic contribution, its relationship with popular culture, and its relevance to periodisation. The peculiar conjunction of modernism, jazz, and Ireland, offers a window into a neglected area of both modernism and Irish Studies which can help us reassess both. The pivot for the discussion is 'One Day in Winter' (Blackstairs Records, 2017), an album by Irish composer, pianist, and saxophonist Carole Nelson, a concept album directly inspired by the landscapes of Carlow, and, the essay argues, an example of neomodernism.
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"Jazz, Neomodernism, Ireland: Carole Nelson Trio's 'A Day in Winter'". 'Studi Irlandesi' journal, No. 9 (June 2019): 602-613.
ISSN: 2239-3978
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"Jazz, Neomodernism, Ireland: Carole Nelson Trio's 'A Day in Winter'". 'Studi Irlandesi' journal, No. 9 (June 2019): 602-613.
ISSN: 2239-3978
Research Interests: Irish Studies, Music, Musical Composition, Music History, Music Theory, and 14 moreWomen's Studies, Popular Music, Irish History, Women Artists - Modernist, Modernism, Women Composers And Musicians, Conceptual Art, Women Artists, Jazz, Modernist Studies, Irish Modernism, Neomodernism, Constructions of the Rural, and musical theatre studies
To Kate O’Brien, James Joyce was “the greatest Artist –there will never be another”. Despite this, her work las long been associated by critics with Balzac’s social vistas, George Elliot’s realism, and populist romance. It is only in the... more
To Kate O’Brien, James Joyce was “the greatest Artist –there will never be another”. Despite this, her work las long been associated by critics with Balzac’s social vistas, George Elliot’s realism, and populist romance. It is only in the last few years that O’Brien has been discussed for her modernist interests and innovative style, including her rather original development of subtext and fictional autobiography, and her engagement with feminism, post-colonial Irishness, socialism, or q ueer representation. The influence of Joyce in her work is one of the areas that requires more investigation.
Elizabeth Foley O’Connor has recently argued that Joyce is not just a writer O’Brien admired, but in fact her “most sustained and pervasive literary mentor”. Katie Donovan said in 1988 that “James Joyce and Kate O’Brien are an incongruous pair –the former the giant of male Irish writers, the latter one of the least recognised of Irish women writers. Yet people once laughed at the idea of comparing Shakespeare with Jane Austen. They don’t any longer.”
This essay discusses points of convergence between O'Brien and Joyce, considering some of their ideas and beliefs, and some stylistic features shared by them. It focuses on the intertextual links between 'The Land of Spices' and 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man', and 'Mary Lavelle' and 'Ulysses', paying particular attention to two aspects: Anna-Stephen’s education, and Lavelle-Bloom’s flânerie.
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ISBN: 978-84-9860-727-7
Aintzane Legarreta Mentxaka," 'James Joyce is My Man': Kate O’Brien and James Joyce ". [peer-reviewed collection] 'Joyce’s heirs. Joyce’s imprint on recent global literatures', Olga Fernández Vicente ed., Bilbo/Bilbao: Basque Country University Press, 2019, pp. 8-23.
Free access:
https://web-argitalpena.adm.ehu.es/listaproductos.asp?IdProducts=UHPDF197277&titulo=Joyce%92s%20heirs.%20Joyce%92s%20imprint%20on%20recent%20global%20literatures
Elizabeth Foley O’Connor has recently argued that Joyce is not just a writer O’Brien admired, but in fact her “most sustained and pervasive literary mentor”. Katie Donovan said in 1988 that “James Joyce and Kate O’Brien are an incongruous pair –the former the giant of male Irish writers, the latter one of the least recognised of Irish women writers. Yet people once laughed at the idea of comparing Shakespeare with Jane Austen. They don’t any longer.”
This essay discusses points of convergence between O'Brien and Joyce, considering some of their ideas and beliefs, and some stylistic features shared by them. It focuses on the intertextual links between 'The Land of Spices' and 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man', and 'Mary Lavelle' and 'Ulysses', paying particular attention to two aspects: Anna-Stephen’s education, and Lavelle-Bloom’s flânerie.
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ISBN: 978-84-9860-727-7
Aintzane Legarreta Mentxaka," 'James Joyce is My Man': Kate O’Brien and James Joyce ". [peer-reviewed collection] 'Joyce’s heirs. Joyce’s imprint on recent global literatures', Olga Fernández Vicente ed., Bilbo/Bilbao: Basque Country University Press, 2019, pp. 8-23.
Free access:
https://web-argitalpena.adm.ehu.es/listaproductos.asp?IdProducts=UHPDF197277&titulo=Joyce%92s%20heirs.%20Joyce%92s%20imprint%20on%20recent%20global%20literatures
Research Interests: Irish Studies, Comparative Literature, Queer Studies, Women's Studies, Irish Literature, and 12 moreBasque Studies, Modernist Literature (Literary Modernism), Intertextuality, Postcolonial Literature, Modernism, Feminist Literary Theory and Gender Studies, Kate O'Brien, Joyce, Basque Literature, James Joyce's Ulysses, James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Third Person Indirect Free Style
Daoism was an important, if unacknowledged, influence on the work of W.B.Yeats. The essay traces daoist tropes and ideas through Yeats' poetry and his philosophical writings. .... essay published in 'Yeats/Elliot Review'. Little Rock,... more
Daoism was an important, if unacknowledged, influence on the work of W.B.Yeats. The essay traces daoist tropes and ideas through Yeats' poetry and his philosophical writings.
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essay published in 'Yeats/Elliot Review'. Little Rock, Arkansas. Vol. 22, No. 3 (Fall 2005): Whole issue.
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essay published in 'Yeats/Elliot Review'. Little Rock, Arkansas. Vol. 22, No. 3 (Fall 2005): Whole issue.
Research Interests:
Kate O’Brien made a career of pushing the boundaries of what could be said in fiction. O’Brien’s work expanded the imaginative worlds of her readers, offered positive accounts of marginalised behaviours, denounced the hypocrisy of moral... more
Kate O’Brien made a career of pushing the boundaries of what could be said in fiction. O’Brien’s work expanded the imaginative worlds of her readers, offered positive accounts of marginalised behaviours, denounced the hypocrisy of moral guardians, and celebrated the existential thrill of rehearsing freedoms. The essay considers several aspects of sexuality and affect in Kate O’Brien’s work, which can be deemed to be dysfunctional, or 'out of order'.
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[peer reviewed collection] 'Ireland and Dysfunction in Literature and Film', Asier Altuna ed. Newcastle: CSP, 2017, pp. 49-70.
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[peer reviewed collection] 'Ireland and Dysfunction in Literature and Film', Asier Altuna ed. Newcastle: CSP, 2017, pp. 49-70.
Research Interests:
A postmodern literature that breaches copyright, celebrates multiliteracy and intertextuality, and is created within the context of a transnational community. Originally created in photocopied and stapled zines, circa 1968, with the... more
A postmodern literature that breaches copyright, celebrates multiliteracy and intertextuality, and is created within the context of a transnational community. Originally created in photocopied and stapled zines, circa 1968, with the development of the world wide web it takes off as the first important form of internet literature. It is fanfiction, a literature by fans, for fans, which borrows and reinterprets elements from popular media texts. This transnational community collectively produces some outstanding fiction, invents new genres, demolishes author-reader borders, and designs their own literary conventions. All of this happens unnoticed in the margins of literature. The essay focuses on 'Irish' fanfic writers, in the context of outlaw, transnational fanfic communities who have ejected national allegiances.
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essay published in 'Popular Culture and Postmodern Ireland', Wanda Balzano et al eds London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007, pp. 74-84.
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essay published in 'Popular Culture and Postmodern Ireland', Wanda Balzano et al eds London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007, pp. 74-84.
Research Interests: English Literature, Popular Culture, Literary Criticism, Literary Theory, Postmodern Fiction, and 10 morePostmodernism (Literature), Women's Writing (Literature), 20th Century Literature, Internet Literature, English Literature and Culture, 20th- and 21st-century literature in English, Positioning of Reader and Writer, Fanfiction Studies, Fanfiction in Literature, and Annonymity
Eve Sedgwick's book of literary criticism 'Between Men' was crucial in developing a new understanding of triangulated relationships in classic literary texts of the nineteenth century and beyond. Her application of the anthropological and... more
Eve Sedgwick's book of literary criticism 'Between Men' was crucial in developing a new understanding of triangulated relationships in classic literary texts of the nineteenth century and beyond. Her application of the anthropological and sociological term 'homosociality' has been enormously influential. The essay offers a critical archaeology of Sedgwick's notion of the homosocial.
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essay published in 'Irish Feminist Review'. Vo.l 3 (2007): 22-41.
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essay published in 'Irish Feminist Review'. Vo.l 3 (2007): 22-41.
Research Interests:
Accusations of stereotypical attitudes towards female beauty have completely missed the point of the novelist Kate O'Brien's multi-valent and transgressive uses of the trope... ................ essay published in the collection 'Women,... more
Accusations of stereotypical attitudes towards female beauty have completely missed the point of the novelist Kate O'Brien's multi-valent and transgressive uses of the trope...
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essay published in the collection 'Women, Social and Cultural Change in 20th century Ireland', Sarah O’Connor et al eds. Newcastle: CSP, 2008, pp. 183- 198.
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essay published in the collection 'Women, Social and Cultural Change in 20th century Ireland', Sarah O’Connor et al eds. Newcastle: CSP, 2008, pp. 183- 198.
Research Interests:
How normative are the boundaries of and between art mediums? The literary borrowing of filmic language questions given and static definitions of art mediums, as well as rigid understandings of clear delimitations between art forms. The... more
How normative are the boundaries of and between art mediums? The literary borrowing of filmic language questions given and static definitions of art mediums, as well as rigid understandings of clear delimitations between art forms. The essay investigates links between mediums (inter-medial) and between art forms (inter-art) in literature. A deliberate and complex hybridization of artistic languages is characteristic of modernism, despite being regularly overlooked by critics. The essay investigates cinematic intermediality in the fiction of Kate O'Brien.
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essay published in the collection 'Viewpoints: Theoretical Perspectives on Irish Visual Texts', C. Bracken and E. Radley eds. Cork: Cork UP, 2013, pp, 124-36.
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essay published in the collection 'Viewpoints: Theoretical Perspectives on Irish Visual Texts', C. Bracken and E. Radley eds. Cork: Cork UP, 2013, pp, 124-36.
Research Interests:
The nineteenth century pioneer of gothic literature Sheridan le Fanu, and the popular twentieth century renovator of the romantic novel Kate O'Brien, had more in common than it would seem on first glance. They both wrote from a position... more
The nineteenth century pioneer of gothic literature Sheridan le Fanu, and the popular twentieth century renovator of the romantic novel Kate O'Brien, had more in common than it would seem on first glance. They both wrote from a position of female non-normativity, and they both invited their readers to access their radical narratives by adopting the same temporary position. Their nexus: a vampire tale. Their forerunner: Virgil.
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essay published in the collection 'Facing the Other: Race, Gender and Social Justice in Ireland', B. Faragó et al eds. Newcastle: CSP, 2008, pp. 123-136.
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essay published in the collection 'Facing the Other: Race, Gender and Social Justice in Ireland', B. Faragó et al eds. Newcastle: CSP, 2008, pp. 123-136.
Research Interests:
(a) A young Basque peasant woman, Maria de Ximildegi, may have triggered one of the worst witch-hunts in European history, masterminded by the Spanish Inquisition. (b) A sixteenth century Basque novice, Katalin of Erauso, escaped the... more
(a) A young Basque peasant woman, Maria de Ximildegi, may have triggered one of the worst witch-hunts in European history, masterminded by the Spanish Inquisition. (b) A sixteenth century Basque novice, Katalin of Erauso, escaped the convent, dressed as a man, joined the colonist army in America, and went on to achieve the rank of ensign and become the most famous cross-dresser of the period. (c) The most important figure in Basque mythology is the goddess Mari, who travels through the sky in a chariot of fire, lives on a magic cave, and favours non-normative companions...
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essay published in 'Histories of S exualities: Vol I', Mary McAuliffe and Sonja Tiernan eds. Newcastle: CSP, 2008, pp. 40-62.
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essay published in 'Histories of S exualities: Vol I', Mary McAuliffe and Sonja Tiernan eds. Newcastle: CSP, 2008, pp. 40-62.
Research Interests:
In the words of Lorna Reynolds, who knew the Irish novelist Kate O’Brien well, O’Brien was "a catholic agnostic". Like some of her own characters, she was a "hereditary catholic" and a "catholic pagan". In her travel book 'Farewell... more
In the words of Lorna Reynolds, who knew the Irish novelist Kate O’Brien well, O’Brien was "a catholic agnostic". Like some of her own characters, she was a "hereditary catholic" and a "catholic pagan". In her travel book 'Farewell Spain', the agnostic O'Brien declared: "I [am] a Catholic in all my blood". In Kate O’Brien's literary world, whether you are infected, a carrier, at risk, in remission, or in recovery, faith is a problem.... And yet, a belief in the usefulness of religion pervades her work.
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essay published in the collection 'Breaking the Mould: Literary Representations of Irish Catholicism', Eamon Maher et al. Peter Lang, 2011, pp. 87-104.
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essay published in the collection 'Breaking the Mould: Literary Representations of Irish Catholicism', Eamon Maher et al. Peter Lang, 2011, pp. 87-104.
Research Interests: Irish Studies, Ethics, English Literature, Applied Ethics, Irish Literature, and 10 moreGender and Sexuality, Catholic Social Teaching, Modernist Literature (Literary Modernism), Agnosticism, Women and Culture, Religious Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Christian Studies, History of Gender and Sexuality, and English Literature and Language
review essay ....... “Literary Visions of Multicultural Ireland” [peer reviewed journal] [original title: 'Mise Eire'] ............... This is a review of a book collection discussing multiculturalism (and xenophobia), as reflected in... more
review essay
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“Literary Visions of Multicultural Ireland” [peer reviewed journal]
[original title: 'Mise Eire']
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This is a review of a book collection discussing multiculturalism (and xenophobia), as reflected in recent literature produced in Ireland.
The review addresses liberal fantasies of an 'Ireland of a thousand welcomes'. It also discusses the licence-to-kill of 'objective stylistic parameters' invoked by canon-makers. And it brings to bear the devastation caused by the 2004 Citizenship Referendum in the Republic of Ireland, when 80% of voters agreed to change the Constitution and redefine Irishness, so that a child born in Ireland would only be legally Irish if its parents were Irish.
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Aintzane Legarreta Mentxaka
review of the collection “Literary Visions of Multicultural Ireland”
European Journal of English Studies/ European Messenger journal.
[peer reviewed journal]
Vol. 27, No. 2 (Winter 2018): 26-28.
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“Literary Visions of Multicultural Ireland” [peer reviewed journal]
[original title: 'Mise Eire']
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This is a review of a book collection discussing multiculturalism (and xenophobia), as reflected in recent literature produced in Ireland.
The review addresses liberal fantasies of an 'Ireland of a thousand welcomes'. It also discusses the licence-to-kill of 'objective stylistic parameters' invoked by canon-makers. And it brings to bear the devastation caused by the 2004 Citizenship Referendum in the Republic of Ireland, when 80% of voters agreed to change the Constitution and redefine Irishness, so that a child born in Ireland would only be legally Irish if its parents were Irish.
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Aintzane Legarreta Mentxaka
review of the collection “Literary Visions of Multicultural Ireland”
European Journal of English Studies/ European Messenger journal.
[peer reviewed journal]
Vol. 27, No. 2 (Winter 2018): 26-28.
Research Interests:
review essay ....... Flann O'Brien had serious problems with authority... so how come he's next in line for literary canonisation? The collection of critical essays reviewed here engages with the surrealist humour of his novels,... more
review essay
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Flann O'Brien had serious problems with authority... so how come he's next in line for literary canonisation? The collection of critical essays reviewed here engages with the surrealist humour of his novels, journalism, and scripts. Flann O'Brien, aka Brian O'Nolan, is presented in this interesting collection as a worthy exemplar of... um, what? We are told that he was ‘modernist’, ‘late-modernist’, ‘postmodern’, ‘(post-)modernist’, ‘modernist and postmodernist’, late modernist revivalist, or a case of ‘anti-modernist modernism’ (all gleaned from the volume). What is going on? Is there any hope for Flann O'Brien Studies, when his legacy of contrariness and mischief makes academics sound like a 'Hot Air Brigade'?
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Aintzane Legarreta Mentxaka
“Flann O’Brien: Problems with Authority” – review [peer reviewed journal]
Irish University Review. Vol 48 No 2 (Autumn/Winter 2018): 387-390.
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Flann O'Brien had serious problems with authority... so how come he's next in line for literary canonisation? The collection of critical essays reviewed here engages with the surrealist humour of his novels, journalism, and scripts. Flann O'Brien, aka Brian O'Nolan, is presented in this interesting collection as a worthy exemplar of... um, what? We are told that he was ‘modernist’, ‘late-modernist’, ‘postmodern’, ‘(post-)modernist’, ‘modernist and postmodernist’, late modernist revivalist, or a case of ‘anti-modernist modernism’ (all gleaned from the volume). What is going on? Is there any hope for Flann O'Brien Studies, when his legacy of contrariness and mischief makes academics sound like a 'Hot Air Brigade'?
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Aintzane Legarreta Mentxaka
“Flann O’Brien: Problems with Authority” – review [peer reviewed journal]
Irish University Review. Vol 48 No 2 (Autumn/Winter 2018): 387-390.
Research Interests: Irish Studies, English Literature, Irish Literature, Surrealism, Modernist Literature (Literary Modernism), and 10 moreFlann O'Brien, Postmodern Literature, Postmodern Literary Theory and Popular Culture, Anglophone Literature, Fiction, Humour Studies, Indian English Fiction, Humour in Literature, Anglophone Studies, and Cognitive Approaches to the Humanities
Amy Lowell was long ago thrown into the heap of amusing literary footnotes. Critical perception of a writer is one with the critical construction of that writer. No matter how obvious the point is to a post-structuralist crowd, it is in... more
Amy Lowell was long ago thrown into the heap of amusing literary footnotes. Critical perception of a writer is one with the critical construction of that writer. No matter how obvious the point is to a post-structuralist crowd, it is in examples such as the moulding of Lowell’s posthumous image that the monstrous injustices we are capable of become apparent. But consider the difference between Dickinson as spinster recluse, or as “Vesuvius at home”. Consider the difference between Woolf as tormented angel, or as fun-loving criminal (see the ‘Dreadnought Hoax’). Now consider Lowell as a fat cigar-wielding lesbian joke, or as a universally seductive, awe-inspiringly astute, creatively exceptional, and absolutely compelling Diva.
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“Amy Lowell, Diva Poet”. FWSA online. published 21 Nov 2013.
Review of: Melissa Bradshaw. 'Amy Lowell, Diva Poet'. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2011.
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“Amy Lowell, Diva Poet”. FWSA online. published 21 Nov 2013.
Review of: Melissa Bradshaw. 'Amy Lowell, Diva Poet'. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2011.
Research Interests: Art History, Poetry, Gay And Lesbian Studies, Lesbian Studies, Modernist poetry, and 9 moreModernist Literature (Literary Modernism), Modernism, Literary History, Women's Writing (Literature), Feminist Literary Theory and Gender Studies, Amy Lowell, Women and Gender Studies, Feminist Literary Criticism, and Media representation of women
Review essay ....... A discussion of the most important publication to-date on William Parsons, Earl of Rosse. A crucial nineteenth century European figure, Parsons' immense contribution to science and technology has been neglected. As... more
Review essay
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A discussion of the most important publication to-date on William Parsons, Earl of Rosse. A crucial nineteenth century European figure, Parsons' immense contribution to science and technology has been neglected.
As an astronomer, he discovered numerous galaxies and established the spiral structure of many of them; together with his wife Mary Rosse, he conceived and constructed the biggest telescope in the world for eighty years, a feat of engineering; and as part of a thriving scientific and artistic family circle in the town of Birr in rural Ireland, including the photographer Mary Rosse and the microscopist Mary Ward, Parsons developed technology in many directions, from steam engines and giant specula, to early automobiles. Even more strikingly, although the book does not mention it, the main reason for William and Mary Parsons to construct their giant telescope, known as 'The Leviathan' after a Biblical monster, was to prove the existence of a creator-god. The writer Edgar Allan-Poe took good note. In the review, I briefly discuss one of the strangest applications of science and technology ever conceived.
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Stylistically, the review is unconventional in angle, tone, and structure --in order to emphasize the overall contribution of the reviewed book, by avoiding to discuss individual essays.
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A.L.Mentxaka. “William Parsons: Astronomy and Birr Castle in Nineteenth Century Ireland” (review). Irish University Review. Vol. 47, No. 2 (Autum/Winter 2017): 376-380.
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A discussion of the most important publication to-date on William Parsons, Earl of Rosse. A crucial nineteenth century European figure, Parsons' immense contribution to science and technology has been neglected.
As an astronomer, he discovered numerous galaxies and established the spiral structure of many of them; together with his wife Mary Rosse, he conceived and constructed the biggest telescope in the world for eighty years, a feat of engineering; and as part of a thriving scientific and artistic family circle in the town of Birr in rural Ireland, including the photographer Mary Rosse and the microscopist Mary Ward, Parsons developed technology in many directions, from steam engines and giant specula, to early automobiles. Even more strikingly, although the book does not mention it, the main reason for William and Mary Parsons to construct their giant telescope, known as 'The Leviathan' after a Biblical monster, was to prove the existence of a creator-god. The writer Edgar Allan-Poe took good note. In the review, I briefly discuss one of the strangest applications of science and technology ever conceived.
..................
Stylistically, the review is unconventional in angle, tone, and structure --in order to emphasize the overall contribution of the reviewed book, by avoiding to discuss individual essays.
...................
A.L.Mentxaka. “William Parsons: Astronomy and Birr Castle in Nineteenth Century Ireland” (review). Irish University Review. Vol. 47, No. 2 (Autum/Winter 2017): 376-380.
Research Interests: Irish Studies, Technology, Victorian Studies, History of Religion, History of Science, and 15 moreHistory of Astronomy, History of Science and Religion, Telescope Making, Edgar Allan Poe, Great Irish Famine, Charles Darwin, Automobile Engineering, Pierre-Simon Laplace, Telescope Design, Nebular Theory, Anglo-Irish History, Irish Colonial History, Mary Rosse, William Rosse, and Mary Ward, scientist
Review of the biography 'Kate O'Brien: A Writing Life', by Eibhear Walshe.
Canadian Journal of Irish Studies. Vol. 32, No. 1 (Spring 2006}: 86-87.
[peer reviewed journal]
Canadian Journal of Irish Studies. Vol. 32, No. 1 (Spring 2006}: 86-87.
[peer reviewed journal]
Research Interests: Irish Studies, Irish Literature, Women's History, Women's Literature, Biography, and 9 moreModernist Literature (Literary Modernism), Twentieth Century Literature, LGBT Literature, Feminist Literary Theory and Gender Studies, Literary biography, Life Writing (Literature), Kate O'Brien, LGBT Studies, and Censhorship
'Peter Greenaway' [original title: The Brick, the Book, his Films, and their Mother]. ........... This review of a collection of essays on filmmaker Peter Greenaway playfully echoes both Greenaway's irreverence and his obsession with... more
'Peter Greenaway'
[original title: The Brick, the Book, his Films, and their Mother].
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This review of a collection of essays on filmmaker Peter Greenaway playfully echoes both Greenaway's irreverence and his obsession with structure.
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[Review of Peter Greenaway. Special issue of Cycnos. Ed. Michel Remy. Vol. 26 No. 1, 2010]
Published in 'English Messenger'/ European Journal of English Studies. [peer reviews]. journal of the European Society for the Study of English. Vol. 22, No. 2 (Winter 2013): 85-7.
[original title: The Brick, the Book, his Films, and their Mother].
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This review of a collection of essays on filmmaker Peter Greenaway playfully echoes both Greenaway's irreverence and his obsession with structure.
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[Review of Peter Greenaway. Special issue of Cycnos. Ed. Michel Remy. Vol. 26 No. 1, 2010]
Published in 'English Messenger'/ European Journal of English Studies. [peer reviews]. journal of the European Society for the Study of English. Vol. 22, No. 2 (Winter 2013): 85-7.
Research Interests:
Aintzane Legarreta Mentxaka, "La Vida Vasca de Kate O'Brien" [original title: 'Mary Lavelle'] [commissioned]. El Correo Culture Supplement. 15 September 2018, p. 10. …………………………………… Kate O'Brien (1897-1974) es una de las novelistas más... more
Aintzane Legarreta Mentxaka, "La Vida Vasca de Kate O'Brien" [original title: 'Mary Lavelle'] [commissioned]. El Correo Culture Supplement. 15 September 2018, p. 10.
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Kate O'Brien (1897-1974) es una de las novelistas más importantes de Irlanda, y una escritora de nota en la literatura del siglo veinte en lengua inglesa. Su novela 'Mary Lavelle', que algunos críticos consideran su mejor obra, está situada en Euskadi. Y su carrera, aunque pocos lo saben, comenzó en Bilbo en 1922...
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……………………………………
Kate O'Brien (1897-1974) es una de las novelistas más importantes de Irlanda, y una escritora de nota en la literatura del siglo veinte en lengua inglesa. Su novela 'Mary Lavelle', que algunos críticos consideran su mejor obra, está situada en Euskadi. Y su carrera, aunque pocos lo saben, comenzó en Bilbo en 1922...
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Research Interests: Irish Studies, Irish Literature, Basque Studies, Irish Diaspora, Spanish History, and 11 moreAnarchist Studies, Modernist Literature (Literary Modernism), Modernism, Basque History, Emigration Research, Life Writing (Literature), Kate O'Brien, Literature of the Spanish Civil War, Basque Literature, Generacion Del 98, and Antiauthoritarianism
[Spanish language article] .................. Esta es la primera publicación sobre ‘El Aliento y el Barro’ (‘The Spirit and the Clay’), by Shevawn Lynam, en Euskadi o en el estado. Da a conocer la novela como un documento único sobre la... more
[Spanish language article]
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Esta es la primera publicación sobre ‘El Aliento y el Barro’ (‘The Spirit and the Clay’), by Shevawn Lynam, en Euskadi o en el estado. Da a conocer la novela como un documento único sobre la resistencia vasca contra el Franquismo en la clandestinidad, basado en hechos reales recogidos por la autora irlandesa. Nueve capítulos interconectados cuentan la historia de vascas y vascos de a pie, trabajando contra el régimen durante dieciseis años, desde la derrota del bando democrático en la guerra civil hasta la traición de la asamblea general de la ONU.
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This is the first publication about 'The Spirit and the Clay', by Shevawn Lynam, to appear in the Basque Country or Spain. It brings attention to the novel as a unique document about the Basque underground resistance against Francoism, based on real events gathered by the Irish author. Nine interconnected chapters tell the stories of ordinary Basque women and men, working against the regime for sixteen years, from the defeat of the pro-democracy side in the civil war to the treason of the UN General Assembly.
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“La Novela de la Corresponsal" /El Aliento y el Barro/ The Spirit and the Clay” [commissioned].
El Correo Culture Supplement. 20 October 2018, p. 8.
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Esta es la primera publicación sobre ‘El Aliento y el Barro’ (‘The Spirit and the Clay’), by Shevawn Lynam, en Euskadi o en el estado. Da a conocer la novela como un documento único sobre la resistencia vasca contra el Franquismo en la clandestinidad, basado en hechos reales recogidos por la autora irlandesa. Nueve capítulos interconectados cuentan la historia de vascas y vascos de a pie, trabajando contra el régimen durante dieciseis años, desde la derrota del bando democrático en la guerra civil hasta la traición de la asamblea general de la ONU.
.........
This is the first publication about 'The Spirit and the Clay', by Shevawn Lynam, to appear in the Basque Country or Spain. It brings attention to the novel as a unique document about the Basque underground resistance against Francoism, based on real events gathered by the Irish author. Nine interconnected chapters tell the stories of ordinary Basque women and men, working against the regime for sixteen years, from the defeat of the pro-democracy side in the civil war to the treason of the UN General Assembly.
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“La Novela de la Corresponsal" /El Aliento y el Barro/ The Spirit and the Clay” [commissioned].
El Correo Culture Supplement. 20 October 2018, p. 8.
Research Interests: Irish Studies, English Literature, Women's Studies, Irish Literature, Basque Studies, and 11 moreWomen's History, Women and War Studies, United Nations, Resistance (Social), Women Writers, Spanish Civil War, Basque History, War and Literature, Literature of the Spanish Civil War, History of Spanish Civil War, and Anti-Francoism
The paper looked at how different aesthetic, theoretical, and ideological preoccupations intersect (and sometimes converge) in the work of the Irish modernist painter Mary Swanzy, and how Swanzy herself is part of a grid of experimental... more
The paper looked at how different aesthetic, theoretical, and ideological preoccupations intersect (and sometimes converge) in the work of the Irish modernist painter Mary Swanzy, and how Swanzy herself is part of a grid of experimental work by Irish modernist women, in literature, painting, and beyond.
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Paper delivered at the Closing 'Mary Swanzy, Voyages' Seminar, part of the 'Mary Swanzy Seminar Series' at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Delivered on 1 February 2019, at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, ROI.
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Paper delivered at the Closing 'Mary Swanzy, Voyages' Seminar, part of the 'Mary Swanzy Seminar Series' at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Delivered on 1 February 2019, at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, ROI.
Research Interests:
Joyce structured 'Ulysses' on a trail around Dublin in 1904, and O'Brien structured one of her novels on a trail around Bilbo/Bilbao in 1922. The two writers shared a modernist sensibility, a determination to push the boundaries of what... more
Joyce structured 'Ulysses' on a trail around Dublin in 1904, and O'Brien structured one of her novels on a trail around Bilbo/Bilbao in 1922. The two writers shared a modernist sensibility, a determination to push the boundaries of what could be said in fiction, and a love for a city which inspired them throughout their lives...
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paper delivered at
'Joyce Studies Symposium/ XXIL Encuentros de la Asociación Española James Joyce'
-Bizkaia Aretoa, Bilbo/Bilbao, Euskal Herriko Unibersitatea/University of the Basque Country, Bilbo/Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. 6 April 2018.
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paper delivered at
'Joyce Studies Symposium/ XXIL Encuentros de la Asociación Española James Joyce'
-Bizkaia Aretoa, Bilbo/Bilbao, Euskal Herriko Unibersitatea/University of the Basque Country, Bilbo/Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. 6 April 2018.
Research Interests:
paper delivered at the American College Dublin, 21 Sept 2018.
Research Interests:
J.F. McCabe’s 1927 essay “Irish Time”, revisited in 2017 by artist Emily Jazir, has been taken up by a number of scholars in order to develop the notion of Dunsink Time (around half an hour behind British time) as a symbol of cultural... more
J.F. McCabe’s 1927 essay “Irish Time”, revisited in 2017 by artist Emily Jazir, has been taken up by a number of scholars in order to develop the notion of Dunsink Time (around half an hour behind British time) as a symbol of cultural difference. Claiming that Greenwich Mean Time, introduced in Ireland in 1916, “structures both a capitalist and a colonial sense of modernity”, Gregory Dobbins has argued that an interest in laziness is paradigmatic of Irish modernist literature. Oscar Wilde’s ‘early modernist’ texts provided the most deliberate and enduring appraisals of idleness in Victorianism, and his work has been read by Neil Sammells and others as an attack on Victorian ‘earnestness’. A critique of ‘efficient use of time’, however, has been in place since at least 300 BCE, in the classic Daoist texts from China. Oscar Wilde’s interest in Daoism has received little attention, despite innumerable direct and indirect references in his work. This paper considers Wildean idleness in the context of Daoist approaches to time and usefulness, with a particular emphasis on the concept of wu wei, or ‘doing without doing’. One of the main theorists of time, Henri Bergson, who from 1889 onwards became a major referent for modernist writers, was also deeply influenced by Daoism. This paper recontextualises Oscar Wilde’s radical Victorian lounging, to underline the philosophical depth and the political edge of ‘Wildean Time’.
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A.L.Mentxaka. "Oscar Wilde and Radical Victorian Lounging".
Paper delivered at the conference ‘Irish Time: Temporalities in Irish Literature and Culture’
Trinity College Dublin, 12 -13 October 2017
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A.L.Mentxaka. "Oscar Wilde and Radical Victorian Lounging".
Paper delivered at the conference ‘Irish Time: Temporalities in Irish Literature and Culture’
Trinity College Dublin, 12 -13 October 2017
Suzanne Vega has endorsed T.S.Elliot's 'Theory of Impersonality' as a formula for literary creation. Her songs are populated by non-normative characters, often poised between 'selves', and suggesting an approach to identity as a malleable... more
Suzanne Vega has endorsed T.S.Elliot's 'Theory of Impersonality' as a formula for literary creation. Her songs are populated by non-normative characters, often poised between 'selves', and suggesting an approach to identity as a malleable substance. A line from her first album is characteristic: "I will be Dietrich and you can be Dean". Although Vega's work has been neglected by literary studies, her contribution to the lyric form has been remarkable. Similarly, Suzanne Vega's advancement of gender studies has received no acknowledgement, despite the fact that her published essay on "Female Masculinity" was the first modern articulation of the term...
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essay published in the collection 'Gender and S exuality in Irish Criticism', Sharon Tighe-Mooney et al eds. Lewinston: Edwin Mellen, 2008, pp. 229-245.
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essay published in the collection 'Gender and S exuality in Irish Criticism', Sharon Tighe-Mooney et al eds. Lewinston: Edwin Mellen, 2008, pp. 229-245.
Research Interests: American Literature, American Studies, Gender Studies, Queer Studies, English Literature, and 15 moreSelf and Identity, Women's History, Performance Studies, Popular Culture, Songwriting, Twentieth Century Literature, Twentieth-Century and Contemporary Poetry, Modern Poetry, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Lyrics, Straight Queer Theory, Women and Gender Studies, Neomodernism, Multiple selves, Gender., and Theory of Impersonality (T.S.Eliot)
Pioneer experimental photographer, as well as architect, interior designer, furniture designer, metal-work designer and blacksmith, the nineteenth century artist and designer Lady Mary Rosse of Parsonstown Castle --in Birr, County Offaly,... more
Pioneer experimental photographer, as well as architect, interior designer, furniture designer, metal-work designer and blacksmith, the nineteenth century artist and designer Lady Mary Rosse of Parsonstown Castle --in Birr, County Offaly, in the Irish midlands--, could be called 'the Leonardo of Ireland', yet her accomplishments are practically unknown.
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paper delivered at the conference
‘Indoors-Outdoors, Public and Private: Women and the Big House’.
National University of Ireland (NUI) Maynooth. 16 May 2015.
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paper delivered at the conference
‘Indoors-Outdoors, Public and Private: Women and the Big House’.
National University of Ireland (NUI) Maynooth. 16 May 2015.
Research Interests:
Representations of Women in Word and Image Conference. University of Newcastle, UK. 26 May 2006.