NEW BOOK: James Joyce, Rural Ireland and Modernity – Beyond the Pale

New Publications

Niall Ó Cuileagáin | Edinburgh University Press

The first book-length study to consider Joyce’s portrayal of rural Ireland across his oeuvre

  • Offers deep studies of Joyce’s depiction of contemporary political debates, the Irish peasantry, rural influences in Dublin, and journeys to rural Ireland
  • Adopts an interdisciplinary approach through its interaction with criticism relating to postcolonialism, cultural geography, ecocriticism, and rural studies
  • Centres the rural experience of modernity within modernist studies

James Joyce, Rural Ireland, and Modernity: Beyond the Pale offers a fundamental reappraisal of the dominant Dublin-centric readings of James Joyce by delving into his depiction of rural Ireland. The title takes its name from ‘the Pale’, the area around Dublin that has historically been most subject to British influence. As the first full-length study of its kind, it shows how Joyce, often considered the urban modernist par excellence, in fact went beyond this particular pale in his work. This monograph takes its place alongside other recent criticism relating to ‘alternative modernities’ by foregrounding rurality as a vital context to any discussion of modernity. An inherently interdisciplinary work, this book draws on theories relating to postcolonialism, ecocriticism and cultural geography, and includes chapters on cosmopolitanism/provincialism, the Irish peasantry, Dublin’s semi-rurality, and Joyce’s literal and literary journeys west.

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Niall Ó Cuileagáin is from the west of Ireland and is currently a Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow at Maynooth University. His research has been published in James Joyce in Italy, the Dublin James Joyce Journal and the Review of Irish Studies in Europe.In 2020, he co-edited the ‘Nostalgia’ issue of Moveable Type, the UCL English Department’s peer-reviewed journal. Beyond Joyce, his other research interests centre around Irish literature of the twentieth century more broadly, particularly as relating to rural matters.