“His soul is marching on”: Suppressing John Brown in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead Elizabeth Abele Articles The trail across the sky retraces periodically, for as a universal force, outside of history, Brown is an archetype or prototype, a meteor that recurs comet-like. John Stauffer and Zoe Trodd (123) In The Pres... Read More...
Vision as Creation and Alternative: The Role of the Author Function in Marilynne Robinson’s Plural Text Gospels of Gilead Daniel Muhlestein Articles And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; Joel 2:28... Read More...
The Nature of the Horizon: Genealogy in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead Adrianna Smith Articles The structural and literary symbolism of the horizon/horizontality is one of the most powerful and versatile devices in Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead (2004). From an organizational perspective, Robinson car... Read More...
Unaffected: Marilynne Robinson’s Postmodern Sentimentalism Lisa Mendelman Articles The opening lines to Marilynne Robinson’s 1980 novel Housekeeping famously locate the novel in two literary genealogies. Evoking the opener of Melville’s Moby Dick (1851) and invoking the Biblical figure of com... Read More...
“The Empty Mirror”: Selfhood and the Utility of Language in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping Andrew Cunning Articles We remain unknown to ourselves. Nieztsche, On the Genealogy of Morals 3. Nietzsche places this declaration right at the beginning of his Genealogy of Morals (1887) as an unequivocal statement of fac... Read More...
Those Same Trees: Narrative Sequence and Simultaneity in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead Novels Rachel Sykes Articles In 2014, the publication of Marilynne Robinson’s fourth novel, Lila, completed a trilogy of books set in the small fictional town of Gilead, Iowa. The Pulitzer-prize-winning Gilead (2004) first tells the story... Read More...
Democracy, and Other Fictions: On the Politics of Robinson’s Non-Fiction Tim Jelfs Articles Since the publication of her first novel, Housekeeping (1980), Marilynne Robinson has built up a large body of non-fiction that sits beside, and in dialogue with, her fiction. Even before her environmentalist p... Read More...
(Sub)merged Worlds in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping Kelsie Donnelly Articles Highly commended entry to the 2016 W.T.M Riches Essay Prize This essay explores the (sub)merged worlds depicted in Marilynne Robinson’s novel Housekeeping (1980). Applying psychoanalytic conceptualisations of ... Read More...
Thirty-Six-Point Perpetua: John Updike’s Personal Essays in the Later Years Sue Norton and Laurence W. Mazzeno Articles Laurence W. Mazzeno (Alvernia University) Sue Norton (Dublin Institute of Technology) Posterity In his Preface to Due Considerations (2007), John Updike tells us that when he was a very young... Read More...
Winner of the 2015 WTM Riches Essay Prize: Diagnosing Kurt Vonnegut: A Response to Susanne Vees-Gulani on the Subject of Slaughterhouse-Five Ciarán Kavanagh Articles Ciarán Kavanagh University College Cork In “Diagnosing Billy Pilgrim: A Psychiatric Approach to Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five,” Susanne Vees-Gulani proffers a systematic analysis of the exp... Read More...
Consuming Beauty: Mass-Market Magazines and Make-up in the 1920s Rachael Alexander Articles Consuming Beauty: Mass-Market Magazines and Make-up in the 1920s Rachael Alexander University of Strathclyde Now, it would be an overstatement to insist that the art of living is exclusively un... Read More...
“No such thing as a ‘Canadian'”: Memory, Place, and Identity in Mavis Gallant’s Linnet Muir Stories Kate Smyth Articles “No such thing as a ‘Canadian’”: Memory, Place, and Identity in Mavis Gallant’s Linnet Muir Stories Kate Smyth Trinity College Dublin Introduction In Mavis Gallant’s six Linnet Muir storie... Read More...
“To Make For Myself a Person”: Immigrant Identities in Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers Katie Ahern Articles “To Make For Myself a Person”: Immigrant Identities in Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers Katie Ahern University College Cork Anzia Yezierska was a Jewish-American writer, most popular in the 1920s, and be... Read More...
The Poetics of the Sentence: Examining Gordon Lish’s Literary Legacy Tim Groenland Articles The Poetics of the Sentence: Examining Gordon Lish’s Literary Legacy Tim Groenland Trinity College Dublin In September 2008, Gary Lutz, author of several collections of short fiction, delivered a lectu... Read More...
“She it was to whom ads were dedicated”: Materialism, Materiality and the Feminine in Nabokov’s Lolita Laura Rose Byrne Articles “She it was to whom ads were dedicated”: Materialism, Materiality and the Feminine in Nabokov’s Lolita. Laura Rose Byrne Trinity College Dublin In a 1967 interview with his former student and future an... Read More...
WTM Riches Essay Prizewinner: The Search for a Mother in Toni Morrison’s Paradise Sarah Cullen Articles The WTM Riches Essay Prize was established in 2004 to recognise and reward high-quality work being done by younger scholars in many of the areas that are covered by the term “American Studies,” including histor... Read More...
Last Vegas? Philip McGowan Articles Last Vegas? Philip McGowan (Queen’s University Belfast) This article, and the research out of which it springs, has a number of points of origin; it may also have more than one point of conclusion even as it... Read More...
ALAN GRAHAM MEMORIAL LECTURE: Politics and Principle: Jimmy Carter in the Civil Rights Era Robert A. Strong Articles ALAN GRAHAM MEMORIAL LECTURE Politics and Principle: Jimmy Carter in the Civil Rights Era Robert A. Strong Washington and Lee University April 25, 2014 To listen to the lecture click here There is a f... Read More...
“This is said on tiptoe”: Stanley Cavell and the Writing of Philosophy Áine Mahon Articles “This is said on tiptoe”: Stanley Cavell and the Writing of Philosophy Áine Mahon University College Dublin Introduction So we are here, knowing they are “gone to burning hell”, she with a lie on her lips,... Read More...
“E Unibus Pluram”: David Foster Wallace and the Voices of a Fragmented Nation Clare Hayes-Brady Articles “E Unibus Pluram”: the short story and the voices of a fragmented nation. Ignite article, IJAS online 2 One of the truisms of American studies seems to be the intrepid historylessness of the United States. De... Read More...
“Emily Grimes is me”: Anxiety, Feminism, and the Masculinity Crisis in Richard Yates’s The Easter Parade Jennifer Daly Articles “Emily Grimes is me”: Anxiety, Feminism, and the Masculinity Crisis in Richard Yates’s The Easter Parade Jennifer Daly Trinity College Dublin In 1975, Richard Yates published what was widely considered... Read More...
Real Journeys of the Imagination: Carson McCullers and Ireland Rebecca Pelan Articles Real Journeys of the Imagination: Carson McCullers and Ireland Rebecca Pelan University College Dublin American author Carson McCullers visited Ireland three times. The first two visits were to the ancestral... Read More...
Tributes to Emory Elliott (1942-2009) Louise Walsh Articles Tributes to Emory Elliott (1942-2009): Compiled and introduced by Louise Walsh
What if the Government Schooling Campaigns (1820s-1920s) to Americanize the Indians and to Anglicize the Irish had never taken place? Michael C. Coleman Articles What if the Government Schooling Campaigns to Americanize the Indians and to Anglicize the Irish had never taken place?
Crooning, Catering, and Changing Careers: Anne Tyler’s and Don Cherry’s Bands (and Bonds) of Gold Cecilia Donohue Articles Crooning, Catering, and Changing Careers: Anne Tyler’s and Don Cherry’s Bands (and Bonds) of Gold
[R]epeat, repeat, repeat; revise, revise, revise Gillian Groszewski Articles [R]epeat, repeat, repeat; revise, revise, revise: Robert Lowell’s Elegiac Poetry
David Foster Wallace: the Death of the Author and the Birth of a Discipline Adam Kelly Articles David Foster Wallace: the Death of the Author and the Birth of a Discipline
“Tierra entre medio”: Borderlands of Knowledge in the Art of Frida Kahlo Melanie Otto Articles “Tierra entre medio”: Borderlands of Knowledge in the Art of Frida Kahlo
Rubbish: Don DeLillo’s Wastelands Margaret Robson Articles DeLillo’s Underworld is one of the most celebrated of all modern American novels, and perhaps the most complex. This complexity is a product of its extraordinarily precise yet oblique chronological structure, which, in its attempt to account for the entire second-half of the twentieth-century, has challenged all its readers, confused many of them, and alienated some.
“I Wish I had Some Indian Blood”: Hemingway’s Primitivism and the Ojibwa Pimadaziwin Paradigm Peter Rooney Articles “I Wish I had Some Indian Blood”: Hemingway’s Primitivism and the Ojibwa Pimadaziwin Paradigm
Tap Dancing on the Racial Boundary Hannah Durkin Articles “Tap Dancing on the Racial Boundary”: Racial Representation and Artistic Experimentation in Bill “Bojangles” Robinson’s Stormy Weather Performance
Delmore Schwartz’s Genesis and ‘international consciousness’ Alex Runchman Articles Delmore Schwartz’s Genesis and ‘international consciousness’
Imagined America: Walt Whitman’s Nationalism in the First Edition of Leaves of Grass Nathanael OReilly Articles Nathanael O'Reilly Critics often describe Walt Whitman as America’s national poet, and many have concerned themselves with how Whitman came to hold such a position in American and global culture; however, fe... Read More...
“If there is such a literature”: Thoughts on Teaching American Literature in Ireland / Irish Literature in America Peggy OBrien Articles “If there is such a literature”: Thoughts on Teaching American Literature in Ireland / Irish Literature in America
Invented Irishness: The Americanization of Irish Identity in the Works of Joseph O’Connor Aoileann Ni Eigeartaigh Articles Invented Irishness: The Americanization of Irish Identity in the Works of Joseph O’Connor
“Irish by descent”? Marianne Moore’s American-Irish Inheritance Tara Stubbs Articles “Irish by descent”? Marianne Moore’s American-Irish Inheritance
“Why Don’t You Write About America?” Victoria Kennefick Articles Frank O'Connor's Representations of Relations between Ireland and America
Jazz, Identity and Sexuality in Ireland during the Interwar Years Johannah Duffy Articles Jazz, Identity and Sexuality in Ireland during the Interwar Years
