Partners in Practice: Contemporary Irish Literature, World Literature and Digital Humanities

This dissertation examines the opportunities and implications afforded Irish literary studies by developments in the newly emergent disciplines of world literature and the digital humanities. Employing the world literature theories of Wai Chee Dimock, David Damrosch, Franco Moretti and Pascale Casanova in the critical analysis of works of contemporary Irish literature and Irish literary criticism produced in the period 1998-2010, it investigates how these theoretical approaches can generate new perspectives on Irish literature and argues that the real “problem” of world literature as it relates to Irish literary studies lies in establishing an interpretive method which enables considerations of the national within a global framework. This problem serves as the entry point to the engagement with the digital humanities presented throughout the dissertation. Situated within debates surrounding modes of “close” and “distant reading” (Moretti 2000) as they are played out in both the fields of world literature and digital literary studies, this work proposes an alternative digital humanities approach to the study of world literature to the modes of “distant reading” endorsed by literary critic, Franco Moretti and digital humanists such as Alan Liu (Liu 2012). Through a series of interdisciplinary case studies combining national and international, close and distant and old and new modes of literary scholarship, it argues that, rather than being opposed to a nationally-orientated form of literary criticism, the digital humanities have the tools and the methodologies necessary to bring Irish literary scholarship into a productive dialogue with perspectives from elsewhere and thus, to engender a form of Irish literary scholarship that transcends while not denying the significance of the nation state. By illustrating the manner in which the digital humanities can be employed to enhance and extend traditional approaches in Irish literary studies, this project demonstrates that Irish studies and the digital humanities can be “practicing partners” in a way that serves to advance work in both the fields of world literature and digital literary studies.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

National University of Ireland Maynooth

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Howell, Sonia

Language dc:language

en