The Irish Expatriate Novel in Late Capitalist Globalization

274 Pages·2021·1.382 MB·English

by  Joe Cleary

THE IRISH EXPATRIATE NOVEL IN LATE
CAPITALIST GLOBALIZATION
This study of contemporary Irish expatriate fiction offers a boldly
original world-facing rather than nation-focused overview of the
contemporaryIrishnovel.ThechaptersexaminehowIrishnarrative
dealswiththeUnitedStatesinatimeofdecliningglobalhegemony,a
risingChinaandAsia,athwartedandturbulentGlobalSouth,anda
EuropeanUnionthathasdecisivelyreshapedIrelandinthelasthalf
century.Theauthorarguesthatinaconjuncturedefinedbyvolatile
economicandculturalglobalizations,theIrishnovelisstrugglingto
imaginenewwaystonarratethecountry’srelationshiptotheworld
capitalistsystemandtofindanewplaceforIrishwritingintheworld
literary system. Looking at a rapidly changing Ireland in a rapidly
changinginternationalorder,JoeClearyoffersnewreadingsofnovels
by Colm Tóibín, Anne Enright, Joseph O’Neill, Deirdre Madden,
Mary Costello, Naoise Dolan, Aidan Higgins, Colum McCann,
Ronan Sheehan and Ronan Bennett. The study establishes the
importance of expatriation to the development of modern Irish
fiction and opens new critical conversations about how the Irish
novelmightbestengagewiththewiderworldinthesecondquarter
ofthetwenty-firstcentury.
joe cleary is Professor of English at Yale University. He is the
author of Modernism, Empire, World Literature (2021), Outrageous
Fortune:CapitalandCultureinModernIreland(2007)andLiterature,
PartitionandtheNation-State:CultureandConflictinIreland,Israel
andPalestine(2002).HeisalsothevolumeeditorofTheCambridge
Companion to Irish Modernism (2014) and has co-edited The
CambridgeCompaniontoModernIrishCulture(2005).
Published online by Cambridge University Press
cambridge studies in twenty-first-century
literature and culture
Editor
PeterBoxall,UniversityofSussex
As the cultural environment of the twenty-first century comes into clearer focus,
CambridgeStudiesinTwenty-First-CenturyLiteratureandCulturepresentsaseries
of monographs that undertakes the most penetrating and rigorous analysis of
contemporarycultureandthought.
Theseriesisdrivenbytheperceptionthatcriticalthinkingtodayisinastateof
transition.Theglobalforcesthatproduceculturalformsareenteringintopowerful
new alignments, which demand new analytical vocabularies in the wake of later
twentieth-century theory. The series will demonstrate that theory is not simply a
failedrevolutionarygesturethatweneedtomovebeyond,butratherbringsustothe
thresholdofanewepisteme,whichwillrequirenewtheoreticalenergytonavigate.
Inthisspirit,theserieswillhostworkthatexploresthemostimportantemerging
critical contours of the twenty-first century, marrying inventive and imaginative
criticismwiththeoreticalandphilosophicalrigour.Theaimoftheserieswillbeto
produceanenduringaccountofthetwenty-first-centuryintellectuallandscapethat
willnotonlystandasarecordofthecriticalnatureofourtime,butalsoforgenew
critical languages and vocabularies with which to navigate an unfolding age. In
offering a historically rich and philosophically nuanced account of contemporary
literatureandculture,theserieswillstandasanenduringbodyofworkthathelpsus
tounderstandtheculturalmomentinwhichwelive.
InThisSeries
JoelEvans
Conceptualising the Global in the Wake of the Postmodern: Literature, Culture,
Theory
AdelineJohns-Putra
ClimateChangeandtheContemporaryNovel
CarolineEdwards
UtopiaandtheContemporaryBritishNovel
PaulCrosthwaite
TheMarketLogicsofContemporaryFiction
JenniferCooke
ContemporaryFeministLife-Writing
Published online by Cambridge University Press
GarrettStewart
Book,Text,Medium:Cross-SectionalReadingforaDigitalAge
AntonyRowland
MetamodernismandContemporaryBritishPoetry
SherrylVint
BiopoliticalFuturesinTwenty-First-CenturySpeculativeFiction
JoeCleary
TheIrishExpatriateNovelinLateCapitalistGlobalization
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Published online by Cambridge University Press
THE IRISH EXPATRIATE
NOVEL IN LATE CAPITALIST
GLOBALIZATION
JOE CLEARY
YaleUniversity
Published online by Cambridge University Press
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www.cambridge.org
Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781108833578
doi:10.1017/9781108985598
©JoeCleary2021
Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements,
noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten
permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublished2021
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
names:Cleary,Joe(JosephN.)author.
title:TheIrishexpatriatenovelinlatecapitalistglobalization/JoeCleary,YaleUniversity,
Connecticut.
description:Cambridge,UnitedKingdom;NewYork,NY:CambridgeUniversityPress,
2021.|Series:Cambridgestudiesintwenty-first-centuryliteratureandculture|Includesindex.
identifiers:lccn2021014539(print)|lccn2021014540(ebook)|isbn9781108833578
(hardback)|isbn9781108985598(ebook)
subjects:lcsh:Englishfiction–Irishauthors–Historyandcriticism.|Englishfiction–20th
century–Historyandcriticism.|Englishfiction–21stcentury–Historyandcriticism.|Expatriate
authors–Foreigncountries.|Authors,Irish–Foreigncountries.|Globalizationinliterature.
classification:lccpr8803.c582021(print)|lccpr8803(ebook)|
ddc823/.914099415–dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2021014539
LCebookrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2021014540
isbn978-1-108-83357-8Hardback
CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof
URLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication
anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,
accurateorappropriate.
Published online by Cambridge University Press
THE IRISH EXPATRIATE NOVEL IN LATE
CAPITALIST GLOBALIZATION
This study of contemporary Irish expatriate fiction offers a boldly
original world-facing rather than nation-focused overview of the
contemporaryIrishnovel.ThechaptersexaminehowIrishnarrative
dealswiththeUnitedStatesinatimeofdecliningglobalhegemony,a
risingChinaandAsia,athwartedandturbulentGlobalSouth,anda
EuropeanUnionthathasdecisivelyreshapedIrelandinthelasthalf
century.Theauthorarguesthatinaconjuncturedefinedbyvolatile
economicandculturalglobalizations,theIrishnovelisstrugglingto
imaginenewwaystonarratethecountry’srelationshiptotheworld
capitalistsystemandtofindanewplaceforIrishwritingintheworld
literary system. Looking at a rapidly changing Ireland in a rapidly
changinginternationalorder,JoeClearyoffersnewreadingsofnovels
by Colm Tóibín, Anne Enright, Joseph O’Neill, Deirdre Madden,
Mary Costello, Naoise Dolan, Aidan Higgins, Colum McCann,
Ronan Sheehan and Ronan Bennett. The study establishes the
importance of expatriation to the development of modern Irish
fiction and opens new critical conversations about how the Irish
novelmightbestengagewiththewiderworldinthesecondquarter
ofthetwenty-firstcentury.
joe cleary is Professor of English at Yale University. He is the
author of Modernism, Empire, World Literature (2021), Outrageous
Fortune:CapitalandCultureinModernIreland(2007)andLiterature,
PartitionandtheNation-State:CultureandConflictinIreland,Israel
andPalestine(2002).HeisalsothevolumeeditorofTheCambridge
Companion to Irish Modernism (2014) and has co-edited The
CambridgeCompaniontoModernIrishCulture(2005).
Published online by Cambridge University Press
cambridge studies in twenty-first-century
literature and culture
Editor
PeterBoxall,UniversityofSussex
As the cultural environment of the twenty-first century comes into clearer focus,
CambridgeStudiesinTwenty-First-CenturyLiteratureandCulturepresentsaseries
of monographs that undertakes the most penetrating and rigorous analysis of
contemporarycultureandthought.
Theseriesisdrivenbytheperceptionthatcriticalthinkingtodayisinastateof
transition.Theglobalforcesthatproduceculturalformsareenteringintopowerful
new alignments, which demand new analytical vocabularies in the wake of later
twentieth-century theory. The series will demonstrate that theory is not simply a
failedrevolutionarygesturethatweneedtomovebeyond,butratherbringsustothe
thresholdofanewepisteme,whichwillrequirenewtheoreticalenergytonavigate.
Inthisspirit,theserieswillhostworkthatexploresthemostimportantemerging
critical contours of the twenty-first century, marrying inventive and imaginative
criticismwiththeoreticalandphilosophicalrigour.Theaimoftheserieswillbeto
produceanenduringaccountofthetwenty-first-centuryintellectuallandscapethat
willnotonlystandasarecordofthecriticalnatureofourtime,butalsoforgenew
critical languages and vocabularies with which to navigate an unfolding age. In
offering a historically rich and philosophically nuanced account of contemporary
literatureandculture,theserieswillstandasanenduringbodyofworkthathelpsus
tounderstandtheculturalmomentinwhichwelive.
InThisSeries
JoelEvans
Conceptualising the Global in the Wake of the Postmodern: Literature, Culture,
Theory
AdelineJohns-Putra
ClimateChangeandtheContemporaryNovel
CarolineEdwards
UtopiaandtheContemporaryBritishNovel
PaulCrosthwaite
TheMarketLogicsofContemporaryFiction
JenniferCooke
ContemporaryFeministLife-Writing
Published online by Cambridge University Press
GarrettStewart
Book,Text,Medium:Cross-SectionalReadingforaDigitalAge
AntonyRowland
MetamodernismandContemporaryBritishPoetry
SherrylVint
BiopoliticalFuturesinTwenty-First-CenturySpeculativeFiction
JoeCleary
TheIrishExpatriateNovelinLateCapitalistGlobalization
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Published online by Cambridge University Press