Please note that this event takes place in Dublin. Times are in GMT.
The Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies invites you to the launch of Early Deane: Essays on Irish Literature, Culture and Politics by Seamus Deane, published by Cambridge University Press.
The collection will be formally launched by editor Maurice Fitzpatrick (Marie Curie Fellow, Sciences Po Paris) and Stephen Rea (Field Day). Speakers will include Prof. Declan Kiberd (University of Notre Dame), Prof. Emer Nolan (Maynooth University), and John Banville.
RSVP Here
About the book
Seamus Deane combined academic rigour with an expressive style that was characterised by both passion and commitment.
Without losing any scholarly precision or acuity, he succeeded in engaging broader audiences in some of the key debates of his time. These included: the role of culture in creating political structures and conflict; the responsibility of artists, particularly writers, to articulate alternatives; and the need to think beyond Northern Ireland’s political stalemate and imagine a New Ireland.
This essential book brings together for the first time Deane’s early writings and demonstrates his continuing relevance. It shows his mastery of Irish literature and the striking originality of his readings of canonical texts as well as of contemporary writers.
It will delight all those already familiar with Deane’s unique voice, while also engaging a fresh generation of readers who will encounter here one of the great literary stylists of the island of Ireland.
About Seamus Deane
Seamus Deane (9 February 1940 - 12 May 2021) was one of Ireland's foremost writers, critics, and intellectuals for over 50 years. At the University of Notre Dame, he was Professor of English and the Donald and Marilyn Keough Professor of Irish Studies.
When long-time benefactors to Notre Dame Donald and Marilyn Keough gave a generous endowment to the University to establish an Irish Studies program, they also endowed a chair—initially held by Professor Deane—who came from Ireland to Notre Dame in 1993 to join English faculty member Christopher Fox. This was the beginning of Notre Dame's program in Irish studies.
Professor Deane taught both on the Notre Dame home campus and at the Keough Naughton Notre Dame Centre in Dublin (now Notre Dame Dublin). He was a member of the Royal Irish Academy, a founding director of the Field Day Theatre Company, the general editor of the Penguin Joyce, and the author of several books, including A Short History of Irish Literature; Celtic Revivals: Essays in Modern Irish Literature; The French Revolution and Enlightenment in England, Small World: Ireland, 1798-2018, and Strange Country: Modernity and Nationhood in Irish Writing since 1790, the last based on his Clarendon Lectures at Oxford. Professor Deane also edited the monumental Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing in three volumes, and published four books of poetry and a novel, Reading in the Dark, which has been translated into more than 20 languages. He was also general editor of a series, "Critical Conditions," published by Field Day, Cork University Press and the University of Notre Dame Press. His book, Foreign Affections: Essays on Edmund Burke (2004), is volume 15 of that series. He co-edited, with Krzysztof Ziarek, a collection of essays, Future Crossings: Literature Between Philosophy and Cultural Studies and, along with Breandán Mac Suibhne, the annual Irish Studies journal, The Field Day Review.
For commentary on the life and legacy of Seamus Deane, please see Seamus Deane: In Memoriam.
Originally published at dublin.nd.edu.