Whenever I travel, I always visit local bookstores. Even if I don’t purchase a book, I do this because I want to see what books they have available and I also want to see what books I may add to my to be read pile. During our study travel trip to Belfast, I must have walked into around fifteen bookstores, ranging from new books … Read More Reading Jan Carson’s “The Fire Starters” While in Belfast
When preparing students for our trip to Belfast, I told them to pay close attention to the murals, graffiti, stickers, and the language that they would encounter during our walks through the cities. Specifically, I told them to pay particular attention to the ways that republicans present solidarity with global struggles around the world, specifically with the Palestinian struggle. So, before we even arrived … Read More Two Nations, One Struggle: Irish and Palestinian Solidarity
Throughout Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses, language plays an important role in the ways that it defines individuals and creates divisions even where similarities exist. During a session with Michel Agnew and his friends, Cushla teaches them Irish. One of Michael’s friends, Victor, goads Cushla into teaching him the Irish words that would denigrate her as a Catholic, Irish speaker. He tells her, “There are lots of … Read More Language and the Crafting of Anger and Fear
+ Belfast, gaza, hip hop, John Conroy, kneecap, Northern Ireland, Palestine, rap
As I prepared to teach my study travel course on identity in Belfast and before I arrived, I had a preconceived notion, of course, about the places I would visit and what I would encounter. Most of these impressions, apart from the things that my daughter told me about her time in Belfast, came from either academics, novelists, or popular culture, music being a big part … Read More The Ways that the Past Impacts the Present: Personas and Identity
Near the end of Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast (2021), a coming-of-age story set at the start of The Troubles in Belfast, the nine-year-old protagonist Buddy talks with his grandfather at the hospital. During their conversation, Buddy tells his grandfather that his family may move “over the water” because his dad found work in England; however, his mom tells him that if they move there then the English … Read More Identity in Contested Space: The Troubles and the Invisible Border Syllabus
Interminable Rambling 