Text Matters No. 8 (2018)

Issue 8 (2018) of Text Matters is a collection of texts on diverse topics within literary and cultural studies, focusing on Ireland and including the literary explorations of American and Canadian identities. The main section, “Engaging Ireland: History, Politics and Aesthetics,” edited by Wit Pietrzak, features essays critically examining Irish history and culture through literary analysis. Among the articles in this section, we can find the analysis of Kevin McCarthy’s Peeler as a post revisionist novel, a re-evaluation of George Moore’s role in the Gaelic Revival, as well as articles on Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn, Jamie O’Neill’s At Swim, Two Boys, Michael Longley’s poetry, the connection between gender issues, Irish poetry, and the Troubles, Frank Ormsby’s poems on war and soldiers in A Northern Spring, Samuel Beckett’s oeuvre, the Charabanc collective’s Somewhere over the Balcony, and the coverage of the Irish Famine in the American press. The “Continuities” section concentrates on the portrayal of Jews in Chester Mystery Cycle plays, Alan Spence’s play No Nothing, and the construction of otherness in modern sci-fi cinema. Articles in “Engaging American Identities” concern the artistic connection between Hart Crane and David Siqueiros, the General Council of the Chippewa’s governance structure blending traditional and American systems, the representation of oppressive whiteness in Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress, the political potential of parataxis and Ron Silliman’s New Sentence in disrupting conventional narratives, the perpetuation of white male supremacy through economic exploitation of black domestics as seen in V. F. Durr’s memoirs, Laila Lalami’s novel The Moor’s Account, the literary experience of childhood and nostalgia, Josefina Niggli’s Mexican Village exploring Mexican culture and border narratives through folklore, the concept of simulacrum in American art and photography, and the notion of hyperreality and the antihero in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. Finally, the “Canadiana” part discusses the works of Timothy Findley and Audrey Thomas. The issue concludes with three reviews (of John Berryman’s Public Vision by Philip Coleman; Barry Shiels’s W. B. Yeats and World Literature: The Subject of Poetry; and Stewart Parker’s Hopdance), as well as Jadwiga Uchman’s interview with Jan Jędrzejewski.

ENGAGING IRELAND: HISTORY, POLITICS AND AESTHETICS Michael McAteer (Péter Pázmány Catholic University, Budapest) Post-revisionism: Conflict (Ir)resolution and the Limits of Ambivalence in Kevin McCarthy’s Peeler Joanna Jarząb-Napierała (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań) “No Country for Old Men”? The Question of George Moore’s Place in the Early Twentieth-Century Literature of Ireland Camelia Raghinaru (Concordia University, Irvine) Recessive Action in Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn Jarosław Milewski (University of Łódź) Masculinities, History and Cultural Space: Queer Emancipative Thought in Jamie O’Neill’s At Swim, Two Boys Przemysław Michalski (Pedagogical University of Kraków) Michael Longley and Birds Katarzyna Ostalska (University of Łódź) “Soldier Dolls, Little Adulteresses, Poor Scapegoats, Betraying Sisters and Perfect Meat”: The Gender of the Early Phase of the Troubles and the Politics of Punishments against Women in Contemporary Irish Poetry Karolina Marzec (University of Łódź) Death of the Soldier and Immortality of War in Frank Ormsby’s A Northern Spring Jadwiga Uchman (PWSZ Płock) Blindness in the Beckettland of Malfunctioning Katarzyna Ojrzyńska (University of Łódź) Defying Maintenance Mimesis: The Case of Somewhere over the Balcony by Charabanc Theatre Company Paweł Hamera (Pedagogical University of Kraków) “The Heart of this People is in its right place”: The American Press and Private Charity in the United States during the Irish Famine CONTINUITIES Joanna Matyjaszczyk (University of Łódź) The Conflicting Traditions of Portraying the Jewish People in the Chester Mystery Cycle Monika Kocot (University of Łódź) The Whittrick Play of No Nothing: Alan Spence, Edwin Morgan, and Indra’s Net Isabella Hermann (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities) Boundaries and Otherness in Science Fiction: We Cannot Escape the Human Condition ENGAGING AMERICAN IDENTITIES Alicja Piechucka (University of Łódź) Art (and) Criticism: Hart Crane and David Siqueiros Anna Krausová (Charles University, Prague) The First Constitutional Government of the Minnesota Anishinaabeg Klara Szmańko (Opole University) Oppressive Faces of Whiteness in Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress Paweł Kaczmarski (University of Wrocław) The New Sentence: June Jordan and the Politics of Parataxis Susana María Jiménez-Placer (University of Santiago de Compostela) Outside the Magic Circle of White Male Supremacy in the Jim Crow South: Virginia Foster Durr’s Memoirs Zbigniew Maszewski (University of Łódź) Cabeza de Vaca, Estebanico, and the Language of Diversity in Laila Lalami’s The Moor’s Account Niklas Salmose (Linnaeus University, Växjö) “A past that has never been present”: The Literary Experience of Childhood and Nostalgia Jadwiga Maszewska (University of Łódź) Mexican Village: Josefina Niggli’s Border Crossing Narrative David Allen (Midland Actors Theatre, UK), Agata Handley (University of Łódź) “The Most Photographed Barn in America”: Simulacra of the Sublime in American Art and Photography Abdolali Yazdizadeh (University of Tehran) The Catch of the Hyperreal: Yossarian and the Ideological Vicissitudes of Hyperreality CANADIANA Sherrill Grace (University of British Columbia, Vancouver) Timothy Findley, His Biographers, and The Piano Man’s Daughter Dorota Filipczak (University of Łódź) Transvestite M(other) in the Canadian North: Isobel Gunn by Audrey Thomas REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS Anna Warso (University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw) Songs of America: A Review of John Berryman’s Public Vision by Philip Coleman (Dublin: UCD P, 2014) Wit Pietrzak (University of Łódź) Yeats, Incorrigibly Plural. A Review of Barry Shiels’s W. B. Yeats and World Literature: The Subject of Poetry (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015) Katarzyna Ojrzyńska (University of Łódź) “Disability demands a story”: A Review of Stewart Parker’s Hopdance (ed. Marilynn Richtarik, Dublin: Lilliput, 2017) Building Bridges: From Łódź to Ulster and Back Jadwiga Uchman Interviews Jan Jędrzejewski