Two new publications, one written by and another jointly edited by IT Sligo lecturers, were recently launched at The Book Nest at IT Sligo. Dr Rhona Trench, Lecturer in Performing Arts is author of ‘Bloody living: The less of selfhood in the plays of Marina Carr’ and and Dr Perry Share, Head of Humanities at IT Sligo is joint editor of ‘Ireland of the illusions: A sociological chronicle 2007-2008’.
The books were launched by Dr Eamonn Jordan, lecturer in Drama Studies at University College Dublin.
‘Bloody living: The less of selfhood in the plays of Marina Carr’ was written by Dr Rhona Trench, from Carrick-On-Shannon and is the first monograph on all of Carr’s published works. This book deals with the process of negotiation with the past in the present through the plays of Marina Carr. It looks at the title frames the work, connoting the path towards destruction and the sense of lethargy acquired along the way. The book offers an in-depth and extensive reading of Carr’s plays. In doing so, it surveys some of the destructive issues represented in the works and provides a series of social and cultural contexts to which the concerns in the works are related. Carr is best known for her trilogy, “The Mai”, “Portia Coughlan” and “By the Bog of Cats…”, and more recently “Woman and Scarecrow”, “The Cordelia Dream” and “Marble”. The plays are regularly concerned with notions of identity in the context of self-destruction, self-estrangement and displacement. This book applies Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection to Carr’s plays in an effort to structure the loss the author identifies in the works. Themes of memory, history and myth are examined in the context of these concerns in provocative and confrontational ways.
Dr Perry Share and Professor Mary Corcoran, National University of Ireland . Maynooth, jointly edited ‘Ireland of the illusions: A sociological chronicle 2007-2008’. The book offers a trenchant and insightful snapshot of a society moving rapidly from enchantment to disillusion. Established and upcoming Irish sociologists reflect on the recent economic crash. Why did it happen, who is to blame and how has it bled into tourism, the environment, sport and the landscape? Examining the illusory quality of Celtic Tiger Ireland, the contributors inspire us to look again at a time that encouraged mass delusion. Provocative essays scrutinise the greed underlying the housing boom, the voyeurism of the mass media, the drift towards a surveillance society, the clash between nature and society and the denial of the class and gender dimensions of social inequality.
ITSligo contributors to this book are Dr Perry Share, Dr Kate Duke, Dr Chris Sparks, Jackie O’Toole and Dr Liam Leonard.
Dr Rhona Trench (l) Lecturer in Performing Arts and Dr Perry Share, Head of Business and Humanities launching their books recently at IT Sligo.
Dr Rhona Trench(l) Lecturer in Performing Arts at IT Sligo from Carrick-On-Shannon, Co Leitrim, Playwright Marina Carr and Dr Melissa Sihra (TCD) at the Dublin launch of ‘Bloody living: The less of selfhood in the plays of Marina Carr.’
Details of books:
- Dr Rhona Trench:
Bloody living: The less of selfhood in the plays of Marina Carr. Oxford: Peter Lang. [Reimagining Ireland vol. 20]
- Dr Perry Share & Professor Mary Corcoran (NUIM) (eds)
Ireland of the illusions: A sociological chronicle 2007-2008. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. [Irish Sociological Chronicles vol. 7]
For further information contact:
Maeve McCormack
connect pr
85 Cloondara
Ballisodare
Co Sligo
Ireland
Ph: 00 353 (0)71 913 0484
Mob: 00 353 (0)86 317 2161
Email: connectpr@nulleircom.net