The multiplicity of interpretations available in the word 'passages' is engaged with in this collection of essays that perceptively navigate the ideas of literal and metaphorical crossings, sites of liminality and interstitial zones, the traversal of boundaries and the complex notion of rites and rights of passage. This passages topic is elucidated through discussions on writers as diverse as James Joyce and the Palestinian poet Tawfiq S?ayigh and genres that include the novel, short story, poetry and drama. The diversity of texts is matched by a diversity of theoretical readings that stimulate debate around central ideas such as: how are old texts revisited and re-imagined in the context of new theories? How do contemporary texts re-appropriate the past to critically appraise the present? How is identity renegotiated in cross-cultural texts and in translations? The combination of close textual readings with broader philosophical and cultural deliberations allows for a vigorous examination of texts and theories. The authors, in capturing the cultural moment of their work while acknowledging the ongoing movement of the texts and theory, allow the reader to both contextualise the work and recognise the creative evolution of ideas that are simultaneously at play. Academically orientated, this collection is essential reading for anyone interested in changing theoretical ideas and how they are re-invigorating a reading of literature. It will be of interest especially to students and scholars of English literature, philosophy and cultural studies. Its close textual analysis and multiple perspectives will also make it a very useful classroom text in the aforementioned areas.
About the Author: Dr. Maeve Tynan lectures in the Department of Language and Cultural Studies, University of Limerick. Her research focuses on postcolonial theory, contemporary Caribbean poetry and Irish studies. Her current book Postcolonial Odysseys: Derek Walcott and Romare Bearden is forthcoming (2009). Dr. Maria Beville teaches at the Institute of Language, Literature and Culture at Aarhus University, Denmark. She completed her Ph.D in 2008 on the aesthetic concept of terror in literature, at Mary Immaculate College. Her research focus is mainly on Gothic and postmodern fictions. She is the Co-Director of the Centre for Studies in Otherness and author of Gothic-postmodernism: Voicing the Terrors of Postmodernity (Rodopi 2009). Dr. Marita Ryan graduated in English from Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick where she has taught for two years. Her areas of research and teaching specialisation include contemporary Irish fiction, film and drama, French feminist theory, cultural theory and postmodern theory.