WiSe 23/24: S-Culture-Gender-Media: Contested Borders and Contested Identities in Northern Ireland
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Since the Brexit vote in 2016, Northern Ireland and its border to the Republic of Ireland has been heavily debated. This occurred for the first time since the region saw the end of the armed conflict between Irish Nationalists and British Unionists in 1998 through the Good Friday Agreement. Much of the Brexit deal between Great Britain and the EU hinged on the successful negotiation of the border issues on the island of Ireland as a reintroduction of the hard border could have easily led to a re-escalation of a relatively settled conflict due to the border’s contested nature within the Nationalist community. The rejection of a hard border however currently means that the Irish Sea is the border between Britain and the EU. For many Unionists this poses a threat to the position of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom – something that they have tried to maintain for more than a century. These uncertainties about the border(s) have reignited debates about sectarian divisions and indirectly led to the collapse of the Northern Irish Executive that still remains to be restored. Simultaneously, Irish Unity is also being discussed as an option on both sides of the border. The discourse about the border(s) has underlined once more that sectarian division between Nationalists and Unionists is not only not entirely overcome but also quickly stoked through slightest instabilities.
This seminar will discuss boundaries and borders that are still contested in Northern Ireland and show its impact and interrelation with contestations of Irishness, Britishness, Northern Irishness and other forms of collective national and political identities. We will be closely examining cultural expressions that emerged from post-GFA Northern Ireland and that portray the contested nature of collective identities and spatial boundaries and borders between the communities. In these discussions, we will be drawing on cultural theories on collective identity and memory, spatiality and postcolonialism.
A reader with secondary literature will be provided on Blackboard. The films and TV series that will be discussed in this seminar will have to be accessed and viewed by the students as a preparation for the sessions. Students will be assessed in this seminar based on regular attendance, active participation and the submission of a final term paper.
close16 Class schedule
Regular appointments