Northern Ireland and the Politics of Boredom: Conflict, Capital and Culture

(Paperback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

This book provides a new interpretation of the Northern Irish Troubles. From internment to urban planning, the hunger strikes to post-conflict tourism, it asserts that concepts of capitalism have been consistently deployed to alleviate and exacerbate violence in the North. Through a detailed analysis of the diverse cultural texts, Legg traces the affective energies produced by capitalism's persistent attempt to resolve Northern Ireland's ethnic-national divisions: a process he calls the politics of boredom. Such an approach warrants a reconceptualization of boredom as much as cultural production. In close readings of Derek Mahon's poetry, the photography of Willie Doherty and the female experience of incarceration, Legg argues that cultural texts can delineate a more democratic - less philosophical - conception of ennui. -- .

Reviews

In that the book rethinks Northern Ireland in terms other than the established one of political divisions it is already significant. In that it focuses on a potentially progressive mode of understanding actualities which transcend old binaries it is doubly significant.
British Association for Irish Studies book prize judges, Highly Commended

Author Bio

George Legg is Lecturer in Liberal Arts and London at King's College, London