An Chomhairle um Thaighde sna Dána agus sna hEolaíochtaí Sóisialta
Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences
GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND RESEARCH PROJECT GRANTS
IN THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
IN THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
Description of project
This project has three broad aims:
· to examine how outside influences helped to invent and reinvent women’s perceptions of their gender and national identity in the time period, 1750-2006
· to interrogate the relationship between personal, national and global forces in the formation of women’s identity
· to explore the interaction between social and cultural change
The first part of the project will involve research into the non-Irish literature read by women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, much of which was imported from England or the continent. A particular focus will be on two types of literature: the expanding prescriptive and religious literature of the period and the increasing number of newspapers, journals and magazines that addressed women readers and were clearly modelled on or borrowed heavily from English printed material. In the eighteenth century, this literature was read largely by Protestant women but by the first half of the nineteenth century, Catholic middle class women also began to read similar material. Through an examination of manuscript correspondence and diaries the project will aim to explore the reaction of women to their reading material and the impact it had on their self-perception and sense of identity.
By the end of the nineteenth century, a second major external cultural influence was apparent. The ‘idea of America’ was an established part of the Irish mentality and a number of sources informed the popular image and understanding of it. The first and perhaps most significant one was emigration. Through the use of folklore material, letters, newspapers, magazines, official records and later oral history and film, the second part of this project will examine how ideas and information about America filtered back to Ireland. A further aspect of this ‘return tide’ will be to examine the impact which the returned female emigrant had on gender behaviour in her local community. Building on an existing oral history study by Dr Whelan, it is intended to examine how Irish women reacted to ‘American’ ideas and practices and whether it informed their behaviour and their gender and national identities.
These themes will be traced from 1960-2005 through an analysis of external influences on the proliferation of Irish women’s cultural production. It will draw on work completed for the Women in Modern Irish Culture database which has identified a much broader range of cultural production by women in the period 1960-2005 than has informed previous analyses. It will take two case studies which the data indicates challenge existing paradigms for an understanding of the socio-cultural identity of Irish women. The study will compare the role of the UK based Channel 4 in the nineteen eighties and the EU Media project in the 1990s in the funding of work by Irish women for an international audience, focussing on the opportunities offered as well the restraints consequent upon external funding. While the responses of Irish women film-makers to this context is apparent in the work identified by the Women in Modern Irish Culture database, a much more detailed analysis of the impact of experimental and political film-making by women outside of Ireland needs to be undertaken. and the role of training abroad in the formation of style and content of Irish women’s films. The second case history will look at the role will look at the role of literary journals in the dissemination of work by women from abroad in Ireland between 1960 and 2005. This case history will analyse the dual identity of the Irish writer/woman writer and its impact on the re-invention of personal, gender and national identity in the contemporary period.
Resources to be available online:
Digital archive: Oral History interviews currently being created
Database
· to examine how outside influences helped to invent and reinvent women’s perceptions of their gender and national identity in the time period, 1750-2006
· to interrogate the relationship between personal, national and global forces in the formation of women’s identity
· to explore the interaction between social and cultural change
The first part of the project will involve research into the non-Irish literature read by women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, much of which was imported from England or the continent. A particular focus will be on two types of literature: the expanding prescriptive and religious literature of the period and the increasing number of newspapers, journals and magazines that addressed women readers and were clearly modelled on or borrowed heavily from English printed material. In the eighteenth century, this literature was read largely by Protestant women but by the first half of the nineteenth century, Catholic middle class women also began to read similar material. Through an examination of manuscript correspondence and diaries the project will aim to explore the reaction of women to their reading material and the impact it had on their self-perception and sense of identity.
By the end of the nineteenth century, a second major external cultural influence was apparent. The ‘idea of America’ was an established part of the Irish mentality and a number of sources informed the popular image and understanding of it. The first and perhaps most significant one was emigration. Through the use of folklore material, letters, newspapers, magazines, official records and later oral history and film, the second part of this project will examine how ideas and information about America filtered back to Ireland. A further aspect of this ‘return tide’ will be to examine the impact which the returned female emigrant had on gender behaviour in her local community. Building on an existing oral history study by Dr Whelan, it is intended to examine how Irish women reacted to ‘American’ ideas and practices and whether it informed their behaviour and their gender and national identities.
These themes will be traced from 1960-2005 through an analysis of external influences on the proliferation of Irish women’s cultural production. It will draw on work completed for the Women in Modern Irish Culture database which has identified a much broader range of cultural production by women in the period 1960-2005 than has informed previous analyses. It will take two case studies which the data indicates challenge existing paradigms for an understanding of the socio-cultural identity of Irish women. The study will compare the role of the UK based Channel 4 in the nineteen eighties and the EU Media project in the 1990s in the funding of work by Irish women for an international audience, focussing on the opportunities offered as well the restraints consequent upon external funding. While the responses of Irish women film-makers to this context is apparent in the work identified by the Women in Modern Irish Culture database, a much more detailed analysis of the impact of experimental and political film-making by women outside of Ireland needs to be undertaken. and the role of training abroad in the formation of style and content of Irish women’s films. The second case history will look at the role will look at the role of literary journals in the dissemination of work by women from abroad in Ireland between 1960 and 2005. This case history will analyse the dual identity of the Irish writer/woman writer and its impact on the re-invention of personal, gender and national identity in the contemporary period.
Resources to be available online:
Digital archive: Oral History interviews currently being created
Database
3 April 2008
Conference Presentation made to Image and Reality: Women in 19th and 20th Century Ireland
second annual Women's History conference at Queen's University, Belfast.
Participants : Professor Gerardine Meaney; Dr. Susan Cahill; Professor Mary O' Dowd; Dr. Bernadette Whelan; Dr. Catherine O' Connor.