Contemporary Irish Republican Prison Writing Writing and Resistance [Hardcover]

As it traces the textual history of the works of authors like Bobby Sands and Gerry Adams, this book analyses Republican resistance to disciplinary structures, demonstrating the ways in which prisoners appropriate space through discursive strategies.Introduction: Taoibh Amuigh agus Faoi Ghlas: The Counter-aesthetics of Republican Prison Writing Our Barbed Wire Ivory Tower : The Cages of Long Kesh Comrades in the Dark : Writing in the H Blocks, 19761981 Silence or Cell? : Women Writing in Armagh, Maghaberry, and Durham Captive Voices : Post-1981 Republican Prison Writing Postscript: You Look Like Jesus Christ : Images of Republican POWs in Contemporary Cinema

An original study. In addition to using his readings of prison literature to highlight the continuing influence of a subtly conservative modernist aesthetic within the academy, Whalen also refutes elements of the poststructural theory that has represented new criticism s most widely-accepted alternative, rejecting in particular poststructuralism s pessimism concerning the possibility of human agency. Whalen s readings are superb; he deftly balances descriptions of the overall pieces he explicates, the historical and material conditions under which they were created, and the telling details on which he founds his surprisingly weighty arguments. - Margot Backus, University of Houston

LACHLAN WHALEN is Assistant Professor of English at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, USA.