Drew University

Irish/Irish-American Studies is offered as an academic concentration for students enrolled in Drew’s Arts & Letters and History & Culture graduate programs. Arts & Letters is an interdisciplinary program created for those who have a passionate love of learning but do not wish to be limited to one academic discipline. History & Culture is a program in modern intellectual and cultural history in which students are encouraged to augment their study of the past by enrolling in courses in other disciplines as well. The interdisciplinary approach in both programs to the study of history, literature and culture is one of the great strengths of the Irish/Irish-American Studies curriculum.

Ireland offers itself as both a necessary and rewarding area for such interdisciplinary intellectual inquiry. Irish scholars, playwrights, novelists, poets, and critics – from St. Patrick and Sir Boyle Roche to James Joyce and Daniel O’Connell – have made outstanding contributions to the humanities.

The study of Irish and Irish-American history, literature and culture provides students with an understanding of Ireland’s historical experience; its colonial past in relation to England; its contribution to literature, both ancient and modern; its far-reaching effect in the modern world; and its dual language tradition and rival national narratives. Irish/Irish-American Studies at Drew thus offers a portal through which the humanities can be explored.

Degrees Conferred

Arts and Letters: M.Litt and D.Litt.

History and Culture: M.A. and Ph.D.

Conferences

In addition to regularly hosting Irish Studies conferences (recent conferences held on campus includ “Revising the Rising,” “The Construction of Irish-American Identity,” and the ACIS Mid-Atlantic regional conference), the Irish/Irish-American Studies program at Drew University hosts an annual conference in Bundoran, in County Donegal.

This conference is a wonderful opportunity for our students to go beyond simply reading about Ireland and experience first hand many aspects of Irish life and Irish culture. The conference allows students to interact with some of the leading Irish Studies scholars from Ireland and the United States in both an academic environment and in informal and friendly gatherings. Students in the Irish/Irish-American Studies program are strongly encouraged to attend this conference at least once during their time at Drew.

Courses

The Ancient Celtic World
British and Irish Spirituality in the Age of St. Patrick
The Classics: Remaking Myth: Joyce’s Journey
The Construction of Irish-American Identity
A Disunited Kingdom: Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales
Gaeldom: A History of the Gaels
The Great Hunger
The Importance of Being Witty: Significant Irish playwrights
Ireland from the Easter Rebellion to the Good Friday Agreement
Ireland and the Wider World
The Irish in America
Irish History through Film
Irish Literary Renaissance
Irish Modernism: Yeats, Wilde and Joyce
The Isle of the Saints: Ireland from the Celts to the Normans
Memory and Commemoration in Irish History
“A Most Distressful Country”: Ireland from the Normans to the Good Friday Agreement
Northern Ireland: The Rocky Road to Peace
Visual Representations in Irish History
Women in Irish History: Poets, Patriots, Prostitutes and Presidents