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Black characters in contemporary irish fiction

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Author(s):
Victor Augusto da Cruz Pacheco
Total Authors: 1
Document type: Doctoral Thesis
Press: São Paulo.
Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
Defense date:
Examining board members:
Laura Patricia Zuntini de Izarra; Mariana Bolfarine; Marcos Piason Natali; Fernanda Silva e Sousa
Advisor: Laura Patricia Zuntini de Izarra
Abstract

As the presence of black and non-white bodies in the Republic of Ireland increased, influencing cultural practices and the constitution of national identity, directly reflecting immigration laws implemented in the late 1990s and 2000s, this dissertation aims to analyze the representation of black characters in contemporary Irish fiction. Drawing on the novels TransAtlantic by Column McCann (2013), The Temporary Gentleman by Sebastian Barry (2014) and Flight by Oona Frawley (2014), and the short stories \"Guess Who\'s Coming for the Dinner\" by Roddy Doyle (2007), \"The Welcome\" by Emma Donoghue (2007), Melatu-Uche Okorie\'s \"Under the Awning\" ([2018] 2021) and Kit de Waal\'s \"May the Best Man Win\" (2022), the dissertation argues that affect is an agent for the construction of racial difference, revealing or masking processes of racialisation in the formation of Irishness through whiteness and the anti-black construction of Irish society. The theoretical movement performed throughout the dissertation is the merging of the areas of Irish Studies, Affective Theory, and Black Radical Thought, considering the figuration of affects from the levels of narration (racial anxiety), the character-reader relationship (humanistic affects) and the specific emotions within the literary text (guilt, anxiety, hope, paranoia, abjection, antagonism). The dissertation is divided into three parts: the first, \"Fear Gorm\", discusses the relationship between blackness and Irishness, as well as the ambiguous, complex, and anomalous processes in the history of Irish colonisation and racialisation, in the historical novels TransAtlantic and The Temporary Gentleman. The second part, \"Céad Míle Fáilte\", contains chapters analysing the short stories \"Guess Who\'s Coming for the Dinner\" and \"The Welcome\" as well as the novel Flight. All three works were written or depict the impacts of immigration during the Celtic Tiger. Finally, the third part, \"Anseo\", focuses on the production of black Irish women writers through the short stories \"Under the Awning\" and \"May the Best Man Win\". Thus, I argue that whereas the works of white Irish authors affect mask relations of racialisation, black Irish authors reveal the formation of Irishness through whiteness and the anti-black construction of Irish society. Black characters\' forms of being, feeling, and knowing are circumscribed by the affective negativity inherent in anti-blackness (AU)

FAPESP's process: 20/03891-7 - The representation of black characters in contemporary Irish literature
Grantee:Victor Augusto da Cruz Pacheco
Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate