Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Albert Camus At 100 : A Mediterranean Son Of France, Eamon Maher

Articles

THIS YEAR marks the centenary of the birth of one of the world's finest writers, the French-Algerian Albert Camus (1913-1960). When his father, a pied-noir farm labourer died fighting in the French army during the First World War, Camus' mother, Catherine, was forced to work as a cleaner to provide for her two sons. The younger one, Albert, demonstrated academic talent from an early age and managed to continue in education due to the interest taken in him by two inspirational teachers, Louis Germain and the well-known philosopher, Jean Grenier. He was also awarded scholarships, without which he could not …

Revisiting Walter Macken’S Connemara, Eamon Maher

Articles

As a writer, Macken was attuned to the menacing depths that lay behind the physical exterior: the infertile bogland that makes farming problematic, the harsh character of the inhabitants, their callous treatment of one another, their superstitious religiosity and frustrated love affairs. I read most of Macken’s novels as a teenager and enjoyed them enormously. It is a shame that there is little or no critical attention now paid to someone who had such a successful career as a novelist, playwright, actor and director. Even the publication by his son Ultan of a biography, Walter Macken: Dreams on Paper, by …

Betwixt And Between: Creative Writing And Scholarly Expectations, Sue Norton

Articles

I teach English in a College of Arts and Tourism in an Institute of Technology in Dublin. The institute is one of the largest providers of higher education in Ireland, and it distinguishes itself with small-class sizes, community outreach and engagement, and excellence in teaching. It is, as its name indicates, an institute of technology, but it has aspirations to become a University.

My institute has, no differently than many other organisations of higher learning, sought to boost its reputation for research. It favours research with a capital R, meaning research that conforms to the usual higher education rhetoric surrounding …