Book contents
- Race in Irish Literature and Culture
- Cambridge Themes in Irish Literature and Culture
- Race in Irish Literature and Culture
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Editors’ Note
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 “Our Heroic Ancestors”
- Chapter 2 Racializing Irish Historical Consciousness
- Chapter 3 Race, Minstrelsy, and the Irish Stage
- Chapter 4 Race and Irish Women’s Novels in the Long Nineteenth Century
- Chapter 5 Blackface Minstrelsy, Irish Modernism, and the Histories of Irish Whiteness
- Chapter 6 Joyce’s Racial Comedy
- Chapter 7 W. B. Yeats, the Irish Free State, and the Rhetoric of Race Suicide
- Chapter 8 “Ulster’s White Negroes”
- Chapter 9 Learning from Walcott
- Chapter 10 Race, Irishness, and Popular Culture in Australia
- Chapter 11 White Nationalism and Irish America
- Chapter 12 Diasporic Afterlives
- Chapter 13 “Dubh”
- Chapter 14 Split Selves and Double Consciousness in Recent Irish Fiction
- Chapter 15 Race, Place, and the Grounds of Irish Geopolitics
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 5 - Blackface Minstrelsy, Irish Modernism, and the Histories of Irish Whiteness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2024
- Race in Irish Literature and Culture
- Cambridge Themes in Irish Literature and Culture
- Race in Irish Literature and Culture
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Editors’ Note
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 “Our Heroic Ancestors”
- Chapter 2 Racializing Irish Historical Consciousness
- Chapter 3 Race, Minstrelsy, and the Irish Stage
- Chapter 4 Race and Irish Women’s Novels in the Long Nineteenth Century
- Chapter 5 Blackface Minstrelsy, Irish Modernism, and the Histories of Irish Whiteness
- Chapter 6 Joyce’s Racial Comedy
- Chapter 7 W. B. Yeats, the Irish Free State, and the Rhetoric of Race Suicide
- Chapter 8 “Ulster’s White Negroes”
- Chapter 9 Learning from Walcott
- Chapter 10 Race, Irishness, and Popular Culture in Australia
- Chapter 11 White Nationalism and Irish America
- Chapter 12 Diasporic Afterlives
- Chapter 13 “Dubh”
- Chapter 14 Split Selves and Double Consciousness in Recent Irish Fiction
- Chapter 15 Race, Place, and the Grounds of Irish Geopolitics
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This essay examines the role of blackface in white Irish culture, especially around the time of the emergence of independent Irish statehood in the first half of the twentieth century, as a critical context for contemporary practices and ideas of whiteness in Ireland. This examination takes three forms: the first is a speculative history (and it can be no more) of blackface minstrel theater in Ireland; the second is an analysis of representations of blackface acts in Irish modernism (specifically in works by James Joyce and Jack B. Yeats); and the final section offers a brief consideration of the longer and perhaps ultimately more troubling manifestations of blackface in Irish folk culture.
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- Race in Irish Literature and Culture , pp. 103 - 120Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024