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Podcast: New Books in Literary Studies
Episode: Colleen Taylor, "Irish Materialisms: The Nonhuman and the Making of Colonial Ireland, 1690-1830" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Description: Coins, flax, spinning wheels, mud, pigs. Each of these objects were ubiquitous in the premodern cultural representation of the Irish. Through case studies of these five objects, Colleen Taylorâs new monograph Irish Materialisms: The Nonhuman and the Making of Colonial Ireland, 1690-1830 (Oxford University Press, 2024) recovers the sometimes-oppressive, sometimes-liberatory meanings invested in nonhuman matter. Irish Materialisms collects a rich archive of material from William Carletonâs âPhil Purcel, the Pig Driver,â to the it-narrative The Adventures of a Bad Shilling in the Kingdom of Ireland, Gulliverâs Travels to Sydney Owensonâs The Wild Irish Girl.Colleen Taylor is Pr...