Research Catalog

Title

Northern Ireland and the politics of boredom : conflict, capital and culture / George Legg.

Author

Legg, George

Publication

• [Manchester] : Manchester University Press, [2018]
• ©2018

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 220 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color); 24 cm

Summary

This book provides a new interpretation of the Northern Irish Troubles. From internment to urban planning, the hunger strikes to post-conflict tourism, it asserts that concepts of capitalism have been consistently deployed to alleviate and exacerbate violence in the North. Through a detailed analysis of the diverse cultural texts, Legg traces the affective energies produced by capitalism's persistent attempt to resolve Northern Ireland's ethnic-national divisions: a process he calls the politics of boredom. Such an approach warrants a reconceptualization of boredom as much as cultural production. In close readings of Derek Mahon's poetry, the photography of Willie Doherty and the female experience of incarceration, Legg argues that cultural texts can delineate a more democratic - less philosophical - conception of ennui. Critics of the Northern Irish Peace Process have begun to apprehend some of these tensions. But an analysis of the post-conflict condition cannot account for capitalism's protracted and enervating impact in Northern Ireland. Consequently, Legg returns to the origins of the Troubles and uses influential theories of capital accumulation to examine how a politicised sense of boredom persists throughout, and after, the years of conflict. Like Left critique, Legg's attention to the politics of boredom interrogates the depleted sense of humanity capitalism can create. What Legg's approach proposes is as unsettling as it is radically new. By attending to Northern Ireland's long-standing experience of ennui, this book ultimately isolates boredom as a source of optimism as well as a means of oppression. --

Subjects

• Northern Ireland
• Capitalism
• Civilization
• Northern Ireland > Social conditions > 21st century
• Politics and government
• Capitalism > Northern Ireland
• Social conditions
• Since 1998
• Northern Ireland > Civilization > 21st century
• Northern Ireland > Politics and government > 1998-

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 192-214) and index.

Call Number

JFE 19-2497

ISBN

• 1526128861
• 9781526128867

OCLC

1014036559

Author

Legg, George, author.

Title

Northern Ireland and the politics of boredom : conflict, capital and culture / George Legg.

Publisher

[Manchester] : Manchester University Press, [2018]

Copyright Date

©2018

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 192-214) and index.

Chronological Term

Since 1998

Research Call Number

JFE 19-2497