Guest Editor’s Introduction: New Directions in Irish American Literature

Extract

It has been almost thirty years since MELUS published its one and only journal dedicated to Irish American literature, in the spring of 1993. Hosted by the great scholar of the Irish American literary tradition Charles Fanning, this special edition reflected on the long tradition of Irish American literature in poetry, drama, and fiction from the late-nineteenth century to almost its contemporary moment. In guiding this exploration of Irish American literature, Fanning noted, in his “preliminaries,” that “[Irish American] writers have described and considered the experience and changing self-image of the American Irish. The result is a literature the study of which has much to teach us about ethnic otherness in American life” (1). This has never been truer than it is now.

A lot has happened since this early publication, not only in the field of Irish American literature but also more broadly in the fields of Irish American studies and multi-ethnic studies. Critically, theoretically, and culturally, these fields have developed from examining the varieties of ethnic literature as separate, defined fields to foregrounding the interrelationship and cross-proliferation between ethnic cultures and traditions. This forum takes up this new methodology of exploration to continue and develop an augmentation of the field of Irish American studies beyond the study of literature written by Irish Americans of declared ethnic affiliations to a field that grapples with the myriad and fecund reimaginations challenging the boundaries of Irish American ethnic identity and affiliation. In doing this, Irish American literature is again speaking to and drawing on the broader complexities of ethnic otherness in American life. It is recognizing and reckoning with the boundaries of identity all American ethnicities must encounter and engage.