Coastal Works Culture of the Atlantic Edge

In all the complex cultural history of the islands of Britain and Ireland the idea of the coast as a significant representative space is critical. For many important artists coastal space has figured as a site from which to braid ideas of empire, nation, region, and archipelago. They have been drawn to the coast as a zone of geographical uncertainty in which the self-definitions of the nation founder; they have been drawn to it as a peripheral space of vestigial wildness, of island retreats and experimental living; as a network of diverse localities richly endowed with distinctive forms of cultural heritage; and as a dynamically interconnected ecosystem, which is at the same time the historic site of significant developments in fieldwork and natural science.

This collection situates these cultures of the Atlantic edge in a series of essays that create new contexts for coastal study in literary history and criticism. The contributors frame their research in response to emerging conversations in archipelagic criticism, the blue humanities, and island studies, the essays challenging the reader to reconsider ideas of margin, periphery and exchange. These twelve case studies establish the coast as a crucial location in the imaginative history of Britain, Ireland and the north Atlantic edge. Coastal Works will appeal to readers of literature and history with an interest in the sea, the environment, and the archipelago from the 18th century to the present. Accessible, innovative and provocative, Coastal Works establishes the important role that the coast plays in our cultural imaginary and suggests a range of methodologies to represent relationships between land, sea, and cultural work.

Nicholas Allen, University of Georgia,Nick Groom, University of Exeter,Jos Smith, University of Exeter

Nicholas Allen's work is located at the intersection between literature, history, and visual culture. His interests include the study of modernism, empire, and increasingly, writing about ocean and archipelago. He has taught previously at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the National University of Ireland, Galway, where he was academic director of the Moore Institute. His books include Broken Landscapes: Selected letters on Ernie O'Malley (Dublin, 2011), Modernism, Ireland and Civil War (CUP, 2009), That Other Island (2007), The Proper Word (2007), George Russell and the New Ireland (2003), and The Cities of Belfast (2003).

Nick Groom is an academic and writer. He is professor in English at the University of Exeter and has written widely on literature, music, and contemporary art. He is the author of a dozen books and editions, including The Forger's Shadow (2002), The Union Jack (2006), and, most recently, The Gothic (2012).

Jos Smith is an author and researcher with a specialist interest in the intersection of literature and cultural geography. In particular his work explores 'vibrant localism', that is, cultural activity driven by environmental concern that transforms attitudes to place. This is a subject central to his recent book on 'The New Nature Writing' and to his current research project exploring a cultural history of the arts and environmental charity Common Ground.

1. Introduction, Nicholas Allen, Nick Groom, and Jos Smith.
2. Draining the Irish Channel: Identity, Sustainability, and the Politics of Water, Nick Groom
3. The Roar of the Solway, Fiona Stafford
4. Ireland, Literature, and the Coastal Imaginary, Nicholas Allen
5. 'At the Dying Atlantic's Edge': Norman Nicholson and the Cumbrian Coast, Andrew Gibson
6. 'Felt Routes': Louis MacNeice and the North East Atlantic Archipelago, John Brannigan
7. The Riddle of the Sands: Erskine Childers Between the Tides, Daniel Brayton
8. Ronald Lockley and the Archipelagic Imagination, Damian Walford Davies
9. Maude Delap's Domestic Science: Island Spaces and Gendered Fieldwork in Irish Natural History, Nessa Cronin
10. Science at the Seaside: Pleasure Hunts in Victorian Devon, Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi and John Plunkett
11. Seeing Through Water: The Paintings of Zarh Pritchard, Margaret Cohen
12. In the Labyrinth: Annotating Aran, Andrew McNeillie
13. Fugitive Allegiances: the Good Ship Archipelago and the Atlantic Edge, Jos Smith
14. Afterword, John R. Gillis