Flann O'Brien & Modernism

Flann O'Brien & Modernism brings a much-needed refreshment to the state of scholarship on this increasingly recognised but still widely misunderstood 'second generation' modernist. Rather than construe him as a postmodernist, it correctly locates O'Brien's work as the product of a late modernist sensibility and cultural context. Similarly, while there should be no doubt of his Irishness, and his profound debts to Irish language, history and culture, this collection seeks to understand O'Brien's nationally sensitive achievement as the work of an internationalist whose preoccupations reflect global modernist trends.

The distinct themes and concerns tracked in Flann O'Brien & Modernism include characterization in branching narrative forms; the ethics and paradoxes of naming; parody and homage; lies and deception; theatricality; sexuality; technology and transport; and the inevitable matter of drink and intoxication.

Taken together, these specific topics construct a mosaic image of O'Brien as an exemplary modernist auteur, abreast of all the most salient philosophical and technical concerns affecting literary production in the period immediately before and after World War Two.

Julian Murphet is Professor of Modern Film and Literature at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He is the author of Multimedia Modernism (2009), Literature and Race in Los Angeles (2001), co-author of Narrative and Media (2005), and co-editor of Literature and Visual Technologies (2003).

Rónán McDonald is the Australian Ireland Fund Chair in Modern Irish Studies and Director of the Global Irish Studies Centre at the University of New South Wales, Australia. His recent publications include Tragedy and Irish Literature: Synge, O'Casey, Beckett (2002), The Cambridge Introduction to Samuel Beckett (2006), and a special issue of the Yearbook of English Studies (2005) on 'Irish Writing since 1950'.

Sascha Morrell is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of New England, Australia. She studied at the University of Cambridge and has broad interests in 19th and early-20th Century American, British and 'Antipodean' literatures.

Introduction: Flann O'Brien and the Modern
Rónán McDonald (University of New South Wales, Australia) and Julian Murphet (University of New South Wales, Australia)
1. Four More Sins, Potentially Deadly, By Flann O'Brien
Sean Pryor (University of New South Wales, Australia)
2. "Poor Jimmy Joyce" and the Ironic Modernism of The Dalkey Archive
Stephen Ablitt (La Trobe University, Australia)
3. Lying, bullshit and fiction in Flann O'Brien
John Attridge (University of New South Wales, Australia)
4. Flann O'Brien and the Irish Bull
Rónán McDonald (University of New South Wales, Australia)
5. "Yer nam is Jams O'Donnell!": An Béal Bocht, Translation and the Proper Name
Maebh Long (The University of the South Pacific, the Fiji Islands)
6. Flann O'Brien's Ulysses: Marginalia and the Modernist Mind
Dirk Van Hulle (University of Antwerp, Belgium)
7. "The outward accidents of illusion": O'Brien and the Theatrical
Stefan Solomon (University of New South Wales, Australia)
8. O'Brien and Modernist Character
Julian Murphet (University of New South Wales, Australia)
9. Modern Velocipedes
Mark Byron (University of Sydney, Australia)
10. O'Brien and Patrick Kavanagh
Joseph Booker (Birkbeck, University of London, UK)
11. Technologies of the Modern Self: Solitude and Masturbation in Flann O'Brien
Mark Steven (University of New South Wales, Australia)
12. The Calm-Sorcery of Chess: Flann O'Brien's Modernist Numeracy
Baylee Brits (University of New South Wales, Australia)
13. No unauthorised boozing: Flann O'Brien and the thirsting youth
Sam Dickson (University of Sydney, Australia)
14. "Froth at the gob": Soft drink, hard drink, and poetic (re)production in Flann O'Brien and Frank Moorhouse
Sascha Morrell (University of New England, Australia
15. Flann O'Brien and the risibility of modern life
David Kelly (University of Sydney, Australia)