The British Novel of Ideas: George Eliot to Zadie Smith
Revolution and Counter-Revolution
March 2023
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Chapter
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The Oxford Handbook of W. B. Yeats
The forty-two chapters in this book consider Yeats's early toil, his practical and esoteric concerns as his career developed, his friends and enemies, and how he was and is understood.
Unlucky Jim: Conrad, chance, ethics
December 2022
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Journal article
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Journal of Modern Literature
Conrad’s fiction often focuses on luck, particularly on moral luck—those happenings that exceed our control but affect our standing in the world nonetheless. Such luck has a key bearing on the moral intelligibility of plot and character in Lord Jim. This is a novel that supports two sides of a paradox: morality should and should not be influenced by the vagaries of luck. There is no obvious resolution to this double vision in Conrad and it leads him to question the coherence of morality as a general system. He also doubts—however paradoxically—its basic fairness. If luck is all-pervasive, then justice itself is unjust.
moral luck, counterfactuality, shame, FFR, Lord Jim, responsibility
The Prejudices of Enlightenment
March 2020
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Chapter
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Irish Literature in Transition, 1700–1780
Important nonsense: Yeats and symbolism
August 2019
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Journal article
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New Literary History
This essay shows how the practice of symbolism needs to be interpreted within a broader intellectual history. The metaphysical content of this history might encourage us to abandon it, but it provides the conditions of intelligibility, nonetheless, for key literary concepts–at least if one assumes that the historical operation of these concepts have some bearing on their current use. I make the case with Yeats. His symbolic practice, I argue, is unintelligible without reference to two metaphysical traditions in which he was deeply invested 1) an idealism that is pledged to a super-reality that exceeds time and space 2) a radical subjectivism in which the private ego is the source and ground of meaning in the world. The friction between these two outlooks partly explains why the symbol becomes such a "troubled mirror" in Yeats's writing.
Liberty, Equality, and Humbug Orwell's Political Ideals
October 2018
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Book
Examining the whole sweep of Orwell's writings, but paying particular attention to Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, this book shows how literature and narrative in particular can be a source of political wisdom.
Young Ireland to Yeats
January 2016
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Chapter
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The Princeton History of Modern Ireland
Romantic nationalism: history and illusion in Ireland
December 2015
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Journal article
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Modern Intellectual History
Intellectual historians often invoke “romanticism” to account for the origins and conceptual shape of nationalism. In an Irish context, however, this approach has yielded false genealogies of influence and an impaired political understanding. Cast through a “romantic” prism, nationalism is divorced from its conditions of intelligibility, becoming unhelpfully isolated from questions about sovereignty, democratic legitimacy and the nature of modern citizenship. Thus all too often the irrationality that is made part of the definition of “romantic nationalism” is a function of the way that it is interpreted.
The problem of romanticism in Wyndham Lewis
April 2015
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Journal article
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Essays in Criticism
SBTMR
Modernism and Rousseau
July 2013
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Journal article
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Textual Practice
47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4705 Literary Studies
The Cambridge Companion to Edmund Burke
October 2012
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Book
This comprehensive and accessible Companion examines the life and writings of Edmund Burke, one of the eighteenth century's most influential thinkers.
History
Introduction: Philosophy in Action
January 2012
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Chapter
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The Cambridge Companion to Edmund Burke
Orwell's Paradox: Equality in Animal Farm
January 2012
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Journal article
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ELH
'Burke and Utility’
January 2012
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Chapter
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The Cambridge Companion to Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke and the Emotions
October 2011
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Journal article
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Journal of the History of Ideas
5003 Philosophy, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies, 5002 History and Philosophy Of Specific Fields
Truth and Freedom in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four
January 2010
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Journal article
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Philosophy and Literature
Yeats's Thought
January 2010
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Chapter
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Visions and Revisions: W. B. Yeats
Woolf, scepticism and manners
June 2008
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Journal article
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Textual Practice
47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4705 Literary Studies
The Great Community Culture and Nationalism in Ireland
January 2008
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Book
Culture and Nationalism in Ireland David Dwan. David Dwan The Great
Community Culture and Nationalism in Ireland The Great Community The Great
Community Culture and Nationalism in. Front Cover.
Ireland
Civic Virtue in the Modern World: The Politics of Young Ireland
March 2007
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Journal article
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Irish Political Studies
4408 Political Science, 44 Human Society, 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Young Ireland and the Horde of Benthamy
January 2006
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Chapter
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Politics and Power in Victorian Ireland
That ancient sect: Yeats, Hegel, and the possibility of Epic in Ireland
August 2004
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Journal article
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Irish Studies Review
47 Language, Communication and Culture
Culture and Democracy in Ireland
January 2004
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Journal article
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Irish Review
Yeats, Heidegger and the Problem of Modern Subjectivism
March 2002
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Journal article
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Paragraph
4702 Cultural Studies, 4705 Literary Studies, 47 Language, Communication and Culture, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies, 5003 Philosophy
What was an emotion?: T. S. Eliot and Bertrand Russell