Department of Celtic Languages and
Literatures
Harvard University
All Sessions of the
Colloquium are held
in the Thompson Room (110) in the
Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA
~~~
Thursday October 4, 2007
5:00 p.m.
~ John V. Kelleher Lecture
Sponsored by the
Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures,
Harvard University Faculty Club Library, 20 Quincy
Street, Cambridge, MA
Richard Suggett
Royal
Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of
Wales
“Poets and Carpenters”
~ This event is
open to the Public ~
Colloquium Sessions
October 5, 2007
Dydd Gwener / Dé hAoine / Friday
9:00-10:00 a.m. Session One
Sarah B. Campbell (Boston
University) The Matter of Taliesin: Then and
Now
Nancy Bond’s A String in
the Harp blends a haunting story of Taliesin with that of a
contemporary American family spending a potentially dreary year in
Wales. The book reaches beyond its genre of Young Adult Literature
to portray the almost ineffable links that can occur between family
members, strangers in an ancient land, and “old”
stories that permeate the lives of all who dwell there.
Nancy Bond’s story overlays Welsh mythical landscape and
visions of the bard’s life with modern American pragmatism
and discontent. One version of the Taliesin story is a boy’s
story, an adventure tale: interstices of life. This presentation
offers the text as a model for allowing modern readers to touch the
magic of the strange and distant Celtic tales.
Donald McNamara (Kutztown
University) The Real Charlotte: The Inclusive Myth of Somerville and Ross
The Real Charlotte
presents a picture of the last flowering of Anglo-Irish Ascendancy
society. Often overlooked, however, is ambiguity of motifs. For
example, the eponymous character, Charlotte Mullen, is well-known
as a grasping, vindictive member of lower-class Protestant Ireland,
but less well-observed is that the story reworks the ancient Irish
myth of Naoise and Deirdre or Diarmuid and Grainne.
The old myth gives central agency to an older man: Conchobhar
MacNessa or Fionn MacCumhal. In The
Real Charlotte, however, an older woman, Charlotte, plays
this part. This modern-day version of the myth includes Ascendancy
Ireland (with Catholic Ireland as a backdrop), feminist Ireland,
and acquired-wealth Ireland. Thus we may look anew at both Irish
myth and Anglo-Irish novels.
10:15-11:15 a.m. Session Two
Charlene M. Eska (Virginia
Tech and Harvard University) Problematic Pigs: Swine Values in Bodleian
MS Rawlinson B.506, ff. 55b-56d
This paper addresses the curious method of determining the
proportion of a couple’s swine (in actual livestock or the
equivalent value) a wife is entitled to upon separation. The
passage in question is part of a larger section of text relating to
the distribution of marital goods found in Oxford University
Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson B.506 on ff. 55b-56d, which
corresponds to Binchy’s Corpus Iuris Hibernici 174.7-177.33;
this section of text is known as the “Appendix” to
Cáin Lánamna.
The issue of the swine values will be discussed within the context
of this section and any other relevant passages relating to the
Cáin Lánamna
material.
Matthieu Boyd (Harvard
University) Competing Assumptions about the Drúth in Orgain Denna Ríg
In the early Irish tale Orgain
Denna Ríg “The Destruction of Dinn
Ríg”, Labraid Loingsech has seen to the construction
of an iron house in order to avenge his father’s murder upon
his uncle, Cobthach Coel. Cobthach refuses to enter the house until
Labraid’s mother and his drúth (usually translated
“jester”) have done so. Labraid agrees to this, and
incinerates Cobthach anyway. Two questions are raised with regard
to the drúth: Why did
Cobthach think the presence of the drúth would guarantee his
safety? And, insofar as Labraid did not hesitate to kill his drúth along with Cobthach,
what was the nature of Cobthach’s mistake? A review of drúith in the early Irish
sagas shows that a special relationship is frequently supposed to
have existed between a king and his drúth. I would argue that in
Orgain Denna Ríg
Cobthach and Labraid differ in their assumptions about what this
relationship was.
11:30-12:30 p.m. Session Three
Philip O'Leary (Boston
College) Tons of Wasted Paper? Gaelic Translation in
the 1940s
Writing of An Gum's translation policy in the 1930s, one
“Cartha” in 1949 conjured up the image of a tsunami of
translations that had threatened to sweep original creation from
the face of the Gaelic literary world. Despite his rhetorical
excess, he was very much in line with conventional movement wisdom
at the time. Most contemporary writers of Irish believed that An
Gum's translation policy had never been clearly or consistently
thought through, resulting in an outpouring of translations of
dubious quality and – because the vast majority were from
English – potentially deleterious effect on the language,
literature and Gaelic ethos. This paper will examine and question
the thinking that generated that consensus, in a decade in which An
Gum's policy was being quietly discontinued by the agency
itself.
Máire Ní Chiosáin (University College Dublin) Language Shift in Early 20th Century
Ireland: A Quantitative Analysis
This paper examines patterns of language shift in Ireland at the
beginning of the 20th century based on the census returns of 1901
and 1911, with an initial focus on returns from Oileán
Cléire/Cape Clear, Co. Cork. Close examination of family
internal language patterns reveal that if the census facts are
correct, there were households on the island in which children and
old people did not understand each other. Census returns for those
townlands in Co. Clare that were the focus of Conrad
Arensberg’s classic anthropological field-work in the 1930s
are also examined. While this area, in contrast to Cape Clear, is
not part of the contemporary Gaeltacht (official Irish-speaking
area), preliminary results suggest similar patterns in both
areas.
2:00-3:00 p.m. Session Four
Diarmait Mac Giolla Chríost (Cardiff University) From Jailtacht to Gaeltacht
The adoption of the Irish language by Republican prisoners held
in the cells of the H-Blocks – a phenomenon often termed
“the jailtacht” – has come to be regarded as a
significant linguistic and sociological event but has not, as yet,
been subject to serious scholarly scrutiny. Moreover, since the
“peace process” of the late 1990s in particular, many
of the individuals associated with this unique linguistic community
have been released from prison and now play a role in the wider
Irish-speaking networks of Northern Ireland. The vibrancy of these
networks has been a central factor in the creation of a
“Gaeltacht
quarter” in Belfast. This paper sets out work in progress in
this area, engaging with the work of Bourdieu and Gramsci in its
exploration of the themes of symbolic violence, hegemony, power and
ideology.
Eric Zuelow (West Liberty
State College) “Deadly Threat”: Tourism and
Language Preservation in the Irish Gaeltacht
In the years following independence, groups across Irish society
debated both Ireland’s national interests and the manner in
which the country should be presented to outsiders. One of the most
ferocious arguments centered on the question of language
preservation in the Gaeltachts. For language preservationists,
largely urban Gaelic enthusiasts, tourism represented a
“deadly threat.” They feared that tourists were
“bound to be a great anglicizing agent in what is left of the
Gaedhealttacht” and argued that rural Gaelic speaking areas
should be protected at all costs—sealed off from any
“formidable influx of foreignism.” In contrast,
Gaeltacht inhabitants and tourism developers saw the tourist
industry as a chance to save Gaelic by infusing poor rural areas
with much needed capital. This paper examines the language/tourism
debate from the 1920s through the 1950s, detailing the arguments
presented by both sides as well as the “solutions”
proposed by Sean MacEntee and others. I conclude by explaining how
the Gaeltacht transformed from a site of contention into a tourist
site.
3:15-4:15 p.m. Session Five: Panel One
Sally-Anne Shearn (University of Wales, Bangor) Conceptions of an Urban Ideal and the Early
Modern Welsh Town
This paper looks at attitudes towards the urban space and urban
living in Wales in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and how
these were influenced by wider European ideals.
Examining first the urban ideal which emerged in the literature,
art and architecture of early modern Europe, it explores the ways
in which such spaces, whether real or imagined, were perceived as
centres of civility and order, and as foci for social and cultural
interaction and development. It seeks to establish to what extent
this ideal generated an urban vocabulary against which such spaces
could be measured and evaluated. The paper will then attempt to
assess the extent to which this ideal permeated Welsh attitudes
towards urbanization and urban lifestyles during this period.
Nia M.W. Powell (University of Wales, Bangor) Misconceptions of the Early Modern Urban
Achievement in Wales
Early modern Wales has often been described as a country hostile
to the urban concept, where urban centres were so small as to be
insignificant. Associating civility with the urban concept,
historians have also imputed to Wales, on the back of this
perceived hostility towards urbanization, a lack of civility. This
paper challenges that disparaging view in the light of new evidence
on the number of town dwellers in Wales drawn from a major ESRC
funded research project on Records of Lay Taxation in Wales,
1291-1689. In particular, the existence will be noted of a large
number of substantial towns in north-east Wales, along its eastern
borders and its southern coast, by the late seventeenth
century.
4:30-6:00 p.m. Session Six
A.D.M. Forte (University
of Aberdeen) “Ane Horss Turd”? Sir John
Skene of Curriehill—A Gaelic-speaking Lawyer in the Courts of
James VI?
Sir John Skene (c. 1540-1617) was prominent in the intellectual,
judicial, and political life of sixteenth-century Scotland. Author
of two works on Scots law, De
Verborum Significatione (1597) and Regiam Majestatem (1609), Skene moved in
the highest circle of the court of James VI and was a Senator of
the College of Justice. James’s hostility to Gaelic and his
desire to “civilise” the Gàidhealtachd reflected a then
common attitude.
This paper argues, from the internal evidence of his books, that
Skene may have possessed a knowledge and understanding of Gaelic.
If so, Skene has a claim to be the first person in the British
Isles to attempt a contribution to Gaelic lexicography. It also
adverts to a continuing need in late medieval Scotland to have some
awareness and understanding of the Celtic component of Scots
law.
Anna Bosch (University of
Kentucky) Revisiting Preaspiration: Evidence from the
Survey of the Gaelic Dialects of Scotland
Preaspiration is frequently cited as one of the more unusual
properties of Scottish Gaelic; among the diverse approaches to
linguistic study, preaspiration holds interest for phoneticians,
phonologists, typologists and variationists. Nonetheless, despite
the detailed phonetic transcriptions of Survey of the Gaelic Dialects of
Scotland, ed. Ó Dochartaigh, 1994-97, as yet few
published articles draw on this data to explore the geographical
distribution of preaspiration in the Gaelic dialects. This paper
examines the phonetic distribution of preaspiration from historical
and survey data, and demonstrates the importance of a phonological
analysis of variation in addition to the usual focus on
articulatory evidence.
Benjamin Bruch (Harvard
University) Towards a Critical Edition of the Tregear Homilies
The sixteenth-century manuscript, Tregear Homilies (British Library Add.
MS. 46,397) was discovered in 1949 in the collection of the British
Library. Although it is the longest surviving text in traditional
Cornish, and the only Middle Cornish prose text of any length, it
is actually a translation drawn from two different English sources:
Bishop Edmund Bonner’s A
Profitable and Necessarye Doctryne, first published in 1555,
and John Foxe’s Actes and
Monuments (1576). While the Homilies have been much studied since
their discovery, no critical edition has been published. This paper
presents recent research into the Tregear Homilies, preparatory to the
first full edition. Particular attention will be paid to evidence
for the historical phonology and syntax of Cornish, and to the
relationship between the Cornish translations and their English
originals.
Friday Evening
8:00 P.M. Music and Silent Film: Irish Destiny (1926)
Silent film, with live musical accompaniment by Paddy Homan (tenor), Larry Reynolds, Michael Reynolds.
Introduced
by
Robert Lyons (University of Southern Maine). The film
will be shown
in the Thompson Room, Barker Center. Free: all welcome; light refreshments will be
provided.
October 6, 2007
Dydd Sadwrn/ Dé Sathairn / Saturday
9:30-10:30 a.m. Session Seven
Joseph F. Eska (Virginia
Tech) Where Have All the Object Pronouns
Gone?
Infixed and suffixed object pronouns and conjugated prepositions
are well known to students of Celtic languages. This paper will
demonstrate that these grammatical entities are not pronouns at
all, but personal affixes, such as the -u in biru “I bear” which
indicates 1. sg. agent. Although scholars of Celtic languages
persist in seeing object pronouns in forms such as dombeir “s/he gives me” and
beirth “s/he bears
it”, this will be shown to be a false description. Early
Insular Celtic, in fact, had polypersonal verbs, verbs which could
be inflected for the object, as well as the agent. Though very
exotic within the Indo-European language family, such verbal
structures turn out not to be unusual in the languages of the
world.
Francis Favereau (Université Européenne de Bretagne Rennes
2) Homophony and Breton Loss of
Lexis
Breton has long been something of a poor relation in the field
of Celtic Studies, though as our knowledge of continental Celtic
has increased, Breton has recently begun to appear as a more
rightful heir to ancient Celtic. Out of a thousand words, and twice
as many compounds, listed by Delamarre from continental Celtic,
over three quarters survived in Breton and Welsh. The total number
amounts to what is known of Old Breton, whose survival was ensured
by the Middle Breton Catholicon (the 15thC trilingual
dictionary), which appears quite close to contemporary usage. A
number of words have fallen from use, but few lexical items seem to
have disappeared completely: lexemes faded but derivation
remains.
This paper examines the question of whether homophony is a factor
in the loss of lexis.
10:45-12:15 p.m. Session Eight
Sharon Paice MacLeod (Smith College) A Confluence of Wisdom: The Symbolism of
Wells, Whirlpools and Waterfalls in Early Celtic
Narrative
In numerous Irish and Welsh literary sources, bodies of water
are associated with a wide variety of practical and esoteric
qualities, including healing, purification, wisdom and
transformation. This paper will briefly explore several streams of
thought pertaining to this phenomenon, including comparative
readings of descriptions of wells or springs associated with divine
wisdom, parallel imagery between whirlpools and sacred vessels, and
prophetic and other divine qualities connected with sacred sites
located at or near waterfalls (including place-name lore and texts
associated with Essa
Ruad).
Diana Delia White (Rhode
Island College) Reinventing Ireland
The tales of Cú Chulainn, Fionn, and the Fianna depict
ancient Irish warrior heroes living in a fiercely free and spirited
society, celebrating Irish cultural institutions, ethical codes,
and struggle against numerous injustices. My research investigates
the modern exploitation of these tales for the reconstruction of a
long-suppressed Irish cultural identity. As the movement for Irish
independence grew during the l9th and early 20th centuries, Gaelic
revivalists and nationalists mined the early Irish heroic tales for
cultural prototypes, to promote national conceptualization and
differentiation from the British. This paper will focus on the
impact that Standish O’Grady’s pseudo-historical
publications – Finn and His
Companions, The Coming of Cuchulainn, and his Ancient History of Ireland – had
in molding popular opinion.
Helen Marie-Brighid Scanlon (Harvard University) More Celtic than Thou: Diverse Literary
Response to the Call of the Celtic Heritage in the Early 20th
Century
At the turn of the century, many influential Irish writers
(Hyde, Yeats, Gregory) found inspiration in Irish folklore,
mythology and medieval literature, speculating about pre-Christian
and early-Christian spirituality. But the appeal of this material
was not universal - others, notably James Joyce, rejected the
socio-political application of such symbolism. Rather, Joyce
anticipated Modernism, considering the Human Condition to be more
significant than the Irish Condition.
Why did some writers turn to the Irish heritage as artistic
inspiration (and even as their life’s work) while others
rejected it? Answers may lie in cultural climates of the time, but
also in the family lives of the authors in question: the
backgrounds of the Celtic Revival writers generally predisposed
them to romanticize both the peasantry and mysticism. This paper
explores the forces that came together to produce the Celtic
Revival, and also the personal backgrounds of its creators and of
its fiercest critic.
1:45-3:15 p.m. Session Nine
Anders Ahlqvist(University of Ireland, Galway) A Poem from St. Gall Codex 904
Gaib do chuil isin charcair - ni róis chluim na
colcaid truag insin amail bachal - rotgiuil ind s[h]rathar
dodcaid.
An edition, translation and commentary will be given. Also, an
attempt will be made to identify the reasons behind it being placed
where it is in the manuscript.
Lesa Ní Mhunghaile (Mary Immaculate College, Limerick) An Overview of the Scribal and Manuscript
Tradition in Co. Meath during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth
Centuries
The aim of this paper is to investigate the Irish-language
literary tradition in the Meath/Cavan area during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries. Set against the social and political
backdrop, it will provide a broad insight into the type of
manuscript material produced, both religious and secular, the
patrons for whom it was produced and will detail the numerous
scribes involved.
Lahney Preston-Matto (Adelphi University) Derbforgaill, the Normans and the Concept
of Sovereignty: Becoming a Goddess is Easy!
In a continued investigation of Derbforgaill’s supposed
responsibility for the Norman invasion of Ireland, this paper seeks
to explore the possible links between Derbforgaill, her husband
Tigernán Ua Ruairc, and his political rival Diarmait Mac
Murchada. I will argue in this paper that Derbforgaill, like the
two Gormlaiths in the preceding centuries, was seen by
contemporaries as both an important political figure and a figure
that represented the sovereignty of her husband and his territory
of Breifné. Later sources – Norman, Irish and American
– pick up on this idea of sovereignty, but attribute it to
Ireland as a whole, instead of a specific area, and credit her with
the loss of Ireland to the Normans, which is more than she is
charged with by her own contemporaries.
3:30-4:30 p.m. Session Ten: Panel Two
Note: The papers in this
panel derive from a major ESRC funded research project on the
history of Welsh devolution after 1885. They are based on chapters
of a forthcoming book, Devolution
in Britain: The Welsh Dimension, to be published by Oxford
University Press in 2008. The papers benefit from access to
hitherto unexamined archival material.
Duncan Tanner (University
of Wales, Bangor) “Building a Nation?” The Labour
Party and Devolution 1976-1979
This paper examines the Labour party’s plans for
implementing Welsh devolution, 1976-1979. By 1979, devolution had
been undermined from within. Linking to the second panel paper, it
is argued that this conflict had a lasting impact. Many Labour
figures were not disappointed but relieved when devolution failed
– and were determined not to raise the issue again. Some
turned to other constitutional concerns. For the unstudied and
disappointed Labour advocates of devolution, like John Morris, John
Smith and Michael Foot, the experience indicated a need to proceed
by other means, rather than a need to abandon their cause, although
they recognised the political realities of a shaming defeat. When
the construction of devolution was reconsidered in the 1990s, an
understanding of this past haunted the present.
Andrew Edwards (University
of Wales, Bangor) “Death of a Nation?” Examining
the Impact of 1979 on Welsh Society
In the March 1979 devolution referendum, only one in five Welsh
voters voted for self-government. Despite the formal support given
by Labour, Plaid Cymru and the Liberals, the defeat of the Labour
government’s devolution proposals followed a long and hostile
battle that dominated Welsh politics through the 1970s. Both events
profoundly affected nationalists and pro-devolutionists in Wales.
For some, the defeat of devolution symbolised a “spineless
rejection” of Welsh identity by the people of Wales. For the
same people it symbolised the “death of a nation.” This
rejection, followed immediately by a “Thatcherite”
Conservative government, rendered the Welsh (in the words of Gwyn
Alf Williams) “naked people under an acid rain.” This
paper examines the social, political and cultural reaction to the
events of 1979 in Wales.
4:45-6:15 p.m. Session Eleven
Sarah-Jane Murray (Baylor
University) Visions of Heaven and Hell: Marie de
France's Feminine Translatio
in the Espurgatoire saint
Patrice
Twelfth-century literary production in French was framed by an
interest in Celtic materials. Around 1190, Marie de France
translated the Tractatus de
Purgatorio sancti Patricii (ca. 1175), recently written by
Henry of Saltrey. Her Espurgatoire
saint Patrice has garnered significantly less scholarly
attention than her other works—the Lais (ca. 1165) and the Fables (ca. 1215) – due partly to
a belief that this project lacks originality. The process of
translation was, however, intricate, as I shall demonstrate,
focusing on the dynamic transition from prose to poetry and how
Marie situates herself with respect to her courtly audience (a
shift from Henry’s monastic audience) as a necessary guide.
Like Dante’s Beatrice, Marie leads her readers to contemplate
sin and salvation, thus situating herself as a continuator of St
Patrick’s missionary activities and a guardian of
Ireland’s cultural memory.
Amy Eichhorn-Mulligan (University of Memphis and University of
Wisconsin) Navigating Peripheralization: Vernacular
Voyage Tales and the Position of Agency
Like several European mapmakers, geographers and travel-writers,
Giraldus Cambrensis and Saxo Grammaticus strategically depict
Ireland and Iceland as spaces in which the lines between the human
and the other-world are transgressed, and as places whose
inhabitants are subhuman, bestial, and in need of enforced
“civilizing.” In this paper I examine how the Irish and
the Icelanders describe, in their vernacular voyage literatures,
the fantastic bodies positioned as marginal, “other,”
terrifying and wondrous. I argue that these travel tales, which
view, mark and deploy foreign, “othered” bodies in
their own frequently propagandistic narratives, can offer insight
into native Irish and Icelandic understandings of and responses to
their involvement in the peripheralizing rhetoric of Giraldus
Cambrensis's “secret and distant freaks.”
Joseph Falaky Nagy (University California, Los Angeles) Fenian Female Food and Other Ossianic Oddities
This paper considers the significance of some references to the curious diet of the women of the Fianna in Scottish oral tradition. Reference will also be made to strange foods recommended or offered by women in Fenian tales, and to an episode of the Acallam na Senórach about Fenian beauty secrets.
Saturday Evening
The Colloquium Banquet will be held at Christopher's in Porter
Square.
Porter Square may be reached either on foot by walking some 20
minutes up Massachusetts Avenue,
or by subway by taking the Red
Line outbound one stop.
The Banquet will begin at 7:30 p.m. (Attendance by reservation in advance only.)
October 7, 2006
Dydd Sul/ Dé Domhnaigh / Sunday
9:30-11:00 a.m. Session Twelve
Fiona Salisbury (University of Cambridge) The Anoetheu Dialogue in Culhwch ac Olwen
In the Welsh tale Culhwch ac
Olwen, the anoetheu
dialogue is a formulaic section of dialogue in which the giant
Ysbaddaden lists tasks to be completed by Culhwch, who has come to
ask for Ysbaddaden’s daughter, Olwen. Culhwch gives his
reaction to each task as it is presented. This paper will present a
new reading of the dialogue and show how it sheds light on Culhwch
and Yspadaden as literary characters. The place of this dialogue in
Culhwch ac Olwen will also
be discussed and its contribution to some of the themes in the
text. The paper hopes to demonstrate how a close consideration of
the wording of the dialogue in Culhwch ac Olwen, and other Middle Welsh
prose, can open up new avenues of response and investigation.
Aled Llion Jones (Harvard
University) Approaches to Cynghanedd in the Prophecies of Dafydd
Gorlech
Cynghanedd has been a
central principle in Welsh poetry since the 13th century, and is
lauded by some as being a uniquely Welsh contribution to a
post-modern countering of relativism and nihilism. This paper does
not greatly explore the philosophy, but rather concentrates on how
one fifteenth-century poet structured his political prophecy (canu brud). It will be seen that,
beyond the construction of the line and couplet, the various kinds
of cynghanedd were
specifically employed in the cywyddau to establish further principles
of ordering. There are tantalising – though yet speculative
– implications for discussions concerning authorship,
composition, transmission, performance and response.
Owen Thomas (University of
Wales, Lampeter) Types of Ambiguity in Dafydd ap
Gwilym’s Poetry
Discussion of Dafydd ap Gwilym, a pre-eminent figure in the
Welsh literary pantheon, has generally foregrounded either textual
criticism and authorship, or possible external literary or
sub-literary influences upon his poetry. Dafydd ap Gwilym's
continuing popularity with modern readers of Welsh literature is
not usually, however, due to the confluence of European motifs and
native bardic metric conservatism. Rather, it is the (embryonic)
modern sensibility projected and encapsulated by a plethora of
styles which continues to address and mesmerize readers. This paper
reveals not only Dafydd ap Gwilym's medieval penchant for a playful
turn of phrase but also a deeper and more structurally-founded form
of ambiguity in his cywyddau. A focus on ambiguity may also
facilitate approaches to questions of contested authorship.
11:15-12:15 p.m. Session Thirteen: Panel
Three
Wil Griffith (University
of Wales, Bangor) “Gorchfgyu Gormes”: Themes and
Issues in Welsh Devolution, c. 1940-1960
For nationalists in particular, for whom the primacy of the
native language was ideologically central, the post-war period
witnessed a crise de
conscience about the propriety of persisting with the
“Penyberth” policy of direct action or rather adhering
to a strict constitutionalist and parliamentary line. Pursuing
formal politics, some argued, would elevate political debate in
Wales.
Even so, the material had to be attended to, given the impact of
the inter-war depression on Wales even while also challenging a
depicted “oppressive” as well as intrusive post-war
British state. To do this, a set of political and moral standpoints
were adopted encompassing ideals which attempted to square several
circles, between Welsh speakers and non-Welsh speakers, between
urban and rural communities, between individualism and
co-operation, and aligning nationalism with internationalism.
Mari Elin Wiliam (University of Wales, Bangor) “Barnu Barn”: Reaction to the
Modernisation of Welsh Identity in the Early 1960s
This paper assesses the nature and tone of the tensions and
debate between “traditionalists” and
“modernists,” through an examination of the current
affairs journal Barn which
was first published in 1962. The paper provides analysis of how the
journal conveyed the process of modernization in Wales from c.
1962-1964 – prior to the upheavals of the latter part of the
1960s. Special attention paid to pop music, television and
discussions on the “Americanization” of Wales and will
also assess the imagery of a permissive society in Barn, especially the often heated
debates surrounding some of the rather risqué Welsh language
novels emerging during the early 1960s. Special attention will be
given to the narrative of decline, which permeated the writings of
some commentators on this topic.
12:30-1:30 p.m. Session Fourteen
William Raffel (Buffalo
State College) Defining Celtic Music: the Marketplace
Meets Tradition
The phrase “Celtic music” can refer to a variety of
musical genres, from the electronically-enhanced new-age to
traditional folk. But just how broad should that definition be?
Should so-called “Celtic rock” in fact be labeled
“rock” rather than “Celtic”? Should Riverdance be included and Lord of the Dance excluded based
upon adherence to tradition? Do categorizations based upon
national/regional origin make more sense than the broader Celtic
label?
This paper will explore how these distinctions are made, with an
emphasis on the consequences of the sorting. To what extent are
decisions made in a top-down manner by record labels, or from the
bottom up by individual musicians or listeners?
Margaret Harrison (Harvard
University) Òrain Luaidh Màiri nighean
Alasdair: A Voice in a Gaelic Waulking
This paper explores one woman’s repertoire of waulking
songs, collected by one K. C. Craig on South Uist in the 1940s. It
attempts to categorize and qualify the songs – focusing on
gendered voice on the one hand and emotional tenor on the other
– and to address the problems inherent in such
categorization. In so doing, the paper attempts to illustrate how
the community's various voices are represented within this corpus
of songs, and how the songs are reflections of female
experience.
