Declan Kiberd
Encyclopedia
Declan Kiberd is an Irish writer and scholar. He is known for his literary criticism of Irish literature in Irish
and English, and his contributions to public cultural life.
In 2011, he was named one of Britain's top 300 intellectuals by The Observer
, despite being Irish.
, before moving to St. Paul's College, Raheny. In 1969, he won an award to study Irish and English at Trinity College, Dublin
, where he got a double first and a Gold Medal. He then went to Oxford where he took a DPhil under the late Richard Ellmann
, the biographer of James Joyce
, Oscar Wilde
and William Butler Yeats
. He is the brother of journalist Damien Kiberd
.
. Before this he held the Chair of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at University College, Dublin. He joined UCD as lecturer in Anglo-Irish literature in 1979. He taught English previously in the University of Kent
at Canterbury (1976-7), and Irish in Trinity College Dublin (1977-9). He was appointed Chair of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at UCD in 1997.
He has also been Director of the Yeats
International Summer School (1985-7), patron of the Dublin Shaw Society (1995–2000), a columnist with the Irish Times (1985-7) and the Irish Press (1987–93), the presenter of the RTÉ
arts programme, Exhibit A (1984-6), and a regular essayist and reviewer in the Irish Times, the Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books
and the New York Times.
Dr Kiberd is one of Ireland's foremost intellectuals. He was a friend of the late Palestine-born intellectual Edward Said
, author of one of the most important books of post-colonial theory,Orientalism
. Kiberd has lectured on Irish Literature
in more than 30 countries.
The importance of Inventing Ireland stems from its post-colonial treatment of a country where poetry and story-telling, in oral and written forms, acted as a crucial antidote to political and intellectual suppression by a dominant occupying imperial
culture. The continuing political divisions in a partitioned country may have contributed to a fracturing of a clear post-colonial theory of Ireland, but it may be argued that there is no all-encompassing model for colonised nations.
Inventing Ireland is a long text, which includes careful assessment of neglected issues such as the importance of Irish women writers. It is a comprehensive look at practically every Irish author of international acclaim. In this sense it can serve as a reference book of no small note for the Irish literary canon.
, but became a memoriam when Ellmann died the same year.
Another publication of note is Irish Classics, which was given the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism
in 2002.
Kiberd also wrote the introduction to the Penguin Classic Annotated Student's Edition of Ulysses
, which re-released the Bodley Head/Random House text of 1960/1961.
In 2009, Ulysses and Us: The Art of Everyday Living was published by Faber and Faber
. It argues that Ulysses is a work of popular fiction, always intended for a mass readership, and examines the how Joyce's modernist masterpiece reflects and satirises aspects of daily life.
, Children's Literature
and Post-colonial theory. Kiberd serves on the advisory board of the International Review of Irish Culture which describes itself as influenced by the critical theory
developed by the neo-Marxist intellectuals of the Frankfurt School
.
Edited:
Pamphlets:
Scripts written:
In addition to Books' Prizes listed above, received President's Award for 1998-9 and Government of Ireland Senior Research Fellowship 2003-4.
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
and English, and his contributions to public cultural life.
In 2011, he was named one of Britain's top 300 intellectuals by The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, despite being Irish.
Early life and education
Kiberd was born in Dublin and went to Belgrove Primary School, where he was taught by the distinguished novelist John McGahernJohn McGahern
John McGahern was one of the most important Irish authors of the latter half of the twentieth century. Before his death in 2006 he was hailed as "the greatest living Irish novelist" by The Observer.-Life:...
, before moving to St. Paul's College, Raheny. In 1969, he won an award to study Irish and English at Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
, where he got a double first and a Gold Medal. He then went to Oxford where he took a DPhil under the late Richard Ellmann
Richard Ellmann
Richard David Ellmann was a prominent American literary critic and biographer of the Irish writers James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and William Butler Yeats...
, the biographer of James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
, Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
and William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
. He is the brother of journalist Damien Kiberd
Damien Kiberd
Damien Kiberd is a well-known Irish journalist and commentator. He was one of the four founders of and formerly the editor of The Sunday Business Post. He is also a former business editor of The Irish Press and of the Sunday Tribune. Kiberd has also worked more recently as a presenter of news...
.
Academic career
Professor Kiberd is the Donald and Marilyn Keough Professor of Irish Studies and professor of English at the University of Notre DameUniversity of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...
. Before this he held the Chair of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at University College, Dublin. He joined UCD as lecturer in Anglo-Irish literature in 1979. He taught English previously in the University of Kent
University of Kent
The University of Kent, previously the University of Kent at Canterbury, is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom...
at Canterbury (1976-7), and Irish in Trinity College Dublin (1977-9). He was appointed Chair of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at UCD in 1997.
He has also been Director of the Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
International Summer School (1985-7), patron of the Dublin Shaw Society (1995–2000), a columnist with the Irish Times (1985-7) and the Irish Press (1987–93), the presenter of the RTÉ
RTE
RTÉ is the abbreviation for Raidió Teilifís Éireann, the public broadcasting service of the Republic of Ireland.RTE may also refer to:* Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 25th Prime Minister of Turkey...
arts programme, Exhibit A (1984-6), and a regular essayist and reviewer in the Irish Times, the Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books
London Review of Books
The London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
and the New York Times.
Dr Kiberd is one of Ireland's foremost intellectuals. He was a friend of the late Palestine-born intellectual Edward Said
Edward Said
Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...
, author of one of the most important books of post-colonial theory,Orientalism
Orientalism
Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...
. Kiberd has lectured on Irish Literature
Irish literature
For a comparatively small island, Ireland has made a disproportionately large contribution to world literature. Irish literature encompasses the Irish and English languages.-The beginning of writing in Irish:...
in more than 30 countries.
Inventing Ireland
He is best known for a major critical assessment of Anglo-Irish literature and culture, Inventing Ireland. The book gives a post colonial perspective on the Irish literary tradition, essentially arguing that the English "invented" their own view of Ireland by making it a subconscious dumping ground for a colonising world-view.The importance of Inventing Ireland stems from its post-colonial treatment of a country where poetry and story-telling, in oral and written forms, acted as a crucial antidote to political and intellectual suppression by a dominant occupying imperial
Empire
The term empire derives from the Latin imperium . Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples united and ruled either by a monarch or an oligarchy....
culture. The continuing political divisions in a partitioned country may have contributed to a fracturing of a clear post-colonial theory of Ireland, but it may be argued that there is no all-encompassing model for colonised nations.
Inventing Ireland is a long text, which includes careful assessment of neglected issues such as the importance of Irish women writers. It is a comprehensive look at practically every Irish author of international acclaim. In this sense it can serve as a reference book of no small note for the Irish literary canon.
Other works of note
1987 he co-edited Omnium Gatherum: Essays for Richard Ellman, which had been intended as a festschrift for Richard EllmannRichard Ellmann
Richard David Ellmann was a prominent American literary critic and biographer of the Irish writers James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and William Butler Yeats...
, but became a memoriam when Ellmann died the same year.
Another publication of note is Irish Classics, which was given the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism
Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism
The Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism is awarded for literary criticism by the University of Iowa on behalf of the Truman Capote Estate. The value of the award is $30,000 , and is said to be the largest annual cash prize for literary criticism in the English language...
in 2002.
Kiberd also wrote the introduction to the Penguin Classic Annotated Student's Edition of Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
, which re-released the Bodley Head/Random House text of 1960/1961.
In 2009, Ulysses and Us: The Art of Everyday Living was published by Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...
. It argues that Ulysses is a work of popular fiction, always intended for a mass readership, and examines the how Joyce's modernist masterpiece reflects and satirises aspects of daily life.
Academic qualifications
Educated at Trinity College Dublin (First Class Degree with Gold Medal in English and Irish); D.Phil (Oxford).Research supervision, and interests
Anglo-Irish Literature and DramaDrama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
, Children's Literature
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
and Post-colonial theory. Kiberd serves on the advisory board of the International Review of Irish Culture which describes itself as influenced by the critical theory
Critical theory
Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...
developed by the neo-Marxist intellectuals of the Frankfurt School
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
.
Publications
Books:- SyngeJohn Millington SyngeEdmund John Millington Synge was an Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore. He was a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival and was one of the cofounders of the Abbey Theatre...
and the Irish Language, Macmillan: London 1979; second edition with new Introduction, London 1992.
- Men and Feminism in Modern Literature, Macmillan: London 1985; second edition 1987.
- Idir Dhá Chultúr (Essays on Interaction of GaelicGoidelic languagesThe Goidelic languages or Gaelic languages are one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic languages, the other consisting of the Brythonic languages. Goidelic languages historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland through the Isle of Man to the north of Scotland...
and English-language culture), Coiscéim Áth Cliath 1993; second edition with new preface 2002.
- Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation, Jonothan Cape London 1995; Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
Press 1996; Vintage Paperback 1996; Winner Michael Durkan Prize of American Committee of Irish Studies for Best Book of Cultural Criticism 1996; Oscar WildeOscar WildeOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
Award for Literary Achievement, 1996; Winner of Irish Times Literature Prize for Non-Fiction
- Irish Classics, Granta London 2000; Harvard University Press 2001; Granta and Harvard Paperback 2001; Winner Truman CapoteTruman CapoteTruman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...
Prize for Best Work of Literary Criticism in the English-Speaking World 2002; Winner Robert Rhodes Prize of American Committee of Irish Studies for Best Book of Literary Criticism 2001.
- The Irish Writer And The World, CambridgeCambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
University Press 2005
- UlyssesUlysses (novel)Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
and Us: The Art of Everyday Living (Faber and FaberFaber and FaberFaber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...
, 2009)
Edited:
- An Crann Faoi Bhláth: Contemporary Irish Poetry with Verse Translations, Wolfhound Press Dublin 1989; 1997 (with Gabriel Fitzmaurice)
- The Student's Annotated UlyssesUlysses (novel)Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
, Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics, London 1992
- The London Exiles: WildeOscar WildeOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
and ShawGeorge Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
' and 'Contemporary Irish Poetry' sections, Field DayField DayField Day is an annual amateur radio exercise, widely sponsored by IARU regions and member organizations, encouraging emergency communications preparedness among amateur radio operators...
Anthology of Irish Writing, Derry 1991
- Two issues of The Crane Bag magazine
Pamphlets:
- Anglo-Irish Attitudes, Field Day Derry 1985
- Multiculturalism and Artistic Freedom: Rushdie, Ireland and India, Cork University Press 1992
- Multiculturalism: The View from the Two Irelands (with Edna Longley), Cork University Press 2000
Scripts written:
- Samuel BeckettSamuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
Silence to Silence BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
1984
- A Short History of Ireland BBC TV 1986:
- Plus many scripts for BBC Radio 3 on Irish themes 1990–present
Public Roles
- Chair, Public Libraries and Arts Government Commission 1996-9
- Member, Forum on Future of Broadcasting 2002
- Visiting Lecturer in over 30 countries 1982–present
- Member, Irish Manuscripts CommissionIrish Manuscripts CommissionThe Irish Manuscripts Commission was established in 1928 by the newly founded Irish Free State with the intention of furthering the study of Ireland's manuscript collections and archives...
and Cultural Relations Committee 1995-2002
- Elected member of the Royal Irish AcademyRoyal Irish AcademyThe Royal Irish Academy , based in Dublin, is an all-Ireland, independent, academic body that promotes study and excellence in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. It is one of Ireland's premier learned societies and cultural institutions and currently has around 420 Members, elected in...
2003
- Appointed to the new board of the Abbey TheatreAbbey TheatreThe Abbey Theatre , also known as the National Theatre of Ireland , is a theatre located in Dublin, Ireland. The Abbey first opened its doors to the public on 27 December 1904. Despite losing its original building to a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the present day...
- Funding Awards
In addition to Books' Prizes listed above, received President's Award for 1998-9 and Government of Ireland Senior Research Fellowship 2003-4.
External links
- Podcast of Interview on Irish Radio RTÉ Radio One
- Staff profile on UCD website
- West Virginia University interview
- Irish Times interview
- Queens University Belfast interview
- Inventing Ireland sample chapter
- Satellite image of Ireland
- http://images.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ucd.ie/english/doublevision/doublevision-Images/17.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.ucd.ie/english/doublevision/doublevision-Pages/Image17.html&h=428&w=570&sz=99&tbnid=LIZknmKs7-XGUM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=131&hl=en&start=3&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2Bsite:www.ucd.ie%2Bdeclan%2Bkiberd%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3DPicture of Declan Kiberd and friends enjoying a tippleTippleTipple can mean:* Coal tipple, a structure used for loading coal into railroad cars* Tipple * Tipple a Welsh surname.* Slang term for alcoholic beverage* Tipple App is an iPhone app designed to help moderate drinking...
] - profile of Declan Kiberd
