A word from Dublin from Carrie Preston

Carrie Preston, Assistant Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Boston University, studies gender, performance, and nationhood in the context of world modernisms. She participated in a 2007 summer seminar at Trinity College, Dublin, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her research in Dublin concerns Irish literature and theatre throughout the first half of the twentieth century and the Irish transition from British colony to an independent state. Using the archives of the Abbey Theatre, she examines women’s participation in the national theatre movement as playwrights, performers, and directors, with a focus on Lady Augusta Gregory and Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh. She also considers how women’s participation in the struggle for national independence intersected with the international women’s movement and the battle for full participation in national cultures. She has discovered that Irish theatre, Irish nationalism, and Irish feminism are productively understood in an international context. The national theatre borrows performance techniques and styles from German folk theatre, Russian dance, and Japanese Noh performance, among others. Irish nationalism and feminism also benefit from the discourses, ideas, and strategies developed in similar movements around the world. All may be seen as international performances that contribute to world modernisms.

For additional photos please see her photo story at http://www.flickr.com/photos/10266745@N03/sets/72157603870806266/