Location:

Donegal, Ireland

Program Type:

Study Abroad

Degree Level:

Undergraduate

Term:

Summer

Program Overview

Program Description:

This summer the Performing Arts and English Departments of UMass Boston will offer students a unique opportunity to study Irish literature and drama intensively on campus followed by travel to Ireland to visit and explore the settings that inspired the works we study. Although a small island, Ireland has produced a remarkable number of extraordinary poets, fiction writers, and dramatists. This course will start by connecting some of the representative dots on the literary timeline between the death of parliamentary nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell in 1891 and the production of Sean O’Casey’s drama The Plough and the Stars in 1926. We will engage with major writers and enduring works from this period: the poetry of William Butler Yeats, selected writings by Lady Gregory, James Joyce’s Dubliners, John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World and the plays of O’Casey. We will then continue our study of Irish writing by exploring more recent works that build upon the tradition established by these earlier icons. After a month of academic study on the campus of UMass Boston, students will travel to Dublin, Ireland for a ten-day immersion experience in Irish literature, theatre, and culture, attending plays at the famous Abbey Theatre, visiting Joyce’s tower, exploring Kilmainham Gaol, and more. The course will culminate in a visit to the Aran Islands, off the coast of Galway, the westernmost point in Europe and the inspiration for several of the works we will have read.

Undergraduate participants register for either THRART 410 or ENGL 415. Both are 3 credits and fulfill requirements for the Theatre Arts major and the English major respectively. Students who wish to extend and deepen their academic experience may also register and earn 3 additional credits by taking THRART 479 or ENGL 455.