Hyphenated Identities: Irish-Jewish Autobiography

Prof. Pól Ó Dochartaigh, Deputy-President & Provost, Nat. Univ. of Ireland, Galway will be joining us this week to speak about Hyphenated Identities: Irish Jewish Autobiography.

Irish-Jewish autobiography is a mere 80-year-old phenomenon, spanning family memoir, political, social and cultural reflections on Jewish life in Ireland, and Holocaust survivor testimony. Six of these autobiographies, written by, among others, a Belfast-born President of Israel, a Cork-born literary editor and novelist, and a Dublin-born Zionist IRA man, contain significant reflections on what it means to be both Irish and Jewish. This talk will consider those reflections in the context of ever-evolving Irish identity.

Sponsors: Dept of German & Russian, Dept. of History, Center for the Study of Languages & Cultures (CSLC)