New Directions In Celtic Studies

Contributions by Marion Bowman, Deborah Curtis, Amy Hale, Leslie Jones, Moya Kneafsey, Antone Minard, Prof. Philip Payton, Roy Pedersen, Brian Stowell, Shannon Thornton, Colin H. Williams Edited by Amy Hale, Prof. Philip Payton

Publication date:

01 May 2000

Length of book:

245 pages

Publisher

University of Exeter Press

Dimensions:

229x152mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780859895873

The primary aim of New Directions in Celtic Studies is to focus on contemporary issues and to promote interdisciplinary approaches within the subject. Written by international scholars and practitioners in fields such as folklore, ethnomusicology, art history, religious studies, tourism and education, the book brings together in one volume a wide range of perspectives. It responds to the recent questioning of the viability of the notion of 'Celticity' and the idea of Celtic Studies as a discipline and points to a renewed vitality in the subject.

New Directions in Celtic Studies is divided into four sections: popular culture and representation; commodities and Celtic lifestyles; contemporary Celtic identity and the Celtic diaspora; Celtic praxis.

Contents: Part 1 Popular culture, representation and Celtic "lifestyles": reading the record bins, Shannon Thornton; stone circles and tables round - representing the Celts in film and television, Leslie Jones; pre-packaged Breton folk narrative, Antone Minard; contemporary Celtic spirituality, Marion Bowman. Part 2 The Celtic diaspora: pagans, pipers and politicos -constructing Celtic identity in a festival context, Amy Hale and Shannon Thornton; the Celtic revival in Australia, Philip Payton; creative ethnicity - one man's invention of Celtic identity, Deborah Curtis. Part 3 Celtic praxis: provision of Manx language -tuition in schools in the Isle of Man, Brian Stowell; the Gaelic economy, Roy Pedersen; rural tourism and identity in Western Ireland and Brittany, Moya Kneafsey; conclusion, Colin H. Williams.

"This volume will be of interest to the local historian for a number of reasons. Firstly, for the way in which the authors break out of the antiquarian mind-set with which Celtic scholars have, perhaps unfairly, been associated. Next, because of the way in which they represent Celticity and Cornishness as something for which people have an affinity, regardless of their ethnic origins . . . Finally, they remind local historians that, in researching the past, they are also re-defining the present and helping to re-shape the culture and identity of the future." The journal of the Cornwall Association of Local Historians, Spring 2001