Irish and Jewish struggles
Irish theater critic and scholar Fintan O’Toole will present the 2017 Robert Fagles Memorial Lecture, “If It Wasn’t for the Irish and Jews” on Friday, Feb. 17, at 4:30 p.m. at Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts’ James M. Stewart ‘32 Theater, Princeton. Part of the 2016-17 Fund for Irish Studies series at Princeton University, this event is free and open to the public.
“If It Wasn’t for the Irish and Jews” explores these ethnic groups as two of the world’s greatest diasporic cultures. Their histories have shared themes of dispossession, discrimination, and self-assertion. O’Toole considers how the two cultures have interacted, from Tin Pan Alley and Broadway to struggles for religious emancipation, and from James Joyce’s “Ulysses” to Abie’s “Irish Rose.”
O’Toole, one of Ireland’s leading public intellectuals, has written for “The Irish Times,” “New York Daily News,” “Sunday Tribune (Dublin),” and “In Dublin Magazine.” His books on theater span a wide range of topics, from his biography of Richard Brinsley Sheridan to theater currently appearing on Irish stages. He is the assistant editor, a columnist, and a feature writer for “The Irish Times.” He also contributes to “The New York Review of Books,” “The New Yorker,” “Granta,” “The Guardian,” “The Observer,” and other international publications. In 2011, “The Observer” named O’Toole one of “Britain’s top 300 intellectuals.” He has received the A.T. Cross Award for Supreme Contribution to Irish Journalism, the Millennium Social Inclusion Award, and Journalist of the Year in 2010 from TV3 Media Awards.
For information, visit fis.princeton.edu.
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