Fintan O’Toole 2020 Miegunyah Distinguished Visiting Fellowship Lecture
University of Melbourne, 11 March 2020 6.45-8pm
Brexit is altering the “totality of relationships” on the British-Irish archipelago, perhaps in fundamental ways.
In this lecture, Fintan O’Toole argues that Brexit espouses not just a nationalist narrative of England’s past, but a bizarrely borrowed version of Irish history. At the same time as Ireland has been struggling to transcend a nationalism based on grievance and victimhood, a new English nationalism has emerged that nurtures an (arguably less justified) sense of oppression, shame and of resistance against a supposed colonial master.
Fintan O’Toole is a columnist with The Irish Times and Leonard L. Milberg visiting lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton University. He is the winner of both the Orwell Prize and the European Press Prize for his work on Brexit. He is currently working on the official biography of Seamus Heaney. His most recent book is Heroic Failure: Brexit and The Politics of Pain (published in the US as The Politics of Pain).
This is a free public lecture, however registration is required.
https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/14083-brexit-ireland-and-the-politics-of-victimhood
11th March 2020 6.45 pm
Kathleen Fitzpatrick Lecture Theatre
Arts West
Parkville Campus, University of Melbourne.