A Special Issue of the Irish Studies Review
Vol.31, No.1 (February 2023)
In the aftermath of the 2008 Credit Crisis, studies of capitalism made a rapid resurgence within American history-writing: works such as Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton, Bethany Moreton’s To Serve God and Walmart, Jonathan Levy’s Freaks of Fortune and Destin Jenkins’ Bonds of Inequality all raised serious questions not just about capitalism but also about adjacent issues of race, gender, religion, and the environment.
Irish Capitalist Studies has so far not emerged, despite the 2008 Crisis being especially devastating in Ireland and despite Ireland being a key laboratory of capitalism from the early modern period onwards: from the Cromwellian plantations that remade patterns of landownership to the construction of Ireland as a dependent market before and after the Act of Union to the obsessions with personal responsibility during the Famine and economic restructuring and social engineering after it. Modern Irish history cannot be understood outside of the capitalist contexts in which it unfolded. It is not at all a coincidence that when Marx wrote Capital in 1867 and sought to create a general theory of capitalism’s origins and development, Ireland was the only non-British space he discussed at length. This special issue seeks to bring Capitalism Studies into a fruitful conversation with Irish Studies
Potential topics could include (but are not limited to):
- Racial Capitalism in Ireland
- The Literatures and Histories of the Celtic Tiger
- Ireland, the Climate Crisis and the Capitalocene
- Dependent Development, the Comprador Bourgeoisie and the Irish Class System
- Ireland as a postcolonial economy
- Religion and Capitalism in Ireland
- Gendered perspectives on Irish Capitalism
- Capitalism and Irish Nationalism
- The Irish Diaspora as an International Financial Network
- Ireland in the World-System
- Works of Irish Studies that incorporate the works of major theorists of capitalism
We particularly welcome contributions from historically under-represented groups.
Deadlines for submissions: 1 February 2022
Articles should be no longer than 10,000 words
Conor McCabe // conormccabeie@gmail.com
Aidan Beatty // aib28@pitt.edu