To mark the fact that the Reimagining Ireland series will soon have one hundred volumes in print, this book brings together a selection of essays from the first fifty volumes, carefully chosen to give a flavour of the diversity and multidisciplinary nature of the series. Following a chronological order, it begins with an essay by Luke Gibbons tracing the roots of modernity from the middle decades of the nineteenth century and concludes with Michael Cronin¿s discussion of time and place in global Ireland. In between, the reader will find a rich variety of essays on literary criticism, poetry, drama, photography, modernity, advertising, visual culture, immigration and feminism.
This is a collection that will appeal to anyone with a scholarly or personal interest in the cultural forces that have shaped modern Ireland. It is also a testament to the rude good health of contemporary Irish studies, showcasing the work of a talented array of established and emerging scholars currently working in the area.

CONTENTS: David Lloyd: Preface - Eamon Maher/Christabel Scaife: Introduction: Examining Our Past and Shaping Our Future - Luke Gibbons: Roots of Modernity: Primitivism and Primitive Accumulation in Nineteenth-Century Ireland - Catherine Maignant: Reimagining Ireland through Early Twentieth-Century French Eyes - Tina O'Toole: Unregenerate Spirits: George Egerton and Elizabeth Bowen's Radical Irish Fiction - Jean-Michel Rabaté: Dublin, 1913: Irish Modernism and International Modernism - Victor Merriman: «To Sleep is Safe, To Dream is Dangerous»: Catholicism on Stage in Independent Ireland - Gerald Dawe: From Borstal Boy and Ginger Man to Kitty Stobling: A Brief Look Back at the 1950s - Caroline Magennis: Sexual Dissidents and Queer Space in Northern Irish Fiction - Eugene O'Brien: «Kicking Bishop Brennan up the Arse»: Catholicism, Deconstruction and Postmodernity in Contemporary Irish Culture - Jason King: Irish Multicultural Fiction: Metaphors of Miscegenation and Interracial Romance - Neil O'Boyle: Advertising, Media and Irish Identity: Reflections on the Celtic Tiger Period - Jennifer Way: O'Connell Street as the «Nation's Main Street»: The Image of Ireland's Modernity and Irelantis - Lucy Collins: Clearing the Air: Irish Women Poets and Environmental Change - Sylvie Mikowski: Nomadic Artists, Smooth Spaces and Lines of Flight: Reading Colum McCann through Joyce, and Deleuze and Guattari - Carmen Zamorano Llena: Multiculturalism and the Dark Underbelly of the Celtic Tiger: Redefinitions of Irishness in Contemporary Ireland - Michael Cronin: Inside Out: Time and Place in Global Ireland.