Well, the critics certainly had a field day when the Field Day Anthology of Irish Literature appeared some years ago, and succeeded in marginalising women writers in all three volumes. Such was the justified outcry, it was announced there would be a fourth volume, to right the wrong and focus on women writers. Years passed, but no word was heard of the promised text. This week, Sadbh hears from Cork University Press that The Field Day Anthology: Irish Women's Writing and Traditions, Volumes IV and V, will be published in autumn 2001. The team of editors who have been working on the text are: Angela Bourke, Mairin Ni Dhonneadha, Siobhan Kilfeather, Maria Luddy, Margaret McCurtain, Geraldine Meaney, Mary O'Dowd, and Claire Wills. The extracts will be presented in the form of themes, such as "Women and Society", "Women's Writing in English 1700-1960", and "Women in Politics". CUP reckons that, between them, the two volumes will contain some million and a half words of text. Sadbh can see the literary headlines already: "Women's twin-set now available". The set will cost £150.
Editorial team members of the new Field Day Anthology volumes: Angela Bourke (left) and Margaret McCurtain The third issue of the journal, Tableau 3; Arguments, which is published by the Cork Institute of Technology, has just arrived on Sadbh's desk. This stylish publication looks at weighty topics, such as science from an esoteric perspective. Arguments will be launched at Scotts in Cork on October 12th by outgoing INTO president, Senator Joe O'Toole, who recently said he didn't like to end a day without at least one good argument. There are arguments aplenty in the new issue, edited once again by June O'Reilly, who looks at advertising. Senator Brendan Ryan claims key players in the technology sector are excluded from policy-forming, and Brendan Glacken (of this newspaper) questions the motives and commitment of the players who crowd the "third culture" interface. Other articles tackle GM foods, the nature/nurture debate and the threat to academic culture. The illustrated journal includes a CD-ROM with the full text of the printed book, along with the score and music of Nijinsky by John Gibson. In addition, Conor O'Sullivan discusses the title of his visual contribution, Are Architects Essential to Architecture? - interesting, not least in view of the recent decision by the President, Mrs McAleese to build a holiday home without employing an architect.
SADBH notes that Ruth Dudley-Edwards will be in Dublin on Wednesday to read from her new novel, The Anglo-Irish Murders, which is published by HarperCollins and features Baroness Troutbeck and Robert Amis, with whom her readers are already well acquainted. Historian John A. Murphy is to launch what the publishers describe on the invitation as Dudley Edwards's "satire on the Irish Peace Process". And the venue? The bookshop that specialises in crime and detective novels, Murder Ink on Dawson Street. Yes, well it is a detective story, but doesn't launching a hoot of a book - and linking it to the peace process - in a shop called Murder Ink at this time stray close to the boundary of bad taste? Or has Sadbh just got no sense of humour?
POLITICIANS taking a break from the Dail are usually the folk whom Sadbh collides with in Buswell's Hotel but it was the psychoanalysts who were out in force there the other night - in search of subjects, perhaps? Rebus Press was launching new books in the field and it was the ghost of Freud that hovered around the basement bar on this occasion, rather than the founding fathers of the State. The concept of "the death drive" and its central role in Freud's thinking was the weighty matter up for discussion as explored in one of the books launched The Sovereignty of Death by Rob Weatherill who also edited The Death Drive: New Life for a Dead Subject?, with contributions from Ross Skelton, Olga Cox-Cameron and Ingrid Masterson, among others. Home from Australia for the occasion was Athy native, Maurice Whelan, editor of Mistress of Her Own Thoughts; Ella Freeman Sharpe and the Practice of Psychoanalysis, also being launched.
YOU just never know from what corner of the world some Irish missive will come winging its way. This week Sadbh received a periodical from Japan, The Harp. What it? The journal of the international association for the study of Irish literature, Japanese branch association. Irish studies, it would appear, are flourishing everywhere. In this issue are essays called, "Quid? Quo? Quoof? Muldoon Translating, Translating Muldoon"; "The mound of sand in Happy Days; Tomb to Womb"; and "Disappearing Men; Paul Muldoon's Poetics of Elimination".
The Harp was sent by Richard Kelly, who lectures in the faculty of cross-studies at Kobe University, and is involved with the journal. Kelly, together with academic colleague Ciaran Quinn, has recently co-written an unusual book called Stone, Skin, and Silver: A Translation of the Dream of the Rood, which was published by Litho Press.
Sadbh