Ireland Through a Critical Lens: A Miscellany of Life-Writing on Politics, Culture and Film - Hardcover

In this anthology of critical writing, film-maker and academic Desmond Bell draws upon his extensive experience as a sociologist, media scholar and film-maker to explore a range of issues of culture identity, politics and art in Ireland, north and south. This compendium gathers together his published work and films produced over the last forty years. This material is refashioned for a contemporary readership and supplemented with a number of original essays that enable the reader to cross-reference the critical and creative themes covered in his oeuvre. Across a range of essays, some academic in nature, others taking us on a personal journey of sociological discovery, Bell traces the emergence and development of a field of cultural studies in Ireland from the 1980s to the present. He draws on an extensive corpus of ethnographic writing, personal observation and film documentation, to address both how we might make sense of the past, and face up to the challenges of the present. As well as essays, reviews and statements as a director about his film work, this richly illustrated text provides web links that enable the reader to view his films and cross relate these to his critical writing and to a broader series of debates within Irish Studies. Bell presents us with an important exemplar of transdisciplinary Irish Studies research and practice.