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FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK ; 32(3) Extension services during COVID-19 pandemic

The article reflects upon Sam Shepard’s playwrighting in the opening decades of the twenty-first century, paying particular attention to his last play, A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations), written specifically for the Derry/Londonderry City of Culture celebrations in 2013, and originally produced by the renowned Field Day Theatre Company. The article seeks to offer an insight into Shepard’s mature multilayered text, which, in many respects, looks back upon almost fifty years of his artistic creativity and, at the same time, expands his vision. It also addresses the realisation of Shepard’s play in performance and the significance of his text in an interplay of multiple creative inputs involved in the production process. While revisiting the familiar landscapes and themes, Shepard’s most recent work negotiates the boundaries between the actual and the fictitious, raising debates about the persistence of myths, mortality and the haunting legacies of the past. Richly intertextual and conspicuously metatheatrical, it grapples with questions of authenticity, performativity and storytelling – the narratives that are passed down, and how they form and inform our lives. It also engages with, and further problematises, issues of personal and cultural identity, which constitute Shepard’s most durable thematic threads, revealing both the dramatist’s acute concern with fateful determinism and commitment to self-invention. Significantly, while Shepard’s postmillennial output highlights the author’s ongoing preoccupation with instability and frontiers of various sorts (from those topographic, temporal and sociopolitical to those of language and art), it equally intimates his attentiveness to correspondences between times, lands and cultures.

Magistrsko delo z naslovom »Astronomski naravoslovni dan v četrtem razredu osnovne šole – Sončev sistem« zaokrožajo tri med seboj povezane celote: teoretični, empirični in praktični del. Teoretični del obsega astronomski (predstavljena je astronomija, njena kratka zgodovina in Sončev sistem) in didaktični sklop (pojasnjeno je naravoslovje in predstavljen učni predmet naravoslovje in tehnika, oboje s stališča astronomije). V empiričnem delu so predstavljeni rezultati pred- in potesta, s katerima je bilo merjeno znanje četrtošolcev o Sončevem sistemu pred in po izvedbi naravoslovnega dne z enako vsebino. Ugotovljeno je, da udeležba učencev na astronomskem naravoslovnem dnevu vpliva na višje znanje učencev o Sončevem sistemu, da si učenci abstraktne pojme v astronomiji ustrezno predstavljajo ob uporabi konkretnih ponazoril (modelov) ter da izkustveno učenje pozitivno vpliva na znanje učencev, od učitelja pa zahteva temeljito teoretično pripravo, specifična didaktična znanja in več vloženega časa v pripravo aktivnosti. The thesis, titled "Astronomy Field Day in the Fourth Grade of Elementary School – The Solar System", is comprised of a theoretical, empirical and practical part. The theoretical part is further divided into two subchapters. The first subchapter presents astronomy and its history as well as the Solar system. The second subchapter provides an overview of Natural Sciences and the school subject Science and Technics from the point of view of astronomy. The empirical part contains the results of the pre- and post-tests, which measured the fourth graders' knowledge of the Solar system before and after the field day, respectively. It was established that participation in the field day positively affected students' knowledge of the Solar system and that students more easily visualize abstract astronomical concepts using concrete representations (models). Experiential learning thus positively affects the students' knowledge acquisition. However, it does demand a lot of time, theoretical preparation and specific didactic competences from the teacher in order to properly prepare this type of activity.

In the 1980s, key Irish Studies scholars proposed that Irish culture, politics and economics – both past and present – are most usefully viewed in the context of imperialism, colonialism and anti-colonial nationalism. The result of this intervention is an Irish postcolonial studies which, over the past 35 years, has produced an influential body of scholarship premised on the idea that Ireland is a colony/former colony of the British Empire. Notwithstanding its considerable impact, Irish postcolonial studies has not been without its detractors, with the country's location within Europe forming the basis for one of most persistent objections to the application of a postcolonial framework to Ireland. Given the key role assigned to geography in the postcolonial debate in Ireland, this article explores the implications for Ireland of an emerging postcolonial critique centred on Europe. In addition to discussing the concept of internal colonisation as applied to such Western European countries as Italy and Britain, the article makes reference to postcolonial analyses of the region of Eastern and Central Europe and its relationship with both Russia and Western Europe. The article acknowledges that the branch of European postcolonial studies that focuses on uneven power relationships within and between European countries offers a useful challenge to the argument that Ireland should either be examined within a European framework or a postcolonial one, but argues that the categorisation of a greater number of European societies as colonies or former colonies raises important questions that require further debate.

An anthology aims at presenting, in a compact format, a collection of texts, some of which are famous and well-known, others more rare, harder to find, neglected or entirely forgotten ; in the process, it purports to give the reader an insight into what a literature, a genre, a period has produced that is most noteworthy. As it is entirely predicated upon selection, inclusion and exclusion, the process of compiling an anthology relies implicitly or explicitly on a set of criteria to determine representativity and they are likely to vary with time, but also with other factors, individual and collective. The more ambiguous or disputed the status of a literature, the higher the stakes. The case of Ireland which we shall be dealing with in the present article highlights some of the problems inherent to such an enterprise. What images of Irish literature, of literature and of Ireland do literary anthologies published in Ireland convey ? To what extent is an anthology, and more particularly The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing published by Field Day in 1991 a representation of a body of texts but also a political act, an act of real or imaginary definition ?, Une anthologie permet de rassembler des textes, des œuvres reconnues mais aussi parfois rares, oubliées ou négligées, et de donner, sous un format compact, un aperçu de tout ce qu'une littérature, un genre, une période ont donné de plus remarquable. Parce qu'elle est toute entière prédiquée sur l'inclusion et l'exclusion, l'entreprise anthologisante s'appuie sur des critères de sélection, de représentativité, susceptibles de varier avec le temps, mais aussi au gré d'autres facteurs, individuels ou collectifs. Plus le statut d'une littérature est ambigu ou disputé, plus les enjeux deviennent importants. Le cas de l'Irlande, auquel nous nous consacrerons ici permet de prendre conscience de nombre de problèmes inhérents à une telle forme de représentation. Quelles images donnent les anthologies littéraires publiées en Irlande de la littérature irlandaise mais aussi de la littérature et de l'Irlande ? En quoi une anthologie et plus spécifiquement l'anthologie publiée par Field Day en 1991 est- elle représentation d'un ensemble de textes et d'œuvres mais aussi acte politique, acte de définition, réelle ou fantasmée ?, Pelletier Martine. Littérature et représentation. "An act of definition" : The Field Day Anthology of Irish writing. In: Études irlandaises, n°21-2, 1996. L'Irlande : représentations littéraires, sous la direction de Jacqueline Genet . pp. 19-29.

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Thesis Abstract The aim of this thesis is to provide a thorough overview of Brian Friel's attitude to historical writing based on an analysis of three of his plays that directly deal with the themes of Irish history and heritage - Translations, The Communication Cord, and Making History. The plays are analyzed from different perspectives, applying various sources and influences shaping Friel's understanding of the concept of history as such and its fictional representation in art. Upon this careful examination, major tendencies in Friel's historical writing are revealed offering a concise characterization of not only the plays in question but also of the Irish historical consciousness in general. The thesis is divided into four major chapters - one providing a theoretical background which would be later applied to the other three parts that deal directly with Friel's works. The theoretical part is further divided into a brief summary of the philosophy of history and a short introduction of the Field Day Theatrical Company. The former segment is based on Hayden White's Metahistory for he treats historical writing as a narrative rather than a scientific objective report. This part follows the development of the concept of history, truth, and art, and is mainly focused on Friedrich Nietzsche as an ideological...

In the 1980s, Field Day brought together some of the most important names in Irish artistic life—Brian Friel, Stephen Rea, Seamus Deane, Seamus Heaney, Tom Paulin, David Hammond and Thomas Kilroy—to articulate a cultural intervention into the deadly stalemate of the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’. At the heart of the enterprise was an annual theatre tour around the island of Ireland that visited cities and small villages, playing in theatres and community venues. These plays did not tackle the ‘Troubles’ directly, but brought their audiences to places such as pre-Famine Ireland, the world of Greek tragedy, pre-Revolutionary Russian provinces and apartheid South Africa. Informed by poststructuralist thinking and archival materials, this book argues that the political and postcolonial salience of these dramas lies in the ways in which they foregrounded acts of cultural translation in order to disrupt disabling constructions of Irish identity that had contributed to engendering the ‘Troubles’. Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction. In Other Words: Locating a Touring Theatre Company Translating the Irish Past Translation, Home and Hospitality Loyal Translations: The Spirit and the Letter Reciprocation and Resolution Masks: Men and History Epilogue: Afterlives Key Texts Field Day Texts Index Published version of EUI PhD thesis, 2004

An overview of how the group Field Day turned to European literature in order to articulate a cultural intervention into the Northern Irish 'Troubles' in the 1980s and 90s. This paper focused in particular on Brian Friel's translation of Anton Chekhov's 'Three Sisters'.

Syfte och frågeställningar Syftet med studien har varit att jämföra lärares och rektorers syn på friluftsdagar avseende mål, innehåll och organisation. Resultatet har tolkats med utgångspunkt i en läroplansteoretisk modell. De mer preciserade frågeställningarna var: Vad vill skolan uppnå med friluftsdagarna? Hur ramar skolan in begreppet friluftsdag genom förekomsten av olika inslag? Hur ofta vill lärarna att olika inslag ska förekomma på friluftsdagarna samt vilka skolämnen är och bör finnas representerade? Hur ser organisationen ut kring friluftsdagarna på skolan enligt lärare och rektorer samt hur bör den se ut enligt lärarna? Vilken kompetens anser lärare och rektorer vara viktig för planeringen av friluftsdagarna? Metod En enkätstudie med kvalitativa inslag genomfördes på 121 ämneslärare i svenska och idrott och hälsa samt 67 rektorer från högstadieskolor i Stockholms län. Enkäter skickades ut via e-post till respondenterna som valts ut genom ett obundet slumpmässigt urval från en förteckning på Skolverkets hemsida. Studien fick, efter tre påminnelser, en svarsfrekvens på 44,1 procent (n=83). Resultat och diskussion Resultatet visar att ”naturvistelse/friluftsliv” var det som lärare och rektorer tyckte var viktigast att uppnå på friluftsdagar och detta realiseras också genom inslag av natur- och utomhusvistelse. Lärare och rektorer ramar in begreppet friluftsdag olika. De har olika uppfattning om förekomsten av inslaget ”friluftsliv” och det gäller också inslaget ”fysisk aktivitet”. Rektorerna ansåg att dessa inslag förkommer i större utsträckning än lärarna. I jämförelsen mellan lärares uppfattning om vad som förekommer och hur det bör se ut på skolan visades en signifikant skillnad på inslagen ”tävlingsmoment”, ”ämnesintegrering”, ”naturvistelse”, ”fysisk aktivitet” samt ”miljö och hållbar utveckling”. Tävlingsmoment förekommer för ofta och kan tänkas ta plats från de andra inslagen som lärarna önskade mer av på friluftsdagarna. Ämnet som var och bör vara mest representerande på friluftsdagarna var ämnet idrott och hälsa. Idrottsläraren anses vara den som har kompetensen att planera och organisera friluftsdagar och är också den som oftast planerar och organiserar friluftsdagarna. Lärarna i studien tycker dock att planeringen borde fördelas på fler lärare. Slutsats Det tycks finnas en kontinuitet i övergången mellan intentionerna på transformeringsarenan och realiseringsarenan när det kommer till frisk luft, natur och friluftsliv på friluftsdagarna. Däremot delar lärare respektive rektorer, på de olika arenorna, inte uppfattningen om hur ofta friluftsliv och fysisk aktivitet förekommer på friluftsdagarna. Aim and questions The aim of this study has been to compare teachers’ and headmasters’ view on field-days’ goal, content and organisation. The results were interpreted on the basis of a “curriculum theoretical model”. The questions are: What do schools strive to attain with field days? How do schools define the conception of field day by the existence of different features? How often do teachers want different features to occur at field days and what school subjects are, and should be represented according to teachers? How does the organization around the field days look like according to teachers and headmasters, and how should it look like according to teachers? Which qualifications are important when planning field days according to teachers and headmasters? Method The study was carried out on 121 teachers of Swedish and teachers of PE and 67 headmasters from secondary schools in Stockholm country. A questionnaire was sent by e-mail to the respondents who were chosen by an independent random selection with the help of a list at the web page of the National Agency for education. The percentage of answers, after three reminders, were 44.1% (n = 83). Results and discussion Results shows that ”being in nature/outdoor life” was what the schools considered to be most important to attain at field-days and this is also what becomes realized by features as being in nature and being outdoor. Teachers and headmasters do frame the term of field-days in different ways. They have different opinions about the existence of the feature ”outdoor life” and this also applies to the feature ”physical education”. Headmasters think that those features exist more often than the teachers. When comparing teachers opinion about how it looks like in school and how it should look like there was a significant difference within the features ”elements of competition”, ”integrating school subjects”, ”being in nature”, ”physical activity” and ”environment and sustainable development”. Elements of competition do exist often on field days and are supposed to take place from other features that the teachers wanted more of. The school subject which was and should be most represented at the field days was the subject physical education. The PE-teacher is the one who is regarded to have the competence and who does most of the planning and organizing around the field days Nevertheless teachers think that the planning should be spread more among teachers. Conclusion There seems to be continuity in the transition between the intentions at the transforming arena and implementation at the field when it comes to fresh air, nature and outdoor life at the field days. However, the teachers respectively headmasters, on the different arenas, does not always share the same opinion about how often outdoor life and physical activity do exist on the field days.

Defence date: 27 January 2004 Examining board: Prof. Luisa Passerini, Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut, Essen - Università di Torino (supervisor) ; Prof. Richard Kearney, Boston College (external supervisor) ; Prof. Declan Kiberd, University College, Dublin ; Prof. Bo Stråth, European University Institute PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017 In the 1980s, Field Day brought together some of the most important names in Irish artistic life—Brian Friel, Stephen Rea, Seamus Deane, Seamus Heaney, Tom Paulin, David Hammond and Thomas Kilroy—to articulate a cultural intervention into the deadly stalemate of the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’. At the heart of the enterprise was an annual theatre tour around the island of Ireland that visited cities and small villages, playing in theatres and community venues. These plays did not tackle the ‘Troubles’ directly, but brought their audiences to places such as pre-Famine Ireland, the world of Greek tragedy, pre-Revolutionary Russian provinces and apartheid South Africa. Informed by poststructuralist thinking and archival materials, this book argues that the political and postcolonial salience of these dramas lies in the ways in which they foregrounded acts of cultural translation in order to disrupt disabling constructions of Irish identity that had contributed to engendering the ‘Troubles’.

An explicit impulse behind Brian Friel’s 1982 Field Day play The Communication Cord was the wish to formulate a response to his 1980 Translations, which inaugurated the Field Day enterprise. This article suggests that this response took the form of a translation or re- translation ; that, in other words, The Communication Cord can be thought of as a translation of Translations. Translations focused on the activities associated with the Ordnance Survey in Ireland in the 1830s, in particular on the Anglicisation of Irish place- names that accompanied their cartographic activities. Thought of in this fashion, The Communication Cord becomes a translation of a play in which certain processes of translation are explored in a colonial context, and so it re-enacts these processes, but this time in a postcolonial context. Hence, this article explores the motives informing this (re-)translation of a colonial encounter through a reading of the manner in which the dynamics of translation are re-performed in the postcolonial setting of The Communication Cord.

This article examines the importance of theatrical adaptations in Ireland. Over the last few years classical Greek or Russian plays, particularly those of Chekhov, have enjoyed great success on the Irish stage. Are we dealing here with a series of isolated personal homages to past masters or should one talk about a collective strategy ? Given the proliferation and popularity of adaptations, one may wonder. Among those who have adapted classics or foreign plays, two categories emerge. On the one hand those who had never written for the stage before, mainly poets like Brendan Kennelly, Seamus Heaney, Tom Paulin or Derek Mahon ; on the other hand those established playwrights, like Friel, Kilroy and McGuinness who, over the years, have engaged in fruitful dialogue with foreign dramatists and whose production includes both original works and adaptations. In the 1980's, Field Day staged various adaptations and one may even consider that they made this genre one of their priorities. Not only have they practised it, they have also reflected upon its theoretical implications, in terms that are often political ; their experience would suggest that adaptations can be envisaged as elements in a wider cultural strategy of rewriting and repossessing., Cet article propose une réflexion sur la place des adaptations en Irlande. Les classique du théâtre grec et les Russes, Tchékhov en tête, ont connu un immense succès ces dernières années sur les scènes irlandaises. Hommage individuel d'un artiste à un grand maître du passé ou stratégie collective ? Devant la prolifération du genre on est en droit de s'interroger. On peut distinguer deux catégories parmi les adaptateurs ; d'une part ceux qui n'avaient jamais écrit pour le théâtre avant d'adapter un classique ; ce sont essentiellement des poètes parmi lesquels on peut citer Brendan Kennelly, Seamus Heaney, Tom Paulin, Derek Mahon. D'autre part des dramaturges confirmés qui au fil des années ont établi un dialogue privilégié avec des auteurs étrangers et dont la production témoigne de cette alternance entre créations originales et adaptations, comme Brian Friel, Thomas Kilroy ou Frank McGuinness. Field Day a mis en scène de nombreuses adaptations et l'on peut même voir dans cette forme une de leurs priorités. Ils ne se sont pas contentés de la pratiquer, ils y ont aussi réfléchi, en termes souvent connotes politiquement et de ce fait, leur expérience permet d'envisager l'adaptation sous un angle moins innocent, s'inscrivant dans une stratégie de et de ré-appropriation., Pelletier Martine. Athènes, Moscou, Ballybeg : les adaptations sur la scène irlandaise contemporaine. In: Études irlandaises, n°22-1, 1997. pp. 71-84.