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"In all the complex cultural history of the islands of Britain and Ireland the idea of the coast as a significant representative space is critical. For many important artists coastal space has figured as a site from which to braid ideas of empire, nation, region, and archipelago. They have been drawn to the coast as a zone of geographical uncertainty in which the self-definitions of the nation founder; they have been drawn to it as a peripheral space of vestigial wildness, of island retreats and experimental living; as a network of diverse localities richly endowed with distinctive forms of cultural heritage; and as a dynamically interconnected ecosystem, which is at the same time the historic site of significant developments in fieldwork and natural science. This collection situates these cultures of the Atlantic edge in a series of essays that create new contexts for coastal study in literary history and criticism. The contributors frame their research in response to emerging conversations in archipelagic criticism, the blue humanities, and island studies, the essays challenging the reader to reconsider ideas of margin, periphery and exchange. 0These twelve case studies establish the coast as a crucial location in the imaginative history of Britain, Ireland and the north Atlantic edge. Coastal Works will appeal to readers of literature and history with an interest in the sea, the environment, and the archipelago from the 18th century to the present. Accessible, innovative and provocative, Coastal Works establishes the important role that the coast plays in our cultural imaginary and suggests a range of methodologies to represent relationships between land, sea, and cultural work."--Dust jacket Introduction / Nicholas Allen, Nick Groom, and Jos Smith -- Draining the Irish Sea: the colonial politics of water / Nick Groom -- The Roar of the Solway / Fiona Stafford --Ireland, literature, and the coastal imaginary / Nicholas Allen -- 'At the Dying Atlantic's Edge': Norman Nicholson and the Cumbrian Coast / Andrew Gibson -- 'Felt Routes': Louis MacNeice and the north-east Atlantic Archipelago / John Brannigan -- The Riddle of the Sands: Erskine Childers between the tides / Daniel Brayton -- Ronald Lockley and the archipelagic imagination / Damian Walford Davies -- Maude Delap's domestic science: island spaces and gendered fieldwork in Irish natural history / Nessa Cronin -- Science at the seaside: pleasure hunts in victorian Devon / Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi and John Plunkett -- Seeing through water: the paintings of Zarh Pritchard / Margaret Cohen -- In the labyrinth: annotating Aran / Andrew McNeillie -- Fugitive allegiances: the good ship Archipelago and the Atlantic edge / Jos Smith -- Afterword / John R. Gillis
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