Nuala C. Johnson

Bio: Nuala C. Johnson is an academic researcher from Queen's University Belfast. The author has contributed to research in topics: Irish & Historical geography. The author has an hindex of 17, co-authored 36 publications receiving 1296 citations. Previous affiliations of Nuala C. Johnson include Syracuse University & University College London.

: Cast in stone: monuments, geography and nationalism

Abstract: Since the 19th century at least public monuments have been the foci for collective participation in the politics and public life of villages, towns, and cities. They have acted as important centres...

Sculpting heroic histories: celebrating the centenary of the 1798 rebellion in Ireland

Abstract: In this paper I explore the role of public statuary in constructing a heroic analysis of the past through an examination of the centenary celebrations staged to commemorate the 1798 rebellion in Ireland. Monuments entered the arena of public, secular space in Ireland mainly during the nineteenth century. It was not until the latter decades of that century that nationalist statuary, which sought to elaborate Ireland's quest for political independence, emerged. The significance of these monuments rests, I argue, in their popular appeal and the debates that surrounded their construction and unveiling. Although an alliance of nationalist interests was achieved during the centenary celebrations, this paper emphasizes the tentative nature of that alliance and the gendered iconography and discourse surrounding the statues themselves.

Where Geography and History Meet: Heritage Tourism and the Big House in Ireland

Abstract: With tourist activity expected to become the largest source of employment by the end of the millenium, this paper examines heritage tourism, its framing of history, and its relationship with narratives of national identity. Challenging analyses which suggest that the heritage industry merely presents a sanitized or bogus version of the past, I present an instance in which an historical icon is presented to a popular audience in a provocative and nuanced rendering of the past. Focusing on one particularly controversial element of Ireland's past—the big house or stately home—this paper charts its incorporation into the historical imagination through literature, analyzes its representation as a heritage icon through the example of Strokestown Park House in County Roscommon, and argues that the big house's incorporation into the heritage landscape has released it from its confinement as a social and spatial signifier of elite culture. By situating the interpretation of the house in the local spatial ...

Postmodern Subjects, Postmodern BodiesThinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Postmodernism in the Contemporary WestYearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural PoliticsGender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

Abstract: Preface (1999) Preface (1990) 1. Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire I. 'Women' as the Subject of Feminism II. The Compulsory Order of Sex/Gender/Desire III. Gender: The Circular Ruins of Contemporary Debate IV. Theorizing the Binary, the Unitary and Beyond V. Identity, Sex and the Metaphysics of Substance VI. Language, Power and the Strategies of Displacement 2. Prohibition, Psychoanalysis, and the Production of the Heterosexual Matrix I. Structuralism's Critical Exchange II. Lacan, Riviere, and the Strategies of Masquerade III. Freud and the Melancholia of Gender IV. Gender Complexity and the Limits of Identification V. Reformulating Prohibition as Power 3. Subversive Bodily Acts I. The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva II. Foucault, Herculine, and the Politics of Sexual Discontinuity III. Monique Wittig - Bodily Disintegration and Fictive Sex IV. Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions Conclusion - From Parody to Politics

National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life

Abstract: The Millennium Dome, Braveheart and Rolls Royce cars. How do cultural icons reproduce and transform a sense of national identity? How does national identity vary across time and space, how is it contested, and what has been the impact of globalization upon national identity and culture?This book examines how national identity is represented, performed, spatialized and materialized through popular culture and in everyday life. National identity is revealed to be inherent in the things we often take for granted - from landscapes and eating habits, to tourism, cinema and music. Our specific experience of car ownership and motoring can enhance a sense of belonging, whilst Hollywood blockbusters and national exhibitions provide contexts for the ongoing, and often contested, process of national identity formation. These and a wealth of other cultural forms and practices are explored, with examples drawn from Scotland, the UK as a whole, India and Mauritius. This book addresses the considerable neglect of popular cultures in recent studies of nationalism and contributes to debates on the relationship between ‘high' and ‘low' culture.

The Geography of Sustainability Transitions: Review, Synthesis and Reflections on an Emergent Research Field.

Abstract: This review covers the recent literature on the geography of sustainability transitions and takes stock with achieved theoretical and empirical insights. The review synthesises and reflects upon insights of relevance for sustainability transitions following from analyses of the importance of place specificity and the geography of inter-organisational relations. It is found that these contributions focus on the geography of niche development rather than regime dynamics, and that there is an emphasis on understanding the importance of place-specificity at the local level. While there is a wide consensus that place-specificity matters there is still little generalisable knowledge about how place-specificity matters for transitions. Most contributions add spatial sensitivity to frameworks from the transitions literature, but few studies suggest alternative frameworks to study sustainability transitions. To address this, the review suggests promising avenues for future research on the geography of sustainability transitions, drawing on recent theoretical advancements in economic geography.

The great war and modern memory

Abstract: of his career but also, and more significantly, claiming that here she is providing 'for the first time, a stylistic analysis of one of the American theatre's most fascinating practitioners.' That she has this justification depends, partly at least, on the fact that his plays and productions have commonly been regarded as belonging largely, if not indeed exclusively, to the realm of the popular stage, whereas she seeks to draw them within the orbit of those revolutionary endeavours which in divers European countries sought to establish a new theatrical 'naturalism' both in play composition and in play presentation the avant-garde activities to be found in the work of the Moscow Art Theatre, the Danish Theatre Royal, the French Theatre Libre, and the German Freie Blihne. That her endeavour is indeed fully warranted is demonstrated by the fact that when, for example, the Russian company and its companion organizations visited the United States various critics stressed their belief that its prod uctions 'had nothing new to teach Broadway.' Still more significant is the fact that Stanislavski himself put the seal of his approval on the activities of the American directorplaywright by actually making him an honorary member of the Moscow troupe. No doubt labels in themselves are of little or minor consequence, and no doubt on occasion they can prove misleading: yet it is of importance that we should teach ourselves how properly to interpret and evaluate outstanding achievements such as those manifested by such men as Belasco, and here Mrs Marker's study must be regarded as indeed a most valuable and accomplished textbook, or guidebook, call it which we will (ALLARDYCE NICOLL)