Course Information
In 1998, the people of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and England voted to approve the Good Friday Agreement as a means of reconciling political and community differences and moving Northern Ireland toward greater political, economic, and social stability. The agreement created structures designed to ameliorate 200+ years of violent conflict, yet 22 years after its ratification, deep political and community divisions that have thwarted the implementation of a fully-functioning political structure in Northern Ireland remain. This course explores the history of conflict and the contemporary processes of peace and reconciliation between England, Ireland, and Northern Ireland.  We examine the historical, cultural, literary and social systemic forces that perpetuated 200+ years of conflict and coalesced in the late 1990s to bring an end to violence and a relative normalization of community life.  Finally, we explore the unsettled issues of this “dis-united kingdom” that continue to maintain fault-lines between communities in Northern Ireland.

Approved Credit
GENL credit

Priority Deadline
April 4 at 8 a.m.: Complete applications will be reviewed and students will be notified by April 12 of status, ahead of Fall/Interim registration. Some courses may fill by the priority deadline. Courses with open spaces will remain open until October 1 or until filled, whichever comes first.

Comprehensive Fee Information
$5,500-$5,800: Includes international airfare, all accommodation, entrance fees, guides, in-country transportation, daily breakfast, several group meals and the IPO health & safety fee (EIIA Insurance Coverage).

Required and Recommended Readings
McCaffrey, Lawrence J.  The Irish Question: Two Centuries of Conflict.  Second Edition. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1997. (ISBN: 0813108551)
Supplemental Reading; Identified in the course itinerary and made available through Canvas

Course Requirements and Evaluation
Group Participation, Attendance, and Decorum (20%)
Site Reports (10%)
Personnel Briefing and Quizzes (Briefing 10%; Quizzes 10%)
Response Papers (20%)
Final Integrated Group Presentations (30%)

Faculty Leaders
Dr. Patrick Hicks
Professor, Augustana Writer-in-Residence
605.274.5434
patrick.hicks@augie.edu

Patrick Hicks is the Writer-in-Residence at Augustana University where he teaches courses on creative writing, Irish literature, and such honors courses as “Great Britain and the Great War,” and “Eleutheria: Freedom and Literature.” He is the author most recently of In the Shadow of Dora: A Novel of the Holocaust and the Apollo Program, published in 2020 by Stephen F. Austin University Press and Texas A&M Press. His other works include The Commandant of Lubizec: A Novel of the Holocaust and Operation Reinhard, published by Steerforth/Random House, a short story collection, The Collector of Names, published by Schaffner Press, as well as six poetry collections, most recently Adoptable and This London, both from Ireland’s prestigious press, Salmon Poetry. He also edited A Harvest of Words, which was partially funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Alaska Quarterly Review, The National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, The Huffington Post, and many others. He has been nominated seven times for the Pushcart Prize, he has won the “Glimmer Train Fiction Award,” been a notable mention in Best American Stories, been a finalist for the Steinberg Essay Prize, and his first novel was one of only twenty books chosen for National Reading Group Month. He is also the host of “Poetry from Studio 47,” broadcast weekly on the South Dakota Public Broadcasting Radio network and on the Prairie Public Radio network in North Dakota. To his total astonishment, he was a finalist for an Emmy in 2017, and he’s received individual artist grants from the Bush Artist Foundation, the Loft Literary Center, and the South Dakota Arts Council. He was also the recipient of the 2018 Frederick C. Kohlmeyer Teaching Award from Augustana. Before taking his Ph.D. from the University of Sussex (England), Patrick lived in Northern Ireland, Germany, and Spain for many years. A former Visiting Fellow at Oxford and a dual citizen of Ireland and the United States, he gives fiction and poetry readings all across the nation. His website is www.patrickhicks.org.