Giving voice to Irish culture, psyche
Throughout its more than three decades, Boston College鈥檚 Burns Visiting Scholar in Irish Studies program has never been strictly limited to the academic realm. Burns Scholars have included librarians, artists, human rights activists, and notable public figures.
This semester, the Burns Scholar program鈥攁 collaboration between the Irish Studies Program and University Libraries鈥攈as again broken new ground in hosting Eve Watson, an expert in psychoanalytic practice, training, education, and research who co-directs a Dublin clinic and is a practitioner and clinical supervisor.
Watson will present the fall Burns Scholar Lecture on November 12 in the Burns Library Thompson Room at 6 p.m. (preceded by a 5 p.m. reception). The event is free and open to the public.
Burns Scholars typically spend a semester鈥攊n some cases, a full academic year鈥攁t 情色空间 teaching courses, offering public lectures, and working with the resources of the Burns Library in their ongoing research, writing, and creative endeavors related to Irish history, art, and culture.
Although Watson understands that her field might seem an unusual fit for a Burns Scholar, she points out that psychoanalysis readily lends itself to the interdisciplinary approach valued by the program.
鈥淧sychoanalysis since its inception engages with a multiplicity of fields and specialties, including philosophy, theology, critical thinking, and literature, among others,鈥� said Watson, a native of Limerick whose doctorate from University College Dublin was an interdisciplinary mix of psychoanalysis, film and literary analysis, and sexuality studies. 鈥淭his helps to build a repertoire with which to approach human existence and thought and provides a means with which to query your own discipline. If you look at Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacon, arguably the architects of psychoanalysis, their approach was interdisciplinary: They read widely and thought widely. That is a necessity now more than ever, to keep up with a world that is changing faster and faster.鈥�
Her talk, 鈥淕iving Voice to Irish Culture and Psyche: Psychoanalytic, Cinematic, and Literary Reflections,鈥� reflects the interdisciplinary lens she wields in her scholarship, drawing upon history, art, culture, as well as psychoanalysis to examine how the Irish in recent years have revisited, and confronted, darker aspects of Ireland鈥檚 past.
She will touch on the writing of authors Anne Enright and Claire Keegan, whose novella Foster was the basis for the 2022 film 鈥淭he Quiet Girl,鈥� one of several Irish films of the past decade or more Watson also will discuss鈥攐thers include 鈥淪ong of the Sea鈥� (2014), 鈥淭he Banshees of Inisherin鈥� (2022), and 鈥淭hat They May Face the Rising Sun鈥� (2023). These works contain some familiar elements of Irish culture and psychic life, she says鈥攂ucolic rural scenes, for example, or the Irish struggle for independence鈥攂ut these are depicted in more complex, and less romanticized, fashion.
鈥淚 want to discuss what makes returning to the past and remaking it so important. Psychoanalysis offers ways to consider exile, exclusion, trauma, and repression and why it is difficult to let these go," says Watson. (Caitlin Cunningham)
This artistic trend reflects a national reckoning on the part of Ireland, according to Watson, in the wake of such momentous events as the collapse of the so-called Celtic Tiger era of economic expansion, revelations of the Magdalene laundries and mother-baby home scandals that revealed systemic mistreatment of women, and the centenary celebration of the 1916 Easter Uprising. Voices from many different sectors have expressed concern over Ireland鈥檚 failure to protect the country鈥檚 vulnerable and neglected populations, or even acknowledge their perspectives in the country鈥檚 history. 听
鈥淚reland modernized very quickly, especially in the past 15 or so years, becoming one of the most liberal social democracies, and among the more secular,鈥� said Watson. 鈥淏ut there was a sense of shame about the harm that had been done, how and why it could鈥檝e happened. So, these films鈥攕et four or more decades earlier鈥攅xemplify how we鈥檙e trying to figure this out.
鈥淚 want to discuss what makes returning to the past and remaking it so important. Psychoanalysis offers ways to consider exile, exclusion, trauma, and repression and why it is difficult to let these go. Our complicated relationship to language and the ever-changing nature of culture plays a vital role in forms of representation and identity expression.鈥�
Watson is pursuing a similar of line of inquiry and exploration in her course, Philosophical and Psychoanalytic Explorations of Irish Culture and Psyche, which also utilizes films and literature鈥攊n this case, she said, to provide an Irish context in considering a radical engagement with the nature of being and subjectivity, and debate paradoxes of freedom, desire, morality, knowledge, sexuality, and culture.
鈥淩ecently, we discussed the importance of fairy tales, and I asked each student to bring in their favorite,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hat tends to be overlooked about fairy tales, at least as they were originally told, is that they are an outlet for the inhuman, monstrous side of people鈥攖hey include some pretty awful stuff, like death, abandonment, and hardship. This can be a great help to children in navigating these difficult themes.
鈥淎lso, our family history is often expressed in fictional narratives: We are told stories about how our ancestors lived, the challenges they faced, and that they 鈥榣ived happily ever after,鈥� and this is not always the case. Films are useful ways of using myths, fairy tales, stories, fictions, and memory to find ways of getting to the truth.鈥� 听
Watson also is browsing through the collected papers of the late William Richardson, S.J., a renowned philosophy scholar who taught at 情色空间 for 25 years and authored a groundbreaking study on philosopher Martin Heidegger, whose Being and Time was regarded as a central philosophical work of the 20th century.
鈥溓樯占� was not an unknown to me: I鈥檝e visited before and have a number of friends and colleagues here,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut I feel very fortunate to be here as Burns Scholar and enjoy this community of scholarship and learning.鈥� Her Irish Studies colleagues have made her feel especially welcome and she finds the program鈥檚 slate of events and seminars to be 鈥渋nvigorating and brilliant.鈥� 听 听
Watson has published numerous essays on psychoanalysis, sexuality, film, culture, and literature, and lectures on various programs in psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and health, while overseeing research projects at graduate and undergraduate levels. She has co-edited three books and next year will publish a collection on James Joyce鈥檚 writing and her own book on psychoanalysis and film. She is the academic director of the Freud Lacan Institute, and a member of the editorial boards of Lacunae, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, and the European Journal of Qualitative Research in Psychotherapy.
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