Fall 2024
The Irish Supernatural
Kate Chadbourne PhD, Affiliate of the Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University
This course introduces students to the Irish supernatural, with sources ranging from the earliest Irish tales to contemporary memorates about ghosts, fairy thorns, and the banshee. Topics include supernatural people, creatures, and places, as well as the way the Otherworld is imagined and described over time. Special attention is paid to human behavior designed to avert, appease, or appropriate supernatural powers. We read and listen to narratives, songs and tunes, first-hand accounts, proverbs, and place lore, and we explore scholarly ideas about belief and disbelief and about the importance and relevance of the supernatural in Irish culture.