Reading and Lecture by Seán Hewitt – video of reading now available

The Centre for Irish Studies is pleased to invite you to a guest lecture by Dr Seán Hewitt “Mysticism, the Occult, and Synge’s The Aran Islands”.

Although Synge, unlike contemporaries such as Yeats and AE, has not been seen as an occult or mystical thinker, archival materials show that he read widely in occult literature, covering theosophy, magic, telepathy, and other pseudosciences. Focusing on his major prose work, The Aran Islands (1907), this lecture places Synge’s socialism and reaction to modernity back into the context of fin de siècle occultism, and in doing so reveals the roots of his synthesis of mystic and political thought.

13th December 2022, 12:30 – 14:00, Room 131 (Aula), Faculty of Arts, nám. Jana Palacha 2, Prague 1

The event has been kindly supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs, Ireland.

The Centre for Irish Studies cordially invites you to a reading by Seán Hewitt, one of the foremost young Irish authors. Seán Hewitt is going to read from his poetry collection Tongues of Fire (2020) and from his autobiography All Down Darkness Wide (2022).

The reading will be accompanied by Czech translations by Lenka Liebichová, Martin Světlík, and Daniela Theinová.

14th December 2022 19:30 – 21:00, Café Na Boršově, Náprstkova 272/10, Prague 1

Photo: Stuart Simpson / Penguin Random House

Watch a recording of the reading:

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