Academic literature on the topic 'Dan Finnegan'

This book is the first anthology of perspectives on the future of text, one of our most important mediums for thinking and communicating, with a Foreword by the co-inventor of the Internet, Vint. Cerf and a Postscript by the founder of the modern Library of Alexandria, Ismail Serageldin. In a time with astounding developments in computer special effects in movies and the emergence of powerful AI, text has developed little beyond spellcheck and blue links. In this work we look at myriads of perspectives to inspire a rich future of text through contributions from academia, the arts, business and

In the years immediately prior to, and of, the Second World War textual glimmers of an unnamed Roger Casement can be detected in a preoccupation with the ghostly return of Irish history. As Ireland grappled with what role she could or should play in the (impending) war, a role complicated immeasurably by the precarious border and new Northern statelet, numerous authors grappled with an Irish history compromised by unclear allegiances and betrayal. This chapter uses a collection of mid-twentieth century texts – James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (1939), Jorge Luis Borges’ ‘The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero’ (1944) and Elizabeth Bowe’s The Heat of the Day (1948) – to map how the interlinking preoccupations of espionage, betrayal and, frequently, sexual intimacy, are deeply connected, implicitly or explicitly, to the haunting spectre of Casement.

During the last fifteen years of his life, Barber struggled with depression, alcoholism, and creative blocks. His publisher believed this was due to the reception of Antony and Cleopatra, but Barber’s annual pilgrimages to Europe had begun much earlier, and it was more likely that the forced sale of Capricorn, the home he and Menotti had shared for three decades, contributed to his low morale. The upheaval was equivalent to the dissolution of a marriage. Money from the Metropolitan Opera commission enabled him to build a chalet in Santa Cristina, where he spent most of his time. He did not withdraw from composing but turned to what had been most gratifying: writing vocal music in short forms, choosing biographically pointed texts reflecting a preoccupation with dark and quasi-religious themes. He produced the song cycle Despite and Still, two choral works, and Mutations from Bach for brass. He wrote Chorale for Ascension Day for the Washington National Cathedral and an elaborate work for chorus, vocal solos, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, The Lovers. A commission for the new Alcoa Hall in Pittsburgh resulted in Fadograph of a Yestern Scene, an orchestral piece inspired by a passage in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Barber composed Three Songs, op. 45, and in 1974 wrote a piano piece, Ballade. That commission allowed him to purchase an apartment overlooking Central Park in New York. In the summer of 1978, he began a concerto for oboe and orchestra, but as his health worsened, he realized he would not be able to complete it and titled the single movement Canzonetta for Oboe and String Orchestra. He was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, and in spite of chemotherapy, Barber died on January 23, 1981.