New Directions In Celtic Studies

Amy Hale is Research Fellow in Celtic Studies at the Institute of Cornish Studies, University of Exeter. Philip Payton is Professor of Cornish Studies and Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies at the University of Exeter. He is the editor of the series Cornish Studies and the author of numerous books including The Making of Modern Cornwall (1992), The Cornish Overseas (1999; new edn. 2005) and A Vision of Cornwall (2002).

"This volume will be of interest to the local historian for a number of reasons. Firstly, for the way in which the authors break out of the antiquarian mind-set with which Celtic scholars have, perhaps unfairly, been associated. Next, because of the way in which they represent Celticity and Cornishness as something for which people have an affinity, regardless of their ethnic origins . . . Finally, they remind local historians that, in researching the past, they are also re-defining the present and helping to re-shape the culture and identity of the future." The journal of the Cornwall Association of Local Historians, Spring 2001

• Contents: Part 1 Popular culture, representation and Celtic "lifestyles": reading the record bins, Shannon Thornton; stone circles and tables round - representing the Celts in film and television, Leslie Jones; pre-packaged Breton folk narrative, Antone Minard; contemporary Celtic spirituality, Marion Bowman. Part 2 The Celtic diaspora: pagans, pipers and politicos -constructing Celtic identity in a festival context, Amy Hale and Shannon Thornton; the Celtic revival in Australia, Philip Payton; creative ethnicity - one man's invention of Celtic identity, Deborah Curtis. Part 3 Celtic praxis: provision of Manx language -tuition in schools in the Isle of Man, Brian Stowell; the Gaelic economy, Roy Pedersen; rural tourism and identity in Western Ireland and Brittany, Moya Kneafsey; conclusion, Colin H. Williams.