reproducers. Against the rooting of women alongside the national,
Kristeva addresses the issues of ëmigrancyí and the ëtrans-nationalí:
ëwhen I say that I have chosen cosmopolitanism, this means that I
have, against origins and starting from them, chosen a transnational or
international position situated at the crossing of boundaries.í She
draws on
Augustineís civitas peregrina advocated as the only state of freedom, against
the state of oppression, that of pilgrimage: tearing oneself away from places to
accomplish universal mutual assistance, but also tearing oneself away from any
identity (including oneís own) in order to accomplish subjective fulfillment in
the boundlessness of caritas.^3In Across the Frontiers: Ireland in the 1990s (1988) Richard
Kearney theorizes ëmigrancyí in relation to the political agenda of
post-nationalism so as to provide a critique of nationalist narratives
drawn on at the foundation of the Irish Free State.^4 Kearneyís Across
the Frontiers (1988) moves away from his initial publication of Myth
and Motherland (1984) which is preoccupied with grounded concep-
tions of the nation, and this movement is comparable with that of the
poets under discussion. Kearneyís Postnationalist Ireland (1997)
hopes to turn away from ethnic nationalism with its need for purity,
and chooses to focus attention on the international and European
aspects of Irish politics, culture and philosophy.^5 It is necessary, then,
to assess the political implications of Kearneyís theorization in
relation to his assertion that, Irish artists are moving away from
traditional conceptions of the nation-state. Kearneyís debate oscillates
between noticing the tensions between nationalism, internationalism,
post-nationalism and post-colonialism yet their relationship is not
fully unravelled within his argument. Kearneyís post-nationalism can
be resituated to argue that it is necessary for post-colonial criticism to
question the authenticity relied on in modern assertions of nationality,
3 Julia Kristeva, Nations without Nationalism, trans., Leon S. Roudiez (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p.33, p.16, p.22, p.42.
4 Richard Kearney, ed., ëIntroduction: ìThinking Otherwiseîí, Across the
Frontiers: Ireland in the 1990s (Dublin: Wolfhound, 1988), pp.7ñ29.
5 Kearney, Myth and Motherland, A Field Day Pamphlet, No.5 (Derry: Field Day
Theatre Company Ltd, 1984); Postnationalist Ireland: Politics, Culture,
Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1997).