New Books in Literary Studies 159 Glenn Patterson: You Can Choose Who You Are (JP, DC)
Oct 30, 2025
Glenn Patterson, a Northern Irish novelist and director of the Seamus Heaney Centre, teams up with sociologist David Cunningham to explore the complexities of identity and conflict in Belfast. They dive into how the word 'community' is often misappropriated, revealing its impact on societal interactions. Patterson shares insights on the dangers of ‘softening’ peace walls and the consequences of visual policing through murals. They also discuss the haunting notion of 'unseeing' others in divided cities, drawing parallels with global urban segregation.
01:05:10
Choice Over Sectarian Identity
- Glenn Patterson argues people can choose and define their own identities rather than being reduced to one communal label.
- He positions this choice as a corrective to sectarian reductionism and a generational stance in Belfast's literature.
Reclaiming Contested Words
- Words like "community" become contested and can be taken from people's mouths during conflict.
- Patterson wants to reclaim abused words by examining their origins, weight, and usefulness.
Murder And Public Courage
- Patterson recounts a taxi driver murdered for being Catholic while his Protestant partner publicly condemned the killers.
- Her family was then expelled from their loyalist area, illustrating personal cost for speaking out.
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Intro
00:00 • 1min
Framing Belfast and the Troubles Today
01:12 • 5min
Why Glenn Wrote Lapsed Protestant
06:12 • 6min
The Trouble with 'Community' as a Word
12:04 • 4min
Mixed Relationships and Targeting in the Troubles
16:15 • 4min
Murals, Monuments, and Internal Policing
20:12 • 1min
Ad break
21:32 • 2min
Comparing Belfast's Spatial Segregation Globally
23:17 • 7min
Why Softening Peace Walls Is Harmful
30:35 • 2min
Unseeing the Other: The City and the City
32:10 • 5min
Mental Maps, Narnia, and Everyday Avoidance
37:20 • 3min
Understanding Recent Riots and Xenophobia
40:14 • 5min
Policing, Militarization, and Historical Violence
44:58 • 3min
Murals vs. Graffiti: Authority and Rebellion
48:05 • 7min
Recommended Readings and Literary Influences
54:54 • 3min
Recent Books on Belfast's Long Tail of Conflict
58:00 • 3min
The Past Is Not Dead: Memory in the City
01:01:21 • 1min
Kevin Lynch and Urban Mental Maps
01:02:22 • 14sec
Outro
01:02:36 • 40sec
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Here's Me Here, Further Reflections of a Lapsed Protestant
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Glenn Patterson
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U.S.A. (trilogy)
The 42nd Parallel (1930), Nineteen Nineteen (1932) and The Big Money (1936)
John Dos Passos
The 'U. S. A.
' trilogy by John Dos Passos is a series of three novels that collectively provide a panoramic view of American society during the first three decades of the 20th century.
The trilogy consists of 'The 42nd Parallel,' '1919,' and 'The Big Money,' each exploring different aspects of American life.
Dos Passos employs innovative narrative techniques, including 'Newsreel' sections that incorporate headlines and popular songs.
The trilogy delves into the lives of various characters, from working-class individuals to wealthy industrialists, reflecting the diverse fabric of American society.
Through its sweeping scope and experimental style, the 'U. S. A.
' trilogy captures the complexities and contradictions of a rapidly changing nation.
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Ripley Bogle
Robert McLiam Wilson
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Once Upon a Hill, Love and Troubled Times
null
Glenn Patterson
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The Image of the City
Kevin Lynch
'The Image of the City' is a seminal work in urban planning and design by Kevin Lynch, published in 1960.
The book explores how individuals perceive and navigate the urban environment, focusing on the mental maps people create of their cities.
Lynch identifies five key elements that contribute to a city's imageability: paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks.
He argues that a clear and well-structured city image is essential for the well-being and orientation of its inhabitants.
The book has had a lasting impact on urban planning, influencing the design of cities around the world.
It provides valuable insights into the psychological and social aspects of urban spaces.
#9418
• Mentioned in 4 episodes
The City and the City
null
China Miéville
China Miéville's "The City & The City" presents a unique dystopian world where two cities, Besźel and Ul Qoma, occupy the same physical space yet remain largely invisible to each other's inhabitants.
The narrative follows a murder investigation that forces the protagonist to navigate the complex rules and social structures governing the interaction, or rather, the non-interaction, between the two cities.
The novel explores themes of surveillance, identity, and the nature of reality itself, challenging readers to question their perceptions of the world around them.
Miéville's intricate world-building and thought-provoking themes make it a compelling read for fans of science fiction and urban fantasy.
The novel's unique premise and exploration of societal structures make it a standout in the genre.
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Lapsed Protestant
Glenn Patterson
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#5967
• Mentioned in 6 episodes
Resurrection Man
Charlotte MacLeod
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The Bureau
string
Eoin McNamee
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#7637
• Mentioned in 5 episodes
Shame
Free Yourself, Find Joy, and Build True Self-Esteem
Joseph Burgo
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The Northern Bank Job
string
Glenn Patterson
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#370
• Mentioned in 56 episodes
Say Nothing
A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
Ariel Font Prades
Patrick Radden Keefe
The book delves into the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath, focusing on the lives of key figures such as Dolours Price, Brendan Hughes, Gerry Adams, and Jean McConville's children.
It explores the civil rights movement, the Provisional IRA's bombing campaign, the 1981 hunger strike, the peace process, and the post-conflict struggle to understand crimes like McConville's murder.
The narrative also incorporates the Belfast Project, a secret oral history endeavor that collected stories from former IRA members.
The book is a panoramic history that captures the complexities and tragic consequences of the Troubles.
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Backstop Land
Glenn Patterson
No description available.
#2752
• Mentioned in 12 episodes
Midnight's Children
Salman Rushdie
The novel tells the story of Saleem Sinai, who is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the moment of India's independence from British rule.
Saleem's life is intricately linked with the history of India, and he possesses telepathic powers that allow him to communicate with other 'midnight children' born between 12 a.
m. and 1 a. m. on that date.
Each of these children has unique magical powers, and Saleem acts as a conduit to connect them.
The story spans various historical events in India, including the partition, wars, and the Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi.
It explores themes of identity, history, and the fragmented nature of a newly independent nation.
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The International Man
The Complete Guidebook to the World's Last Frontiers. For Freedom Seekers, Investors, Adventurers, Speculators, and Expatriates
Douglas Robert Casey
The International Man provides a comprehensive guide for individuals interested in international travel, investment, and expatriation.
It covers topics such as passports, citizenships, visas, investments, taxes, and strategies for maintaining personal freedom.
Although published in the late 1970s, the book remains relevant for its philosophical approach to global freedom and financial independence.
#16764
• Mentioned in 2 episodes
Milkman
Anna Burns
The novel tells the story of 'middle sister', an 18-year-old girl living in a Catholic and separatist stronghold during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
She is pursued by 'Milkman', a local paramilitary, which leads to rumors and social ostracism.
The story explores themes of gossip, social pressure, and the dangers of being 'interesting' in a tight-knit community.
It delves into the complexities of Northern Irish sociopolitics and the universal experience of societies in crisis.
The narrative is marked by its distinctive voice, humor, and the daily violence of the protagonist's world.
In Belfast, good fences can make for bad neighbors. David Cunningham ( Wash U. sociologist, author of There’s Something Happening Here and Klansville, U.S.A and frequent RTB visitor) joins John to speak about the Troubles and their aftermath with the brilliant Northern Irish novelist/essayist/memoirist Glenn Patterson. His fiction includes The International (1999) and Where Are We Now? but the conversation’s main focus is his two collections of short non-fiction, Lapsed Protestant (2006) and Here’s Me Here (2016).
Glenn has lifetime of insights about the boundary markers and easy to miss shibboleths that define life in divided places--and in divided times. In Belfast, everyone learns to use words without being marked out: how do you avoid uttering "the one word that gets you killed"?
But Troubles that go cold also have a way of heating up again, if we forget, as Glenn puts it, that you can choose who you are. China Mieville's brilliant novel The City and the City is, says Glenn, an allegory for places like Belfast itself, where you have to learn to “unsee” residents of "the other city" even in shared areas. That kind of unseeing, in fiction and in real life, leads to distorted mental maps.
Glenn sees the so-called “softening” of the peace walls as among the most pernicious occurrences of the last 40 years, since softening coupled with notion that you simply belong to one of two "communities" is what makes real traffic, real conversation, harder to achieve. He and David agree that all over the world, in ways the echo Belfast although it is rarely spelled out, all sorts of invisible architectural extensions of the security and segregation apparatus hover unobtrusively. Glenn also riffs on the names people dream up for what might lie beyond a Belfast wall's other side, spinning off writer Colin Carberry's proposal: Narnia.
Mentioned in the Episode
- “Love poetry: the RUC and Me” was Glenn's first nonfiction piece back inthe late 1980s.
- Robert McLiam Wilson: Glenn's friend and fellow Troubles novelist, whose work includes Ripley Bogle (1989).
- Eoin Macnamie's work includes Resurrection Man (1994).
- “The C-word” (2014) Glenn's wonderful essay on the trouble that starts when the word "community" gets subdivided into "communities."
- Padraic Fiacc, sometimes called ”the Poet oft he Troubles” finally has a blue historical marker. That makes Glenn ask why are there are so many "blue plaques" for combatants, so few for non-combatants?
- The interface zones and the strategic cul de sacs that continue to divide Belfast neighborhoods have been brilliantly detailed and studied by various historians; eg this tour by Neil Jarman,
- Glenn compares Civil Rights in Northern Ireland in the 1960s with the US Civil Rights movement and with Paris 1968; the 70’s bombing campaigns lines up with the actions of the Red Army Faction in Germany.
Recallable Books
- Glennn says his inspiration to write on partition comes from reading Salman Rushdie’s Shame and Midnight’s Children. He also praises John Dos Passos USA trilogy.
- David interested in the long tail of a conflict and aingles out Glenn Patterson’s own novel, The Northern Bank Job as well as Eoin McNamee The Bureau.
- Inspired by Glenn's account of how resident learn to see and unsee portions of Belfast, John praises Kevin Lynch's 1960 The Image of the City.
Read the episode here.
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