Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Special Issue on Literature No.3 October, 2015 Pp. 183-196
Dublin: Of the City and its Literary Legacy
Tahani Alghureiby
English Department, Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University
Saudi Arabia
Abstract:
Recently, the academia have been witnessing calls that universities regard humanities as ineffective in national growth, Instead, applied and vocational sciences are encouraged since they have an obvious and immediate impact on the work market. The study aims at contradicting this trend, and proving that literature, art, and the humanities can prove vital to economic growth and provide a good resource for national economy. The paper takes the example of the city of Dublin, capitol city of The Republic of Ireland, as a city that endorsed and capitalized on its literary and cultural legacy to attract literature tourism, and by doing that it turned around its economical doom into prosperity and overcame the notorious 2008 recession, to which European countries like Spain, Portugal, and Greece suffered greatly. Through the approach of cultural criticism, the paper encourages tourism planners in cities of the third world countries to follow the Irish paradigm and hit two birds with one stone: achieve economical gains and at the same time sustainability of their cultural treasures.
Keywords: cities of literature, cultural studies, Dublin, Irish literature, literary tourism