Robert McLiam Wilson’s Eureka Street: (Post)Modernity and the Social Ethics of Infinity

Abstract

This paper contemplates egalitarian ethics and ecumenical consumer ism suggesting expansive possibilities of Northern Ireland’s sectarian lim its towards unlimited spatialities in Robert McLiam Wilson’s Belfast novel, Eureka Street. This paper argues that Northern Ireland’s (Belfast’s) (post)modernity and a social ethics promoting outwardly mediated rela tionships are a vision for nonidentity Eureka Street espouses against the identity politics of Protestant-Catholic schism. Eureka Street remarkably challenges Northern Irish sectarian politics propelling inwardly unmediat ed relationships by ethical possibilities of infinitively mediated relation ships. In the argument for a postmodern view of the novel, commodity fetishism and consumerism are considered as key to a prospect of emanci pation of Northern Ireland from the political fetters of total identity the partisan communities impose on themselves. This paper also demon strates that a post-national cosmopolitanism Eureka Street envisages embraces a new social solidarity predicated upon socio-political plural isms against Northern Irish sectarian identities.