Ampersand: Irish Pages Online contains twelve sections under which texts of a certain nature, tone or theme are grouped – for example, “Twenty Something & Beyond” and “The Citadel & Its Discontents.”
This broadly correlates to the journal, each of whose issues has its own theme.
As with the journal and the press, Ampersand: Irish Pages Online is distinguished by two essential and necessary characteristics, in an age of media noise and publishing hyperbole: literary content of exceptional quality, and individual voices of integrity and independence.
Ampersand is for content only, designed by our Editorial Assistant Mary Cousins last year, with the particular aim over time of attracting younger writers both to the journal and back to print generally. Overall, there will be a consistently ecological worldview that is explored, promoted and defended.
New Ampersand pieces will be added regularly, perhaps bi-monthly, in due course; some will also go into the printed journal and others will come from it; and the site will have a definitely youthful, radical, “ethical imagination” edge á la Hubert Butler.
Section Definitions
The Chorus
Like the Chorus in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, this section embodies in some way the role of culture and the arts in upholding the importance to social life of “the ethical imagination.”
Feuilleton
With a long history especially in Central and Eastern Europe (Karl Kraus, Joseph Roth and – in Ireland – Hubert Butler), the feuilleton is a piece of incisive “intellectual and imaginative journalism” dealing with a controversial contemporary issue.
The Passerine
Literature, like the migrations of birdlife, fundamentally ignores national boundaries – so this section is open to any aspect of the literary art anywhere in the world. As Goethe remarked in 1827, “National literature is now a rather unmeaning term; the epoch of world literature is at hand, and everyone must strive to hasten its approach.”
The Strip
This is a cartoon strip, or an extract from a cartoon book or from a graphic novel.
Shooting Gallery
This is a polemic on any topic.
Go Global
Each contribution to this section explores some aspect of contemporary “globalization.”
Twenty-Something & Beyond
A writer in her or his twenties takes on a topic specifically related to the experience of twenty-first-century “millennials.”
Print & The Internet
The increasingly complex interactions of orality, literacy, print, the electronic and digital media, the Silicon Six+ (Google, Facebook, YouTube, What’sApp, Instagram, Twitter, et cetera), Big Data and the Internet of Things, is explored by each contribution to this section.
Holy Writ
The early animisms and great religions were, in their time, ancient forms of globalization, both inward and outward – so this section covers any aspect of religious sensibility, past or present.
The Citadel & Its Discontents
The “Citadel” here means “the system,” or business-as-usual, in any sense – with each contribution addressing the roots of the issue in question.
Trojan Horse
Each contributor to this section deals with an aspect of momentous change, historical catastrophe, and/or the genuine politics of radical overhaul.
Riposte
This section posts well-written and well-considered responses to anything included in “Ampersand Matters.”
DONATE NOW TO AMPERSAND
If you have liked and enjoyed any of the sections above, as well as our ecological mission, please consider contributing to the upkeep of Ampersand: Irish Pages Online:
https://irishpages.org/friends-of-irish-pages/
Please indicate that the contribution is for Ampersand.
We will be grateful for anything you can afford.
The Editors
& AMPERSAND & 