Eastern European Perspectives on Celtic Studies

Book excerpt: This volume brings together contributions from a range of scholars, not only from the Celtic heartlands, but further afield such as Austria, Canada and Poland. The chapters are based upon a number of presentations on a wide range of Celtic Studies given at a conference in Poznań, Poland, in October 2014. The book, as such, emphasizes the international aspect of the field, and highlights the relatively strong position of Celtic Studies in Poland, through the inclusion of Polish scholars working on Irish and Breton, and by introducing an academic audience to the ‘conversation’ on Celtic matters which was held recently on Polish soil. Celtic Studies are currently undergoing a series of changes with respect to the approaches adopted, and the field is brought into question in this volume with an examination of the notion of Celtoscepticism, which, as pointed out, when tackled in the right way, can breathe new life into the subject and can be viewed as a positive movement. As such, a number of contributions here problematize the changes in thinking of many linguists over the concept of who is a speaker of a Celtic language and how well they speak it, as well as the connection between traditional Celtic cultural practices and the concept of well-being. The volume also provides chapters on Mediaeval Celtic Studies which showcase the work of a number of emerging scholars in the field, who examine various aspects of Celtic textuality in Mediaeval Scotland, Brittany and Wales. Indeed, this book gives voice to a number of early career scholars, placing them carefully alongside more established scholars in the field, in order to show the continuation of established methods of investigation.