Austerity and Irish Womens Writing and Culture 1980–2020

Description

Austerity and Irish Women’s Writing and Culture, 1980–2020 focuses on the under-represented relationship between austerity and Irish women’s writing across the last four decades. Taking a wide focus across cultural mediums, this collection of essays from leading scholars in Irish studies considers how economic policies impacted on and are represented in Irish women’s writing during critical junctures in recent Irish history. Through an investigation of cultural production north and south of the border, this collection analyses women’s writing using a multimedium approach through four distinct lenses: austerity, feminism, and conflict; arts and austerity; race and austerity; and spaces of austerity. This collection asks two questions: what sort of cultural output does austerity produce? And if the effects of austerity are gendered, then what are the gender-specific responses to financial insecurity, both national and domestic? By investigating how austerity is treated in women’s writing and culture from 1980 to 2020, this collection provides a much-needed analysis of the gendered experience of economic crisis and specifically of Ireland’s consistent relationship with cycles of boom and bust. Thirteen chapters, which focus on fiction, drama, poetry, women’s life writing, ​and women's cultural contributions, examine these questions. This volume takes the reader on a journey across decades and forms as a means of interrogating the growth of the economic divide between the rich and the poor since the 1980s through the voices of Irish women. Cover Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of Figures List of Contributors Acknowledgements 1 Irish Women’s Writing and Culture Under the Shadow of Austerity Cycles of Boom and Bust: Austerity as Violence Social Change Irish Women’s Writing and Austerity Woman as Nation Pregnancy and Motherhood Waking the Feminists: A Women’s Protest Chapter Outlines Austerity, Feminism, and Conflict Arts and Austerity Race and Austerity Spaces of Austerity Notes Works Cited Section 1 Austerity, Feminism, and Conflict 2 Two Opposing Narratives?: The Field Day and LIP Pamphlets Disparate Fields of Power: The Field Day (1983–1988) and LIP Pamphlets (1989–1992) Overcoming Austerity By Opening Up the Irish Cultural Sphere Upholding and Dismantling Austerity: The Habitus of the Field Day and LIP Pamphlets “Compositional Codes”: The LIP and Field Day Pamphlets The Aftermath of the Field Day Anthology I–III Notes Works Cited 3 Austerity, Conflict, and Second-Wave Feminism in the North of Ireland Introduction Forming Charabanc Theatre Company Illuminating Shared Herstories Second-Wave Feminism On the Island of Ireland Feminist Politics and the Female Gaze Consciousness-Raising Through Performance Artistic and Commercial Success Conclusion Notes Works Cited 4 #WakeUpIrishPoetry: Austerity and Activism in Contemporary Irish Poetry – A Personal Reflection Introduction Interlude: Reflections From the Background(s), Or the Hall of Mirrors, Or How We See Ourselves Disappear Is This Where I Start? Is This Where I Start? Is This Where I Start? Is This Where I Start? Is This Where I Start? Is This Where I Start? Is This Where I Start? Is This Where I Start? Background(s) Fired! MEAS – Measuring Equality in the Arts Sector Interlude: [silence] Foregrounds Wake Up Irish Poetry SAOI – Safe Arts of Ireland Foresisters: A Word On Feminist Grassroots Activism in the Irish Arts Conclusion Notes Works Cited Section 2 Arts and Austerity 5 Kermit, Cows, and Headless Chickens: Women’s Comedy Monologues After the Tiger Introduction Little Gem Charolais Pondling Conclusion Note Works Cited 6 Balancing Acts: From Survival to Sustainability in Contemporary Irish Theatre and Performance Introduction: On Balance The Problem: Theatre Against the Odds Theatre57: ‘Female, 30s, No Children, Pays €512 Rent Per Month’ (Who We Are 2018) Cultural Currency and Struggling Artists: Precarious Lives in Fortress Europe Conclusion: Acts of Balance in Creative Futures Note Works Cited Section 3 Race and Austerity 7 Intersectionality in Contemporary Melodrama: Normal People (McDonald/Abrahamson, 2020)... Kissing Candice: Fantasy, Nihilism and Interracial Romance Normal People: Precarity, Multiraciality and Emotional Capitalism Conclusion Notes Works Cited 8 Austerity and the Precarity of Whiteness: Polish Characters in Stacey Gregg’s Shibboleth (2015)... ‘Look Out for the Lads’: Shibboleth and the Precarity of Working-Class Whiteness ‘Other People’s Politics’: Middle-Class Whiteness and the Privilege of Invisibility in Here Comes the Night Conclusion Notes Works Cited 9 Black Irish Culture Who Gets to Be Irish? Shared Colonial History Celtic Tiger and the Changing Nature of Who Gets to Be Irish Citizenship Imagery 2004 Citizenship Referendum Austerity Through the Lens of the African Woman African Presence in Ireland During Celtic Tiger New Strategies for a New Ireland Irish Essentialism Blackness and Its Threat to Irishness Fear of the Black Body Media and Racist Backlash Taking Up Space Conclusion Note Works Cited Section 4 Spaces of Austerity 10 Austerity, Irish Literary Tropes, and Claire Keegan’s Fiction Reconsidering Realism and Irish Literary Tropes in the Mid-Twentieth Century Antarctica, Entrapment, and the Romance Plot Tentative Breakthrough, Female Agency, and Bildungsroman Conclusion Notes Works Cited 11 Celtic Tiger Saga Fiction: Patricia Scanlan’s City Girls and Marian Keyes’ Walsh Family Introduction Irish Women’s Popular Fiction: From Scanlan to Keyes Patricia Scanlan’s City Girl Marian Keyes’ Walsh Sisters Conclusion Works Cited 12 ‘Just the Way It Is’: Portraits of Austerity in Short Fiction By Women From the North of Ireland Austerity and Gender: Louise Kennedy Austerity and Youth: Lucy Caldwell and Wendy Erskine Conclusion Notes Works Cited 13 Motherhood, Referendums and Austerity in Contemporary Irish Women’s Writing Introduction Divorce The Eighth Amendment 2004 Citizenship Referendum Conclusion Note Works Cited Index