Irish Women Writers

Catalog description

Irish women writers have historically been marginalized and excluded from the literary canon. This class seeks to historicize and respond to these concerns by foregrounding Irish women writers and arguing for a “tradition” of women’s writing. We focus primarily on work from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, after beginning with Maria Edgeworth’s groundbreaking novel Castle Rackrent (1800). We will read novels, drama, poetry, and short stories and ask questions about aesthetics, historical context, gender, sexuality, race, class, and religion. To complicate and challenge our own views of these texts, we will also supplement our readings with academic scholarship, including postcolonial theory, Irish feminist theory, and other relevant literary and cultural criticism. This course is designed to help you develop your critical skills as writers and thinkers, as well as your ability to engage with scholarship in literary theory, criticism, and interpretation.