The Irish Novel at the End of the Twentieth Century; Gender, Bodies, and Power

by Jennifer M. Jeffers

• ISBN13: 9780312238391
• ISBN10: 0312238398
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2002-03-20
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

The Irish Novel at the End of the Twentieth Century interprets a wide variety of the most interesting Irish novels of the last ten years of the century from a perspective that focuses on the regulated sexual and constructed gendered body. The demarcating line of identity-the perennial Irish problem-is gauged at the basic level of sexual and gender identity in contrast to or in alliance with political, social, religious, or cultural norms. All mechanisms that have gone into controlling the body-gender regulation, violence, desire, religious taboos-are reinterpreted through the body in motion.

Author Biography

Jennifer M. Jeffers is Assistant Professor in the English Department at Cleveland State University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction Irish Culture in a State of Becoming	1	(8)
The Politics of Gender, Bodies, and Power	9	(40)
Irish Identity: Heterosexual Norms	49	(30)
Bodies over the Boundary	79	(42)
Immeasurable Distance: Discourse, Bodies, and Power	121	(20)
Discourse and the Body: Velocity and Power	141	(36)
Afterword	177	(4)
Notes	181	(12)
Bibliography	193	(10)
Index	203