Theory on the Edge

"This landmark and invaluable collection of essays shows how the shape of Irish Studies has been changed for the better by the substantial interventions that feminist and queer practices have made. It historicizes feminist and queer activism in Ireland and its diasporas, as well as showing how critically important it is to centralize perspectives that emphasize embodiment, sexuality, and gender for reading Ireland now and into the future." - Mike Cronin, Professor, Boston College, Ireland "Irish feminism, activist, and academic, has supplied impetus for virtually all of the most remarkable social transformations that we have observed in Ireland over the past three decades, while nurturing and cross-pollinating with an array of other distinct movements vastly influential in their own right. This collection is indispensable to our understanding of a particularly dynamic, heterogeneous, and theoretically sophisticated feminist movement." - Margot Backus, Professor, University of Houston, USA "This collection is a fitting tribute to and extension of the work of Ailbhe Smyth and her vigorous, indefatigable and lifelong commitment to feminist theory and activism. As a public intellectual, essayist, poet and feminist Smyth has been instrumental in integrating sexual difference into the Irish context and the essays here are equally engaged and curious about this persistent question for our time. Each of the contributors shares Smyth's mischievousness, passion,and her genuine and uncompromising fidelity to feminist thinking. Giffney and Shildrick have generously repaid the debts owed to Smyth politically, poetically, and philosophically and produced a volume which ensures that the edge-work she made possible can continue on far into the future." - Michael O'Rourke, Independent College, Dublin, Ireland

Olga Cox Cameron, St Vincent's University Hospital and Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Noreen Giffney, University College Dublin, Ireland Breda Gray, University of Limerick, Ireland Sandra McAvoy, University College Cork, Ireland Gerardine Meaney, University College Dublin, Ireland Anne Mulhall, University College Dublin, Ireland Aideen Quilty, University College Dublin, Ireland Medb Ruane, University College Dublin, Ireland Margrit Shildrick, Linkping University, Sweden Edith Shillue, independent scholar Ailbhe Smyth, University College Dublin, Ireland Moynagh Sullivan, NUI Maynooth, Ireland Fintan Walsh, Queen Mary College, University of London, UK Margaret Ward, Director of the Women's Resource and Development Agency, Northern Ireland Ivana Bacik, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Eithne Luibhid, University of Arizona, USA Debbie Ging, Dublin City University, Ireland Lisa Fingleton, artist and filmmaker Paula Burns, civil servant

Introduction: Emergent Strands or Theory on Edge?; Margrit Shildrick Women's Studies and the Disciplines; Ailbhe Smyth PART I: POLITICS 1. The Politics of Sexual Difference: The Enduring Influence of the Catholic Church; Ivana Bacik 2. Rethinking the Armagh Women's Dirty Protest; Paula Burns 3. The State, Women, and Irish Abortion Policy, 1983-2010; Sandra McAvoy 4. Irish Migration and Irish Sexuality Scholarship: Queering the Connections; Eithne Luibheid 5. Affecting Trans-feminist Solidarity; Breda Gray 6. Wonderful Documents and Male Begrudgery: Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Northern Ireland; Margaret Ward 7. Pride, Politics, and the Right to Perform: Negotiating Civil Partnership in Ireland; Fintan Walsh PART II: CULTURE 8. Race, Sex, and Nation; Gerardine Meaney 9. Outside-In and the Places In-Between: Feminist Community Higher Education; Aideen Quilty 10. "Watch your Language": Speculative Theory and the Poetry of Rita Ann Higgins; Moynagh Sullivan 11. Knowing the Landscape, Navigating the Language: Chinese Women's Experience of Arrival in Ireland; Edith Shillue 12. Enjoying Substance: Psychoanalysis, Literature and Joyce's Writing of Women; Olga Cox Cameron 13. Culture on the Edge: The Postfeminist Challenge; Debbie Ging 14. A Cure for Melancholia? Queer Sons, Dead Mothers, and the Fantasy of Multiculturalism in McCabe and Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto (s); Anne Mulhall 15. Quare Theory; Noreen Giffney Interview with Ailbhe Smyth; Medb Ruane