Jane Elizabeth Dougherty, a Professor at Southern Illinois University, dives into the evolution of Irish female narratives from 1916 to 2018. She explores how societal changes and key female writers have shaped these stories, often framing maturation as disordered and complex. Dougherty highlights the role of historical events and literary figures like Joyce and O'Brien in redefining female identity. The discussion also introduces the 'queer avuncular' concept, offering fresh perspectives on traditional narratives and emphasizing the ongoing struggle for gender equality in literature.
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Author's Academic Journey
Jane Elizabeth Dougherty shares how her academic journey shifted from studying Irish union issues to focusing on female maturation narratives in Irish literature.
She discovered a gender split in childhood narratives that sparked her interest in exploring female developmental stories.
insights INSIGHT
Irish Female and National Maturation
Irish female development narratives intertwine deeply with Ireland's national maturation from 1916 to 2018.
Key political milestones mirror shifts in women's narrative agency and citizenship.
insights INSIGHT
Abjection in Female Development
Christine Kristeva's concept of abjection illuminates the challenge for female subjects balancing identification with and separation from the maternal body.
Irish women writers engage psychoanalytic ideas to explore incomplete separation from maternal figures.
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Narrating Irish Female Development, 1916-2018 studies narratives of Irish female and feminized development, arguing that these postmodern narratives present Irish female maturation as disordered and often deliberately disorderly. The first full-length study of the Irish female coming of age story, the book develops a feminist psychoanalytic narratology, derived from the belated oedipalization of Joyce’s bildungsheld, to read these stories. This study argues that all Irish maturation stories are shaped by the uneven and belated maturation story of the Irish republic itself, which took as its avatar the Irish woman, whose citizenship in that republic was unrealized, as indeed was her citizenship in an Irish republic of letters. Dougherty takes the writing of Irish women as seriously as other critics have taken Joyce’s work.
Reading in the Dark
Reading in the Dark
Seamus Deane
Narrating Irish Female Development, 1916-2018 studies narratives of Irish female and feminized development, arguing that these postmodern narratives present Irish female maturation as disordered and often deliberately disorderly. The first full-length study of the Irish female coming of age story, the book develops a feminist psychoanalytic narratology, derived from the belated oedipalization of Joyce’s bildungsheld, to read these stories. This study argues that all Irish maturation stories are shaped by the uneven and belated maturation story of the Irish republic itself, which took as its avatar the Irish woman, whose citizenship in that republic was unrealized, as indeed was her citizenship in an Irish republic of letters. Dougherty takes the writing of Irish women as seriously as other critics have taken Joyce’s work.
Castle Rackrent
Castle Rackrent
Maria Edgeworth
The dark
The dark
John McGahern
Narrating Irish Female Development, 1916-2018(Edinburgh UP, 2024) studies narratives of Irish female and feminized development, arguing that these postmodern narratives present Irish female maturation as disordered and often deliberately disorderly. The first full-length study of the Irish female coming of age story, the book develops a feminist psychoanalytic narratology, derived from the belated oedipalization of Joyce’s bildungsheld, to read these stories. This study argues that all Irish maturation stories are shaped by the uneven and belated maturation story of the Irish republic itself, which took as its avatar the Irish woman, whose citizenship in that republic was unrealized, as indeed was her citizenship in an Irish republic of letters. Dougherty takes the writing of Irish women as seriously as other critics have taken Joyce’s work.
Discusses texts by James Joyce, John McGahern, Hannah Lynch, Kate O’Brien, Lady Gregory, Maud Gonne, Mary Colum, Elizabeth Bowen, Edna O’Brien, Dervla Murphy, Clare Boylan, Nuala O’Faolain, Eavan Boland, Anne Enright, Claire Keegan, Eimear McBride, Éilís ní Dhuibhne, Melatu Uche Okorie, and Soula Emmanuel
Examines the form, narration, and content of fictional, non-fictional, and national narratives
Develops a feminist psychoanalytic narratology
Synthesizes historical, sociojuridical, feminist, post-colonial, and literary historical narratives of Irish development
Jane Elizabeth Dougherty is Professor in the School of Literature, Writing and Digital Humanities and affiliate faculty in the School of Africana and Multicultural Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
Helen Penet is a lecturer in English and Irish Studies at Université de Lille (France).
New Books in Psychoanalysis 