Synopses & Reviews
The theme of this book is cultural encounter and exchange in Irish women's lives. Using three case studies: the Enlightenment, emigration and modernism, it analyses reading and popular and consumer culture as sites of negotiation of gender roles. It traces how the circulation of ideas, fantasies and aspirations which have shaped women's lives in actuality and in imagination and argues that there were many different ways of being a woman. Attention to women's cultural consumption and production shows that one individual may in one day identify with representations of heroines of romantic fiction, patriots, philanthropists, literary ladies, film stars, career women, popular singers, advertising models and foreign missionaries. The processes of cultural consumption, production and exchange provide evidence of women's agency, aspirations and activities within and far beyond the domestic sphere.
Synopsis
Examining an impressive length of Irish cultural history, from 1700–1960, Reading the Irishwoman explores the dynamisms of cultural encounter and exchange in Irish women’s lives. Analyzing the popular and consumer cultures of a variety of eras, it traces how the circulation of ideas, fantasies, and aspirations shaped women’s lives both in actuality and in imagination. The authors uncover a huge array of different representations that Irish women have been able to identify with, including heroine, patriot, philanthropist, actress, singer, model, and missionary. By studying this diversity of viable roles in the Irish woman’s cultural world, the authors point to evidence of women’s agency and aspiration that reached far beyond the domestic sphere.
About the Author
Gerardine Meaney is Director of the Humanities Institute of Ireland at University College Dublin.
Mary O'Dowd is Professor in the School of History and Anthropology at Queen's University, Belfast.
Bernadette Whelan is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Limerick.
Table of Contents
Abbreviations
Introduction
Enlightenment
1. The Enlightenment, Reading and Irish Women, 1714-1820
2. Educating Women, Patriotism and Public Life, 1770-1845
Emigration
3. The Woman Emigrant Encounters the 'New World', c. 1851-1960
4. Women and the 'American Way', 1900-60
Modernism
5. Women as Producers and Consumers of Popular Culture, 1900-60
6. Women and the Gate Theatre, 1929-60: Sexual and Aesthetic Dissidences
Bibliography
Index