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This volume studies the manifestations of female trauma through the exploration of multiple wounds, inflicted on the body, mind and soul of Irish women from Northern Ireland and the Republic within a contemporary context, and in literary works written at the turn of the twenty-first century and beyond.
List of contents
MADALINA ARMIE AND VERÓNICA MEMBRIVE
Introduction
PART I – ESSAYS
JESSICA ALIAGA-LAVRIJSEN
University of Zaragoza, Spain
- Trauma, Reproduction and Breeding in Catherine Brophy’s Dark Paradise
BURCU GÜLÜM TEKIN
University of Zaragoza, Spain
- Different Kinds of Love: Silenced Women in Leland Bardwell’s Short Fiction
ELENA CANTUESO URBANO AND MARÍA ISABEL ROMERO RUIZ
University of Málaga, Spain
- Trauma after a Life of Torture in Irish Magdalene Laundries: Magdalene Survivors’ Testimonies and Patricia Burke-Brogan’s Stained Glass at Samhain
PAULA ROMO-MAYOR
University of Zaragoza, Spain
- Shattering the Moulds of Tradition: The Role of Women in the Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma in Rachel Seiffert’s The Walk Home
MELANIA TERRAZAS
University of La Rioja, Spain
- Representations of Trauma, Memory and the Silencing of Irish Women: Storytelling in Emer Martin’s The Cruelty Men
F.B. SCHÜRMANN
University College Dublin (UCD), School of English, Drama, and Film, Ireland
- Exposition of a Half-formed System: Trauma and Other Matters in Eimear McBride’s A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing
ALICIA MURO
University of La Rioja, Spain
- Damaged Women: Trauma, Shame and Silence in Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends and Normal People
KAYLA FANNING
Concordia University, Canada
- Conditions of Homecoming: Self-Care and Anticipation in Louise O’Neill’s Only Ever Yours and The Surface Breaks
ASIER ALTUNA-GARCÍA DE SALAZAR
University of Deusto, Spain
- Confronting Female Unspeakable Truths in Ireland: Donal Ryan’s Strange Flowers
MAYRON ESTEFAN CANTILLO-LUCUARA
University of Valencia, Spain
- Emma Donoghue’s Hood and the Aesthetics of Existential Claustrophobia: From Traumatic Self-Retreat to Uncloseted Grief
MARÍA GAVIÑA-COSTERO
University of Valencia, Spain
- Don’t Tell Them: The Strategy of Silence in Anna Burns’ Milkman
PART 2. PIECES OF CREATIVE WRITING
CATHERINE DUNNE
- A Good Enough Mother
Unpublished literary piece of novel
MIA GALLAGHER
- Dirty Irish Punk
Unpublished literary piece of novel
LIA MILLS
- "Flight"
Reissued short story
About the author
Madalina Armie earned a master’s degree in English language and literature (2014) from the University of Almería. She completed her PhD on the contemporary Irish short story at the turn of the twenty-first century at the University of Almería (2019), for which she obtained the EIDUAL Dissertation Award 2019 for Best Doctoral Dissertation (2021) and the honorary second prize for the Best Doctoral Dissertation in Studies for Equality and the Fight against Gender Violence of the University of Almeria (2022). Her current areas of research include the contemporary Irish short story and Irish women’s writing. She has published articles and reviews in international journals, such as Irish Studies Review, Estudios Irlandeses, Review of Irish Studies in Europe (RISE) and Studi Irlandesi. Armie is the author of the monograph The Irish Short Story at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century: Tradition, Society and Modernity also published by Routledge. She is currently teaching at the University of Almeria, Spain.
Veronica Membrive completed her PhD at the University of Almería (2017) on Irish travel writers in Spain during the twentieth century. She has published articles and book chapters on Walter Starkie, Kate O’Brien, Aidan Higgins, Pearse Hutchison and their travels in Spain. She is currently teaching English at the University of Almería. She has been awarded the International George Campbell Award for her research on Hiberno-Spanish cultural relations (University of Málaga, 2018).
Summary
This volume studies the manifestations of female trauma through the exploration of multiple wounds, inflicted on both body and mind (Caruth 1996, 3) and the soul of Irish women from Northern Ireland and the Republic within a contemporary context, and in literary works written at the turn of the twenty-first century and beyond. These artistic manifestations connect tradition and modernity, debunk myths, break the silence with the exposure of uncomfortable realities, dismantle stereotypes and reflect reality with precision. Women’s issues and female experiences depicted in contemporary fiction may provide an explanation for past and present gender dynamics, revealing a pathway for further renegotiation of gender roles and the achievement of equilibrium and equality between sexes. These works might help to seal and heal wounds both old and new and offer solutions to the quandaries of tomorrow.
