Abstract
This book is addressed to readers interested in disability studies, autobiographical literature, and Irish cultural studies. The introductory chapter provides an overview of its theoretical foundations, defining its approach to life writing as a literary genre and establishing its position among competing definitions of disability. It also introduces disability life writing in theory and practice and offers an argument regarding its place in Ireland, particularly in relation to the Irish autobiographical tradition, specific cultural practices regarding the body, and matters of regional identity and institutional religion in a rapidly transforming society.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Barker, Clare and Stuart Murray. 2010. “Disabling Postcolonialism: Global Disability Cultures and Democratic Criticism.” Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies 4 (2): 219–36.
Bollard, Joe. 1997. Out of Sight. Dublin: Wolfhound.
Brown, Christy. 1970. Down All the Days. London: Martin Secker & Warburg.
Cahill, Susan. 2011. Irish Literature in the Celtic Tiger Years 1990–2008. London: Continuum.
Collison, Tommy. 2012. That’s Me. Amazon Digital Publishing.
Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. 2009. Report (Volumes I–V). Dublin: Stationery Office. http://www.childabusecommission.ie.
Couser, G.Thomas. 2009. Signifying Bodies: Disability in Contemporary Life Writing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Curran, John. 1993. Just My Luck. Tralee: Inné Teo.
Davis, Lennard J. 2002. Bending Over Backwards: Disability, Dismodernism, and Other Difficult Positions. New York: New York University Press.
Doyle, Paddy. 1989. The God Squad. London: Corgi.
Eakin, Paul John. 2004. “Introduction: Mapping the Ethics of Life Writing.” In The Ethics of Life Writing, edited by Paul John Eakin, 1–16. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
———. 2008. Living Autobiographically: How We Create Identity in Narrative. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Eisland, Nancy. 1994. The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability. Nashville: Abingdon.
Forde, Mossie. 2010. Mossie’s Story. Dublin: TAF Publishing.
Frank, Arthur. 1995. The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gilmore, Leigh. 2001. The Limits of Autobiography: Trauma and Testimony. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Gray, Sarah. 2011. “Irish Disability: Postcolonial Narratives of Stunted Development.” PhD. diss., University of Illinois.
Grubgeld, Elizabeth. 2004. Anglo-Irish Autobiography: Class, Gender, and the Forms of Narrative. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
Hanna, Davoren. 1990. Not Common Speech. Dublin: Raven Arts Press.
Harte, Liam. 2007. Modern Irish Autobiography: Self, Nation, and Society. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
———. 2009. “‘Tomorrow We Will Change Out Names, Invent Ourselves Gain’: Irish Fiction and Autobiography Since 1990.” In Irish Literature Since 1990, edited by Scott Brewster and Michael Parker, 201–15. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
———. 2018. The History of Irish Autobiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Holmes, Martha Stoddard. 2011. “After Sontag: Reclaiming Metaphor.” Genre 44 (3): 263–76.
Johnson, Merri Lisa and Robert McRuer. 2014. “Cripistemologies: Introduction.” Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies 8 (2): 127–47.
Kenneally, Michael. 1989. “The Autobiographical Imagination and Irish Literary Autobiographies.” In Critical Approaches to Anglo-Irish Literature, edited by Michael Allen and Angela Wilcox, 111–31. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe.
Kenny, Des. 2013. My Sense of Blind. Dublin: Estuary Books.
Kiberd, Declan. 1995. Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation. London: Jonathan Cape.
Lejeune, Philippe. 1989. “The Autobiographical Pact.” In On Autobiography, edited by Paul John Eakin and translated by Katherine Leary, 3–30. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Lynch, Claire. 2009. Irish Autobiography: Stories of Self in the Narrative of a Nation. Bern: Peter Lang.
McDonnell, Joan. 2004. With a Spring in My Step. Cork: Collins Press.
McDonnell, Patrick. 2007. Disability and Society: Ideological and Historical Dimensions. Dublin: Blackhall.
McGahern, John. 2005. Memoir. London: Faber & Faber.
McWhorter, Ladelle. 2005. “Forward.” In Foucault and the Government of Disability, edited by Shelley Tremain, xii–xvii. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
Mintz, Susannah B. 2006. “Ordinary Vessels: Disability Narratives and Representations of Faith.” Disability Studies Quarterly 26 (3). http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/722/899.
Mitchell, David T. 2000. “Body Solitaire: The Singular Subject of Disability Autobiography.” American Quarterly 52 (2): 311–15.
Mitchell, David T., and Sharon Snyder. 2006. Cultural Locations of Disability. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mossman, Mark. 2009. Disability, Representation, and the Body in Irish Writing 1800–1922. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Napier, Taura. 2001. Seeking a Country: Literary Autobiographies of Twentieth-Century Irish Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Neuman, Shirley. 1992. “Autobiography: From Different Poetics to a Poetics of Difference.” In Essays on Life Writing: From Genre to Critical Practice, edited by Marlene Kadar, 213–30. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Nolan, Christopher. 1987. Under the Eye of the Clock: The Life Story of Christopher Nolan. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
O’Casey, Sean. 1939. I Knock at the Door: Swift Glances Back at Things that Made Me. New York: Macmillan.
O’Connor, Frank. 1961. An Only Child. New York: Knopf.
O’Faolain, Nuala. 1996. Are You Somebody? The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman. New York: Henry Holt.
Olney, James. 1998. Memory and Narrative: The Weave of Life-Writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Quirici, Marion. 2015. “Cathleen ni Houlihan and the Disability Aesthetics of Irish National Culture.” Éire-Ireland 50 (3–4): 74–93.
Saunders, Max. 2010. Self-Impression, Life Writing, Autobiografiction, and the Forms of Modern Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shakespeare, Tom. 2013. Disability Rights and Wrongs Revisited. London and New York: Routledge.
Siebers, Tobin. 2008. Disability Theory. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Smith, Paul. 1988. Discerning the Subject. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Sontag, Susan. 1978. Illness as Metaphor. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Tubridy, Jean. 1997. Pegged Down: The Experience of People in Ireland with Significant Disabilities. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration.
Vidali, Amy. 2010. “Seeing What We Know: Disabilities and Theories of Metaphor.” Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 4 (1): 33–54.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Grubgeld, E. (2020). Disability and Irish Life Writing: An Overview. In: Disability and Life Writing in Post-Independence Ireland. Literary Disability Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37246-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37246-0_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-37245-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-37246-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)