Hunger Strikes Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland: Eating Disorders in Contemporary Women's Writing

This project will be the first full-length study of self-starvation in twenty-first century writing by Irish women. It argues that there is an obsessive depiction of anorexia in Irish women's writing, a subgenre currently enjoying unprecedented commercial success and critical acclaim, exemplified by the runaway success of Sally Rooney's novels. Underpinning this boom is the increase in visibility of feminism and women's rights in the post-Celtic Tiger period (2008-). My research will analyse the dual meanings of anorexia as both a rebellion against and conformity to patriarchal doctrines reinforced by Catholicism and nationalism in Ireland.