Quare Modernism? Contesting exclusions in the construction of queerness in modernist Irish women's fiction

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This project will explore queer and "quare" readings of novels by some of the most prominent Irish modernist womenwriters: Elizabeth Bowen, Kate O'Brien and Molly Keane. Informed by intersectional feminist theory and queer of colourcritique, it will seek to define how far queerness is useful as a radical political project in the Irish context. Whileacknowledging the liberatory potential of queerness in the culture of post-independence Ireland, it is also vital tounderstand the limitations of a canon of queer cultural production dominated by middle- to upper-class, able-bodied,white Irish writers. Thus, this project will focus on the exclusions - of class, race and ability, primarily - that areconstitutive of the queer imaginary in the novels of these pioneering writers. The eventual aim of this research is thedelineation of a new "quare theory", following on from the efforts of Irish studies scholars such as Valente, Giffney andO'Rourke. This theory will be rigorous in its analysis of interlocking systems of oppression, paying close attention to theconstitutive effects of racism and classism in the shaping of structures and identities. It will be a decolonial andintersectional methodology that will seek out alternative models of identity, community and temporality. Inspired by queerscholars of colour such as Muñoz, I will ask how the Irish experience of modernity in the twentieth century relates to thequeer, or quare, experience of temporality and futurity.