Our colleague Dr Michael G Cronin has just published his second book on Irish literature. Revolutionary Bodies: homoeroticism and the political imagination in Irish writing (Manchester University Press) explores how a revolutionary imagination is realised in Irish literary writing about homoerotic passion.
Some of the authors discussed in the book include: Oscar Wilde, Brendan Behan, John Broderick, Colm Tóibín, Keith Ridgway, Jamie O’Neill, Micheál Ó Conghaile and Barry McCrea. As the book argues, these writers challenge and subvert stigmatising ideas about ‘homosexuals’ and ‘gay men’. But, just as significantly, homoerotic relations are depicted in stylistically experimental ways – generating a distinctive strain of utopian writing. In these novels we witness the formation of a new historical and social consciousness in and through the act of writing itself.
Revolutionary Bodies is another contribution to Maynooth English Department’s distinguished and widely-recognised record in the field of Irish literary studies.
More information can be found at: https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526135421/revolutionary-bodies/