The brilliant debut novel from Emilie Pine, author of the international bestseller NOTES TO SELF Dublin, 7 October 2019 One day, one city, two women: Ruth and Pen. Neither knows the other, but both are asking the same questions: how to be with others and how, when the world won't make space for you, to be with yourself? Ruth's marriage to Aidan is in crisis. Today she needs to make a choice - to stay or not to stay, to take the risk of reaching out, or to pull up the drawbridge. For teenage Pen, today is the day the words will flow, and she will speak her truth to Alice, to ask for what she so desperately wants. RUTH & PEN is the fictional debut from Emilie Pine, author of the international bestseller NOTES TO SELF. Deeply involving, poignant and radiantly intelligent, it is a portrait of the limits of grief and love, of how we navigate our inner and outer landscapes, and the tender courage demanded by the simple, daily quest of living.

This collection raises incisive questions about the links between the postcolonial carceral system, which thrived in Ireland after 1922, and larger questions of gender, sexuality, identity, class, race and religion. This kind of intersectional history is vital not only in looking back but, in looking forward, to identify the ways in which structural callousness still marks Irish society. Essays include historical analysis of the ways in which women and children were incarcerated in residential institutions, Ireland's Direct Provision system, the policing of female bodily autonomy though legislation on prostitution and abortion, in addition to the legacies of the Magdalen laundries. This collection also considers how artistic practice and commemoration have acted as vital interventions in social attitudes and public knowledge, helping to create knowledge and re-shape social attitudes towards this history. -- .

This book elucidates the ways the pained and suffering body has been registered and mobilized in specifically Irish contexts across more than four hundred years of literature and culture. There is no singular approach to what pain means: the material addressed in this collection covers diverse cultural forms, from reports of battles and executions to stage and screen representations of sexual violence, produced in response to different historical circumstances in terms that confirm our understanding of how pain - whether endured or inflicted, witnessed or remediated - is culturally coded. Pain is as open to ongoing redefinition as the Ireland that features in all of the essays gathered here. This collection offers new paradigms for understanding Ireland's literary and cultural history.

'I am afraid of being the disruptive woman. And of not being disruptive enough. I am afraid. But I am doing it anyway.' In this dazzling debut, Emilie Pine speaks powerfully from her painful personal experience - on the emotional labour of caring for her alcoholic father, on the unspeakable grief of miscarriage and infertility, on the social taboos around menstrual blood and female pain, on the ways young women use their own bodies as a weapon against themselves. Courageous, humane and uncompromising, devastatingly poignant and yet never self-pitying, these pieces investigate and challenge society's assumptions around pain, strength, resilience and identity, ultimately embracing joy and hope in the business of living.

This book elucidates the ways the pained and suffering body has been registered and mobilized in specifically Irish contexts across more than four hundred years of literature and culture. There is no singular approach to what pain means: the material addressed in this collection covers diverse cultural forms, from reports of battles and executions to stage and screen representations of sexual violence, produced in response to different historical circumstances in terms that confirm our understanding of how pain - whether endured or inflicted, witnessed or remediated - is culturally coded. Pain is as open to ongoing redefinition as the Ireland that features in all of the essays gathered here. This collection offers new paradigms for understanding Ireland's literary and cultural history.

What happens when cultural memory becomes a commodity? Who owns the memory? In The Memory Marketplace, Emilie Pine explores how memory is performed both in Ireland and abroad by considering the significant body of contemporary Irish theatre that contends with its own culture and history. Analyzing examples from this realm of theatre, Pine focuses on the idea of witnesses, both as performers on stage and as members of the audience. Whose memories are observed in these transactions, and how and why do performances prioritize some memories over others? What does it mean to create, rehearse, perform, and purchase the theatricalization of memory? The Memory Marketplace shows this transaction to be particularly fraught in the theatricalization of traumatic moments of cultural upheaval, such as the child sexual abuse scandal in Ireland. In these performances, the role of empathy becomes key within the marketplace dynamic, and Pine argues that this empathy shapes the kinds of witnesses created. The complexities and nuances of this exchange-subject and witness, spectator and performer, consumer and commodified-provide a deeper understanding of the crucial role theatre plays in shaping public understanding of trauma, memory, and history.

The brilliant debut novel from Emilie Pine, author of the international bestseller Notes to Self Dublin, 7 October 2019 One day, one city, two women: Ruth and Pen. Neither knows the other, but both are asking the same questions: how to be with others and how, when the world won't make space for you, to be with yourself? Ruth's marriage to Aidan is in crisis. Today she needs to make a choice - to stay or not to stay, to take the risk of reaching out, or to pull up the drawbridge. For teenage Pen, today is the day the words will flow, and she will speak her truth to Alice, to ask for what she so desperately wants. Deeply involving, poignant and radiantly intelligent, it is a portrait of the limits of grief and love, of how we navigate our inner and outer landscapes, and the tender courage demanded by the simple, daily quest of living. 'Emilie Pine is one of the most important new voices in Irish Literature. Everything she writes is imbued with wisdom' David Park 'Emilie Pine's debut novel is ambitious, poignant and playful, with a feminist nod to Joyce . . . it is as surprising and playful as it is ambitious and relevant' Irish Independent 'This is an exciting, warm and engaging debut that signals, one hopes, even greater things to come' The Business Post WINNER OF THE KATE O'BRIEN AWARD

What happens when cultural memory becomes a commodity? Who owns the memory? In The Memory Marketplace, Emilie Pine explores how memory is performed both in Ireland and abroad by considering the significant body of contemporary Irish theatre that contends with its own culture and history. Analyzing examples from this realm of theatre, Pine focuses on the idea of witnesses, both as performers on stage and as members of the audience. Whose memories are observed in these transactions, and how and why do performances prioritize some memories over others? What does it mean to create, rehearse, perform, and purchase the theatricalization of memory? The Memory Marketplace shows this transaction to be particularly fraught in the theatricalization of traumatic moments of cultural upheaval, such as the child sexual abuse scandal in Ireland. In these performances, the role of empathy becomes key within the marketplace dynamic, and Pine argues that this empathy shapes the kinds of witnesses created. The complexities and nuances of this exchange-subject and witness, spectator and performer, consumer and commodified-provide a deeper understanding of the crucial role theatre plays in shaping public understanding of trauma, memory, and history.

The brilliant debut novel from Emilie Pine, author of the international bestseller NOTES TO SELF Dublin, 7 October 2019 One day, one city, two women: Ruth and Pen. Neither known to the other, but both asking themselves the same questions: how to be with others and how, when the world doesn't seem willing to make space for them, to be with themselves? Ruth's marriage to Aidan is in crisis. Today she needs to make a choice - to stay or not to stay, to take the risk of reaching out, or to pull up the drawbridge. For teenage Pen, today is the day the words will flow, and she will speak her truth to Alice, to ask for what she so desperately wants. Deeply involving, poignant and radiantly intelligent, it is a portrait of the limits of grief and love, of how we navigate our inner and outer landscapes, and the tender courage demanded by the simple, daily quest of living.

This volume reflects on the pressing questions for Irish literary studies now. Contributors challenge prevailing assumptions within the field, seek to displace the canon, and define alternative paths. From queer studies to transnationalism, from #MeToo to the politics of representing disability, this collection opens up the institution of Irish criticism and considers the ethical challenges and opportunities for scholars working in the field today from concerns with identity politics to questions of form. Moreover, the collection reflects on where we have come from and the development of Irish studies both in the Irish University Review and internationally in Asia, Australasia, Europe, and South America.

This Special Issue considers the themes and forms of remembrance in Irish culture from the 17th century to the present moment, from oral depositions to video games, including the perspectives of academic critics and culture makers. These essays and responses consider the ways that memory moves transculturally and transhistorically, and how it moves us, emotionally and politically.