Theory on the Edge

Reviews / Votes

"This landmark and invaluable collection of essays shows how the shape of Irish Studies has been changed for the better by the substantial interventions that feminist and queer practices have made. It historicizes feminist and queer activism in Ireland and its diasporas, as well as showing how critically important it is to centralize perspectives that emphasize embodiment, sexuality, and gender for reading Ireland now and into the future." - Mike Cronin, Professor, Boston College, Ireland

"Irish feminism, activist, and academic, has supplied impetus for virtually all of the most remarkable social transformations that we have observed in Ireland over the past three decades, while nurturing and cross-pollinating with an array of other distinct movements vastly influential in their own right. This collection is indispensable to our understanding of a particularly dynamic, heterogeneous, and theoretically sophisticated feminist movement." - Margot Backus, Professor, University of Houston, USA

"This collection is a fitting tribute to and extension of the work of Ailbhe Smyth and her vigorous, indefatigable and lifelong commitment to feminist theory and activism. As a public intellectual, essayist, poet and feminist Smyth has been instrumental in integrating sexual difference into the Irish context and the essays here are equally engaged and curious about this persistent question for our time. Each of the contributors shares Smyth's mischievousness, passion,and her genuine and uncompromising fidelity to feminist thinking. Giffney and Shildrick have generously repaid the debts owed to Smyth politically, poetically, and philosophically and produced a volume which ensures that the edge-work she made possible can continue on far into the future." - Michael O'Rourke, Independent College, Dublin, Ireland