Sally Rooney

Ellen Scheible is a professor of English and director of honors at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts. She is the author of Body Politics in Contemporary Irish Women's Fiction: The Literary Legacy of Mother Ireland and coeditor of Rethinking Joyce's "Dubliners."Barry Devine is an associate professor of English at Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio. His recent work appears in The Cambridge Centenary "Ulysses" and The Irish Bildungsroman.

• Foreword by Claire Bracken ix Introduction 1 Ellen Scheible and Barry DevineCRITICAL PERSPECTIVES 1 Youth Struggle and Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland in Sally Rooney's Novels 11 María Amor Barros-del Río 2 "Something New and Uncomfortably Familiar": Sally Rooney's Elusive Play with Genre 22 Jennifer A. Slivka 3 "Bit Hard to Fit In": Sally Rooney and Ireland's Campus Novel 36 Deirdre Flynn 4 The Relational Novel in an Era of Individualization 53 Mary M. McGlynn 5 "Maybe What Keats Meant": Sally Rooney and Romanticism 70 Colleen English 6 "Two Little Plants Sharing the Same Plot of Soil": Twinned Bildungsromans in Sally Rooney's Normal People 84 Cassidy Allen 7 "Lockdown Lovers": The Spaces of Television's Normal People 98 Matthew J. Fee 8 Conversations with Friends and the Queer Comedy of Remarriage 115 Katarzyna BartoszyńskaPEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES 9 "I Kind of Suffer from Anxiety with These Things": Disconnect and Emotional Resonance for College Students Reading Sally Rooney's Novels 129 Molly Ferguson 10 Edited Selves in Sally Rooney's Fiction, or How I Learned to Think Like a Millennial 143 Rachael Sealy Lynch 11 Moral Injury in Sally Rooney's Normal People 157 John C. Kerrigan 12 Teaching Narrative Empathy with Beautiful World, Where Are You 171 Barry Devine 13 Trauma, Writing, and Healing in Sally Rooney's Normal People: A Pedagogical Approach 188 Melania TerrazasCoda Revitalizing the Humanities: Gender, Literature, and the Crisis of Masculinity in Rooney's Intermezzo 202 Kristy DeStefano Acknowledgments 213 Bibliography 215 Notes on Contributors 229 Index 232

"In this beautifully imagined collection, perceptive essays demonstrate the many rewards of studying Sally Rooney's novels. Readers and teachers will relish the fresh insights into Rooney's writing, as well as the compelling illustrations of attentive critical reading in our distracted contemporary moment." - Paige Reynolds, author of Modernism in Irish Women's Contemporary Writing: The Stubborn Mode"This lively, urgent collection showcases the breadth and depth of scholarly work on an enigmatic literary superstar. While it is accessible, the authors and editors have been unafraid to address the complexity and controversies in Rooney's work. It will undoubtedly prove invaluable for academics and students of contemporary Irish writing." - Caroline Magennis, author of Northern Irish Writing After the Troubles: Intimacies, Affects, Pleasures"The essays gathered here critically illuminate Sally Rooney's writing as it confronts the myriad issues of the twenty-first century. Her work is important, and this superb collection deftly amplifies that importance, positioning her as an essential chronicler of the 'now.'" - Derek Hand, author of A History of the Irish Novel"Sally Rooney is often described as the voice of the millennial generation. Foregrounding pedagogical approaches to teaching Rooney's work, this volume offers valuable insights into how her writing resonates with Gen Z and audiences beyond." - Yen-Chi Wu, author of Irish Writers and The New Yorker in the Mid-Twentieth Century"This collection of essays is a scholarly examination of one of Ireland's most prominent contemporary writers, Sally Rooney. It includes a wide range of topics, and has a unique angle that emphasizes the pedagogical values of teaching Rooney's work to college students. This volume has great potential to be an essential reader for students, teachers, and researchers in Irish studies—and more broadly—contemporary literature." - Sally Barr Ebest, author of The Banshees: A Literary History of Irish American Women Writers