Working on Croniclau Pentre Simon for The Inaugural Bangor Conference of Celtic Studies paper...

Papers

Gender in the Classroom: the practical approach

( workshop held during Ogólnopolska Konferencja Naukowa: Interdyscyplinarność w Dydaktyce Nauczania Języków Obcych, 17-19.11.2011, Szczecin, Poland)

This workshop is designed to increase the participants' awareness and knowledge about the importance of gender equity in the classroom setting.

Various interactive activities will be held in order to:

a) make participants aware of gender differences in the classroom and their consequences for both teaching and learning process
b) learn to create a non-biased learning/teaching classroom environment
c) develop an individual teaching action plan that will benefit both the teacher and the students

The workshop will end with coming up with a shared action plan on what can be done in order to improve gender equity in the classroom in the Polish context.

A million different loves: queer identities in chosen works of Micheál Ó Conghaile

Presented at the XIV International Congress of Celtic Studies, August 2011, Maynooth, Ireland

This paper looks at three works of Micheál Ó Conghaile, i.e his play "The Connemara Five", the short coming-out story "Father" and the novella "The Ramblings of Jack Sheáin Johnny" in order to elucidate how queer identities, represented by various characters in the pieces in question, are constructed, narrated and negotiated. Belonging to different literary kinds and genres, they are all linked by the inevitable presence of a queer identity, be it homo- or heteronormative, forcing the readers to reflect on their own sexual identity in comparison with the ones presented in the text. Such juxtapositions leave no one indifferent and call for the re-consideration of the meaning of the word queer. I will argue as in Thomas (2000) and in Taormino (2003), that the majority of us can be classified as queer regardless of our sexual orientation. Ultimately, the study of the construction of the queer agents in M. Ó Conghaile’s works gives an opportunity to (a) analyze aspects of the diversity of possible queer sexualities, (b) to review the way they are being negotiated and narrated in postmodern Irish-language literature. In addition, this analysis will enable us to place modern Irish-language literature into latest theoretical frameworks of analyzing literature in general.

The Connemara Five, Calvin Thomas, The Ramblings of Jack Sheáin Johnny, and Micheál Ó Conghaile

‘...so much to say, and little of it speakable’: Closeted Gay and Lesbian Identities in Colm Toibin’s "The Master" and Emma Donoghue’s “The Sealed Letter”

(presented at the 1st Global Interdisciplinary Conference Queer Sexualities, 13th -15th May 2011, Warsaw, Poland)

Colm Toibin’s “The Master” and Emma Donoghue’s “The Sealed Letter” are two recent neo-Victorian novels by gay/lesbian writers who gave secondary importance to the sexual identity of their characters. Focusing mainly on other aspects of their protagonists’ character traits, their non-normative identity remained only hinted at, forcing the readers to draw their own conclusion as to the level of queerness presented there. Precisely, the motif of a closeted identity and particular lack of easily-identifiable sexual categories in Toibin’s “The Master” were fundamental to Stacey D’Erasmo’s (2008) statement of the end of sexual identity in the contemporary novel. This paper will argue that the ambiguous yet non-explicit nature of queer identities of the protagonists of Toibin’s and Donoghue’s aforementioned works does not mean the end of sexual identity as such and that it serves as yet another tool for the re-definition of the concept of the queer identity in general. Moreover, drawing on Anna Marie Jagose’s claim that “queer is always an identity under construction, a site of permanent becoming” (1996), this paper will show that the trope of a closeted sexual identity, present in both novels, constitutes one of the elements of the queer because of its fluid nature. 

Queer Heterosexuality in The Connemara Five.

presented during Unity in Diversity International Conference 21-24 Oct, 2010 Szczecin, Poland

The Connemara Five tells the story of a family who are unhappy in their lives either due to the twist of fate or their own conscious choice. Trapped in a city they don’t like they try to get on with their lives without looking back, which seems impossible at times. The demented father, bitter and aggressive older son  and  the youngest one who is the closeted transvestite share a flat that is a silent witness of their everyday struggle with life. Dysfunctional relationships among the three men, feeling of loss and guilt escalate when the youngest man is being discovered wearing girls’ clothes. Even though a heterosexual, Danny can’t find understanding with his family and girlfriend who thinks of him a ‘freak’...

Drawing on findings of the field of the queer theory this article will explore the idea proposed by Calvin Thomas of the existence of the straight queer/queer heterosexual. According to Thomas, working outside the strict boundaries of same-sex identification is not exactly gay or lesbian as there are straight people who appear more queer than the representatives of sexual minority. Supported by Michael Warner’s theory that ‘queer’ is simply the resistance to the regimes of the normal, I will analyze the idea of the transvestite heterosexual as being a straight queer in the play of one of the most notable modern Irish writers - Micheál Ó Conghaile.

Irish Literature, LGBT Literature, Straight Queer Theory, and Queer Theory

Crossing the ”gender frontier:” male impersonation and cross-dressing in Sarah Waters’ Tipping the Velvet.

presented at the 19th Annual Conference of the Polish Association for the Study of English Crossing frontiers, staking out new territories. April 19th-21st, 2010 Kalisz, Poland. (Forthcoming in 2012)

Crossing the ”gender frontier:” male impersonation and cross-dressing in Sarah Waters’ Tipping the Velvet.

Culturally accepted gender roles are what we are born into, therefore from early childhood we are being taught how to find our way within specific gender boundaries. Those who decide to transgress these set limits consciously cross what Kathleen M. Brown called a “gender frontier” - the borderline where two culturally specific systems of knowledge about gender and its nature meet. During the Victorian Era, there were two main ways in which a woman could cross this frontier: first, and commonly accepted one, was to become a male impersonator and perform on stage; second, and a widely ostracized one, was to cross-dress in real life and pass as a man. Even though both ways stem from the idea of one sex dressing in the clothes of another, the repercussions of the undertaking of the latter included long imprisonment and years of hard labour. In her debut neo-Victorian novel Tipping the Velvet (1998), Sarah Waters presents the story of a protagonist who managed to cross the “gender frontier” twice, both as a male impersonator and as a cross-dresser. The focus of this paper is therefore on the means and processes of the heroine’s transgression of socially accepted gender roles in 19th century London as presented by Waters in her ’neo-Victorian romp.’ With the use of the queer theory the article will also describe the implications of gender transgression through transvestitism and drag both in Victorian and modern times in order to prove that staking out new territories by people of non-normative personal expression has been a long and dangerous venture.

Neo-Victorian lesbians and cross-dressers, Drag Kings, Historiographic Metafiction, Neo-Victorian fiction, and Neo-Victorian Literature

Neo-Victorian Sapphic femmes fatale: manipulation and double game in Sarah Waters' Affinity

presented at the 2nd Global Conference Evil, Women and the Feminine, Monday 3rd May 2010 – Wednesday 5th May 2010 Prague, Czech Republic. (Forthcoming in a dialogiacl volume)

The concept of a manipulative evil woman, the seductive and dangerous femme fatale in literature results from historical oppression of the female voice and the patriarchal nature of writing. The prevalent male perspective has depicted a femme fatale as a direct threat to masculine power and dominance. Such a portrayal of woman has been deeply ingrained in literary tradition and became a timeless archetype. Yet, in her neo-Victorian novel Affinity (1999) Sarah Waters broke this pattern by queering the archetypal femme fatale with the creation of two Sapphic evil sirens - Ruth Vigers and Selina Dawes, who attempt to corrupt and manipulate other women through their sexuality, labyrinth of lies, deception and disguise. Affinity tells the story of Margaret Prior - a spinster from a respectable family who after the loss of her female lover and the death of her scholarly father takes up a new “mission” and becomes a visitor in Millbank Prison for women. While pursuing her new endeavor, Margaret falls in love with one of the convicts - Selina Dawes, a spiritual medium, who manipulates Margaret into helping her escape jail. In her naive search for happiness Margaret fails to notice that her fate has been meticulously planned and orchestrated by a person from Selina’s past, who now became a part of Margaret's own present - Ruth Vigers. Therefore this paper focuses on the rules of double game and the ways of manipulation used by the queer femme fatales - Dawes and Vigers - on different women in the novel. I will also argue that from the perspective of queer theory a lesbian femme fatale is twice as dangerous as a heterosexual one and that Waters’ creation of such Machiavellic lesbian characters challenges the normative - patriarchal way of depicting women as posing a threat to male dominance.

Historiographic Metafiction, Neo-Victorian lesbians and cross-dressers, Neo-Victorian Literature, LGBT Literature, and Queer Theory
 

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