Irish modernism and the politics of sexual health

Thesis

This thesis explores the politicized role of sexual health as a concept, discourse, and subject of debate within Irish modernism. Combining perspectives from Irish Studies, the New Modernist Studies, and the Social History of Medicine, it traces the ways in which authors, politicians, and activists in nineteenth and twentieth-century Ireland harnessed debates over sexual hygiene, venereal disease, birth control, fertility, and eugenics to envisage competing models of Irish identity, culture, ...

Expand abstract

Authors: Houston, LM

• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: W.B. Yeats; George Bernard Shaw; Oliver St John Gogarty; venereal diseases; G.B. Shaw; Parnell split; modernism and sexuality; Myles Na Gcopaleen; Irish politics (20th century); Irish politics (19th century); modernism and eugenics; literature and medicine; birth control (Ireland); Irish studies; Irish independence; modernism and sex; new modernist studies; degeneration theory (Ireland); Kate O'Brien; Oliver Gogarty; playboy riots; William Butler Yeats; Samuel Beckett; Irish unionism; Flann O'Brien; history of sexuality (Ireland); censorship of publications act (ireland); fertility politics (Ireland); eugenics (Ireland); Irish nationalism; Irish modernist studies; social history of medicine (Ireland); J.M. Synge; sexual health; James Joyce; Charles Stewart Parnell; modernist studies; modernism and gender; modernism and birth control; Irish modernism; Brian O'Nolan; John Millington Synge
• Subjects: Theater--Ireland--Dublin--History; Gender identity in literature; Literature and society--Ireland--History--20th century; Theater--Ireland--History; Eugenics--History; Irish literature; Gender identity; Censorship in literature; Nationalism--Ireland--History--20th century; Politics and literature--Ireland--History--20th century; Medicine in literature; Modernism (Literature); Irish literature--History and criticism; Literature and history--Ireland--History--20th century; Ireland--History--19th century; Censorship; Theater--Ireland--Dublin--History--20th century; Literature and medicine; Ireland--History--20th century; Irish literature--20th century--History and criticism; Modernism (Literature)--Ireland; Sexually transmitted diseases; Women and literature--Ireland--History--20th century; Fertility in literature; Fertility; Birth control; Birth control in literature; Sex; English literature--Irish authors--History and criticism; Sex in literature; Sexual health; Nationalism--Ireland--History--19th century; Medicine--Europe--History; Literature; Sex and history