This session is designed to critically discuss the novels of Sally Rooney (
Conversations with Friends, Normal People, Beautiful World Where Are You, Intermezzo). Often called "the first great millennial novelist", the prolific and best-selling Rooney deserves to be taken seriously on her own account, as do these four novels. While this session is open to a broad swath of topics on Rooney's novels, her fame, and to some extent the TV shows, I have a specific interest in how the novels include or complicate key tenets of post-structuralist philosophy and critical theory from the 20th century.
We can generally ask: is Rooney's oeuvre a critique, a snapshot, a suggestion, or a warning about a way forward for fiction, the novel form, and contemporary culture?
Submissions are encouraged - but not limited to - on the following topics:
-Form: What formal choices distinguish the novels?
-The focus on the physical body/ sex
-What do the novels say about feminism, gender equality, queerness, or the female body in literature?
-The environment and/or late-stage capitalism in literature.
-Critiques of neoliberalism