Sally Rooney and the Politics of Post-Celtic Tiger Disability Aesthetics: Neurodiversity and Endometriosis as Metaphor

Abstract

This essay surveys the exclusion of neurodiversity from the first wave of Cultural Disability Studies by analysing Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends (2017). It locates the protagonist, Frances, within a feminist disability discourse that reconsiders her disabilities through interdisciplinarity. Frances’ endometriosis is connected to the notion of crisis and linked to post-boom Ireland by remarking its neoliberal traits. The essay likewise accounts for her presumed autism and tackles the issues raised by fictional representations of ASD. A double reading of autism is suggested in the form of C-PTSD. The article concludes by contextualising Frances’ disabilities in relation to both Irish disability tradition and theorised Post-Celtic Tiger disability aesthetics.