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New Voices: Inherited Lines New Voices in Irish Criticism Postgraduate Conference 2010
University of Limerick 28th – 29th May 2010
A predominant theme in Irish literature, and indeed in cultural discourse more generally, is the role of the family in Irish society. From the Quirks in Castle Rackrent via the Mulqueens in The Ante-Room to the Hegarty family in Anne Enright’s The Gathering, families and family structures have sustained the interest of most of our literary writers right up to the contemporary period, transcending all genres. This postgraduate conference seeks to explore literary and cultural representations of the Irish family, and consider the ways in which Irish families have shaped (and been constructed by) Irish literature and culture in the modern period.
Plenary Speakers include: Prof. Patricia Coughlan, University College Cork Prof. Anne Fogarty, University College Dublin Dr. Eamonn Hughes, Queen’s University Belfast
With a public reading by: Anne Enright (2007 Man Booker Prize Winner for Fiction)
Just as Irish society as a whole has undergone sweeping changes, in the recent past in particular, so have there been significant reconfigurations in Irish families. Yet, Irish writers continue to write the family, sometimes depicting it as a traditional space under threat from famine and mass emigration, sometimes highlighting the dangers of the family ‘cell’, and perhaps more recently constructing families as a safe haven from a bewildering postmodern world. At the heart of many of these constructions of the Irish family are questions of power and agency, as well as issues of class, gender, ethnicities and sexualities. This conference will provide a forum for questioning whether traditional familial structures are in fact now outdated, and asking whether a new Irish family can be discerned in recent cultural representations, which is perhaps more reflective of contemporary Ireland. In addition to redefinitions of the nuclear family, we will also consider aspects of family constructions in Irish nationalist discourse, e.g. the symbolic use of the family and the interaction and the conflict between private and public roles of the family.
Topics may include but are by no means limited to: § Imagining the Irish family within literary or cultural discourses of various kinds (i.e. as well as literary writing, we welcome papers dealing with film and media, memoir and autobiography, and other kinds of cultural texts) § Gendered constructions of Irish family relationships § Marginalised families in Irish literature § Family taboos and dysfunction in cultural discourses § Colonial and post-colonial Irish families in literature § Religion and family in Irish texts § Cultural constructions of migrant families § Dissident families / queering the traditional family structure
Conference Organisers: Yvonne O’Keeffe, University of Limerick Claudia Reese, University of Limerick
Deadline for abstracts: 2nd April 2010 Abstracts should be approximately 250-300 words (include affiliation and student status). Abstracts and queries to: New Voices 2010, School of Languages, Literature Culture and Communication, University of Limerick. E-mail: newvoices2010@ul.ie
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