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The IASIL Online Newsletter, 2010

Back to the conferences homepage CALL FOR PAPERS Reconstructing the Revival: Interdisciplinary Approaches Friday 9^th, Saturday 10^th September 2011 UCD, Humanities Institute of Ireland - Funded by the UCD Graduate School in Arts and Celtic Studies - In an article published in 1902 in the French periodical L’Européen, the playwright John Millington Synge describes the Revival as a period characterized by the cross-fertilization of three movements, the Gaelic League, the Irish Agricultural Organization Society and the intellectual and literary movement. He comments on the interconnectedness of these different projects: “…it is hard to find someone who is involved in only one of them, without also being interested in the others at the same time.” Synge’s piece of journalism critically defines a landmark of Irish history by taking into account the osmotic exchange taking place in the spheres of culture, economics and politics. Recent scholarship such as PJ Mathews’ Revival (2003) has stressed the importance of reading the Revival not solely as an elitist movement but as “a progressive period that witnessed the co-operation of the self-help revivalists to encourage local modes of material and cultural development”(3). Among many area-specific contributions, a number of recent critical assessments of the Revival have foregrounded interdisciplinary perspectives: a special issue of the Irish University Review (2003), an edited volume The Irish Revival Reappraised (2004), and Brían Ó Conchubhair’s Fin de Siècle na Gaeilge (2009) have all further enlarged the scope of research in the area. Reconstructing the Revival: Interdisciplinary Approaches is a two-day conference which seeks to examine the current state of research on the Revival and the direction in which it is moving. Therefore, it seeks to showcase the work being carried out by graduate students and early career researchers. The conference aims to reconstruct a crucial moment of Irish cultural self-determination through innovative scholarly approaches which will privilege an interdisciplinary and comparative analysis. It will also consider the role of digital media (podcasts, online editions, historical visualisations etc.) in both cultural reconstruction and research dissemination within the humanities. Topics will include but are not limited to: Revivals: parallel and/or counter-hegemonic, central and/or peripheral The Irish language, activism, education and sports during the Revival Science and technology during the Revival Music and visual arts (painting, photography, arts and crafts etc.) Travel, translation, mobility, European connections and the Revival Ethnography, anthropology, folklore, mythology and the Revival Issues of race, gender, national identity, place, landscape and cultural memory in Revivalist literature and drama Periodicals & print culture during the Revival History and criticism about the Revival Remembering and reconstructing the Revival: cultural memory, digital humanities and new challenges for research areas Submission Guidelines The conference is aimed at graduate students and early career researchers (postdoctoral fellows etc.) in the arts and humanities. Abstracts of no more than 300 words for 20 minute papers should be sent to and before Friday 20 May 2011. Abstracts must include the title of your paper, name, and e-mail addresses, institutional affiliation and any AV requirements for your presentation. We also welcome proposals for thematic panels. Please contact the conference organisers, Giulia Bruna and Catherine Wilsdon (UCD, School of English, Drama & Film) at reconstructingtherevival@gmail.com for any queries. Keynote speakers Dr Hugh Denard (King's College, London) is currently working on a project which aims to visually reconstruct the Abbey Theatre as it was in 1904 by means of computer modelling (http://blog.oldabbeytheatre.net/). Dr Ben Levitas (Goldsmiths, University of London) has published widely on J.M. Synge, W.B. Yeats, cultural nationalism and the history of the book during the Revival. Please note that a conference fee will apply. Further information about the event can be found on our blog, http://reconstructingtherevival.wordpress.com/

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