The James Joyce Annual Summer School, founded by Professor Martin, 1987, is up and running again this year on 13-25 July, directed by Anne Fogarty, with Fritz Senn as Patron, both lecturing. Other speakers include Christine Froula (Northwestern Univ.); Brenda Maddox (London); David Glover Southampton Univ.); Patrick McCarthy (Miami Univ.); Frank Callanan (Dublin); Joseph Valente (Illinois Univ.); Marilyn Reizbaum (Bowdoin Coll.); Brian Arkins (UCD); Hedwig Schwall (Katholieke Univ, Leuven); Maria Tymoczko (Massachusetts Univ.); Margaret Mills Harper (Georgia State Univ.); Eibhear Walshe (UCC); Michael Gillespie (Marquette Univ.); Luke Gibbons (DCU), and Derek Attridge (Cambridge).
The Society for the Study of Nineteenth-Century Ireland, 1997 Conference topic is 'Regionalism and Nineteenth-century Ireland', at QUB; The aim of this multidisciplinary conference is to explore the concept of 'regionalism' in the context of Ireland in the nineteenth century. Various aspects of this island's culture, history, and geography have often been classified and categorised according to various organisational strategies, and it is hoped that the conference will provide an opportunity for discussion and debate of this important, multivalent topic. Areas on which contributions might focus include the following: landscape and topography architecture; travel writing; ideas of the Irish; geographical, economic or historical regions of Ireland Ireland as a 'regional presence', in relation to other literary, geographical, historical, or national collectives and constructions; allegiances and identities. It is hoped to be able to offer participants an opportunity to visit historic sites connected with nineteenth century Belfast and its environs. It is also hoped that a volume of selected proceedings from the conference will be published. Papers should be no longer than 20 minutes. If you wish to contribute, please send an abstract of not more than 300 words, before 15 December 1996 [oops, late!-Ed.], to Dr Leon Litvack, School of English, Queen's University, Belfast, BT7 1NN, N. Ireland UK; fax: 44 (0)1232 335103 email: <l.ltvack@qub.ac.uk>.
Last year's conference was rendered highly stimulating by the contributions of visiting speaker Terry Eagleton, Luke Gibbons (Chair), John Turpin, and others. It was also the occasion of the launch of Ann Ulry Colman's 245-page Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Irish Women Poets, which took place at Kennys' Bookshop, the address of the publisher.
The IASIL Conference in 1998 will return to Ireland in keeping with tradition, our venue being the University of Limerick at the invitation of Dr. Patricia Lynch of the English Department, Dr Edward Walsh, the President of the University, and Professor Colin Townsend, the Dean of Humanities. The Thomond campus, with its modern buildings and surrounding spaces, enjoys a reputation for warm hospitality towards cultural visitors, and incidentally house the Irish Self-Portrait gallery, one of the most important and certainly most interesting collections in the country-about which something must be said.
Built around a collection donated by John Kneafsey, former manager of the local Irish Independent office, the gallery has reached 226 items, including work in every media by artists including Basil Blackshaw, Barrie Cooke, Patrick Hennessy, Dairine Vanston, Melanie le Brocquy, Conor Fallon, Imogen Stuart, and others. The new Foundation Building houses a full-scale copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Flying Machine-aerially suspended, of course. Nearby, in Limerick, is the Hunt Collection, recently opened to the public, containing a magnificent collection of small art works that vie with the Chester Beatty for value and appeal, including an astonishing and quite priceless bronze horse by da Vinci. 'This is not the Limerick of our youth.' [Call that an apt quotation?-Ed.]
The Conference Committee, consisting of Dr. Brian Coates, Dr. Joachim Fischer and Dr. Lynch, has already chosen a title: "1798/1998: Back to the Present, Forward to the Past". Dr. Lynch writes that "The proposed title takes into account the 1798 commemoration, historical aspects of literature, the future of Irish Writing in English, the location of the conference in a young and progressive university and (possibly) science fiction-plus whatever else the evocative title may suggest!" Our 1999 conference will be held in Barcelona where Professor Jacqueline Hurtley and Rosa Gonzalez will lead a very energetic and committed team who have been making their marking and winning friendship and admiration at IASIL conferences for some years past.
A Call for Papers has been issued for 'The Stories of Ireland: Literature, History, Culture, An Irish Studies Conference', at Queen's University, Belfast, on 30th June- 3rd July 1997. Keynote speakers include Joep Leerssen (Amsterdam), Dr Ann Rigney (Utrecht), Tom Dunne (UC, Cork), Christopher Harvie (Tübingen), R. F. Foster (Hertford College, Oxford), and Paul Bew (Queen's, Belfast). The organising committee includes Michael Allen, S. J. Connolly, Patricia Horton, Eamonn Hughes, Edna Longley, Gill Mackintosh, and Michael McAteer.
The title of the Conference echoes a note sounded by Professor Foster in his recent Carroll Chair of Irish History inaugural lecture at Hertford College, and in the TLS spin-off article which made a sharp and somewhat painful incision in the literary traditions of Irish historiography. A quotation from Standish O'Grady in the Conference brochure confirms this pedigree, while the densely written call for papers signals a concern about the 'received opinions which have dominated intellectual life for Ireland for so long' and shows a corresponding appetite for cross-border dialogue 'untrammelled by the nets of society'.
The Committee is calling for proposals resulting in the formation of panels that will open up the way to true inter-disciplinarity in a 'concerted Irish studies'. A better indication to the real flavour of the conference is probably the presence of continental wunderkind, Joseph Th. Leerssen, who brought the new historicism and related methodologies to bear on Irish cultural studies to marvellous effect in his 1986 monograph, Mere Irish & Fíor-Ghael.. Just to see this book receive its due would be reason enough to attend this conference. Another thing: John MacGahern will give a reading.
Fast approaching is the date of the conference on Shakespeare and Ireland arranged for Trinity College, Dublin, 21-23rd March 1997, advance notice of which appeared in an earlier Newsletter. Principal speakers are Terence Brown, Philip Edwards and Anita Loomba, with paper sessions addressing 'Imperial Politics', 'Colonial Perspectives', 'Theatre History and Ireland', 'Coming to Terms with Shakespeare', and 'Shakespeare, Canon and Postcoloniality'. Contemporary theatre practicals and exhibitions are part of the agenda. The conference poster shows Ireland hanging by the heels in a 15th-century map-presumably rotated from the 'on-our-backs' position of the Italian original in the TCD Library.
Our own query for the experts has less to do with topographical vagaries than with a sentence in As You Like It that we lately stumbled across in Derry Jeffares's New Commentary to the Poems of W. B. Yeats-a new edition of which is forthcoming, revised and enlarged with Warwick Gould and Deirdre Twoomey). "I was never so berhymed since Pythagoras' time that I was an Irish rat which I can hardly remember." It was T. R. Henn who first identified its echo in Yeats's 'Parnell's Funeral'-but what does it mean in plain Hiberno-English? 'Latin me that, my trinity scholard!'
Indications are that this is going to be a well-attended venue. The conference hotel is the new Bewley's in Fleet St. Attendance fee is £45 after 1 March (£15 for students); for further information contact Norah Crummy, the Administrator, at <ncrummy@tcd.ie> or tel 353 1 608 2301; fax. 671 7114.
What are other associations concerned with peripheral literature in our archipelago of contending nationalisms up to these days? A Seventh International Conference on the Literature of Region and Nation will be hosted this year by the Scottish Studies Centre of the University of Mainz, Germersheim, Germany, on 31 July-5 August 1998. The conference will comprise sections on 'European Identities: Comparison, Intertextuality, Translation', 'Place and Gender', and 'Varia'-primarily focused on the literatures of Britain and Ireland, though treat also of national and regional aspects of non-European literatures in English. Abstracts by 1 August 1997, sent to Dr. Susanne Hagemann, Johannes Gutenberg-Universitaet, Mainz Fachbereich, Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft, D76711, Germersheim, Germany Telephone (+ 49) 7274 / 508 242 Fax (+ 49) 7274/ 508 447; <email agemanngnfask1.fask.uni-mainz.de>.
The International Workshop at the James Joyce Foundation in Zurich, on stream again after the last year's Conference, offers a delicious smorgasbord of probable improbables under the title of 'Chaosmos of Alle: Chance, Coincidence ... Meaning?' The meeting occupies a 'generative week' from 27 July-2 Aug. 1977, at a nominal fee of Swiss Fr. 50. JJ Foundation workshops are geared towards well-prepared yet flexible presentations, oral unscripted delivery, and 'short runs' rather than extended monologues, with the emphasis on 'some devoted, original research' on any aspect of Chance, &c. Documentation along those lines is archived. There is plenty in the philosophy of the workshops that other conferences could contemplate to advantage: 'As an alternative to large conventions with their-necessary and inevitable-diversive à la carte offerings we consider it worth while to focus on just one particular topic of wide range, and this from many potential angles, in a live exchange of ideas and insights.' And, indeed, a looser conference format is emerging everywhere in Irish studies. For information, contact Ruth Frehner, Augustinergasse 9, CH-8001 Zürich, Switzerland; tel: 41 211 83 01; fax: 51 28; email: <joyce@es.unizh.ch>.
The 4th Conference of the European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) will take place at Lajos Kossuth University in Debrecen, Hungary, 5th Sept-9th Sept. 1997. Guest speakers familiar to Irish studies folk include Terry Eagleton (Wharton Coll., Oxford), Christopher Murray (UCD), and Roderick Watson (Stirling). Christine Brooke-Rose and Antonia Byatt are Writers of the Conference. The subject has not been disclosed on the brochure that has reached us, but OUP and Grand Hotel Aranybika are the patrons. ESSE is a major player in bibliographical resources for English literary studies, well on the way towards the development of CD ROM database of criticism including several categories devoted to Anglo-Irish Literature. Contact email <pszaffkp@tigris.klte.hu>.
A very successful First Pacific Rim Conference in Irish Studies directed by Prof. Edwin Thumboo of Singapore University in association with IASIL in January 1994 was attended by a number of well-known scholars and critics as reported in an earlier Newsletter (n.s., Vol. 1, No. 1/Feb. 1995). Now Dr. Peter Kuch of the University of New South Wales in Sydney is hosting a further meeting in Sydney during the second or third week of January 1998.
The 5-day Conference will focus on the literary and historical contribution of the Irish to the Asian Pacific since the European exploration begins, as well as the ways such contributions might be presented by those who teach Irish literature and history in the region. The sessions will adopt a format of 40-minute papers with 20 minutes of discussion, leading to a publishing outcome. It is hoped that the conference will attract some 20 to 30 academics from the Asia Pacific.
UNSW is 20 minutes from the airport, CBD, Opera House, and Harbour. It is adjacent to the Randwick racecourse, golf courses and stunning beaches, with the spectacular Blue Mountains only an hour's drive to the north-west and the best vineyards in Australia two-a-half hours to the north east. Sydney, which is currently gearing up to host the 2000 Olympics, has world class restaurants, night clubs, theatres, and cinemas; a number of art galleries and museums, a casino; and of wild-life sanctuaries, cycle-way, parks, gardens ... [Enough! I have to live in N.N.W. Europe!-Ed.] The Conference is planned to coincide with the Sydney Festival of Arts. Dr. Kuch will naturally be inviting keynote speakers. Those interested in attending should contact him at <P.Kuch@unsw.edu.au>.
We leave it to the Sydney organisers to determine what parleys should be entertained with the vicey-varsey outfit, coming out of Galway. The Ninth Irish-Australian Conference, University College Galway, Ireland, scheduled during 1-4 April 1997, is a multidisciplinary affair aiming to explore the historical and cultural relationships between Ireland and Australia and especially to provide scholars from Australia with a forum for the presentation of research on Irish topics. The conference particularly welcome papers that focus on the cultural and intellectual contributions of the Irish in Australia, with special reference to film. The submission date for proposal was 1 December. For further information, contract the Conference Convener, Dr Tadhg Foley, Dept. of English, University College Galway, Ireland; tel: 353 91 524411, ext. 2701; fax: 353 91 524102; or (by preference) e-mail: <t.p.foley@ucg.ie>. There is a web page at http://www.ucg.ie/enVieau.html
The campuses of Ireland do not lie fallow over the long vacation. At Galway, as in previous years, The Irish Studies Summer School proceeds between 26 June-26 July under the direction of Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, with Nicholas Canny teaching on Irish History, Paul Gosling on Archaeology, Sean Ryder on Literature and Film, Gearóid Denvir on Gaelic Literature and Culture, and Chris Curtin on Irish Society. The course awards 6 semester credits. Tuition is £900 and acccommodation at Ir£510/US$280Ir. A programme on Irish Language including intensive Beginnings and Intermediate to fluency components is conducted by Peadar Mac Iomaire, Director of Spoken Irish at the University. £590/US$940 and accommodation at Ir£17/ $27. Creative Writing taught by William Harrison and Michael Gorman, a TEFL programme, and a course on Education in Ireland, are also on the agenda. It is not necessary to advertise the attractions of Galway, or to speak of the buzz there, or even of the higher-pitched emissions to be heard from cellular phones when the 'landfolk of Galway converse with a stranger' in its fashionably unfashionable streets. The Galway Festival (16-27 July) coincides with the Summer School. Contact Seamus O'Grady, Summer School Office, University College, Galway, Ireland; tel. 353 91 750 304; fax: 525051; email <intloffice@admin4.ucg.ie>; internet: http://www.mis.ucg.ie/
At UCD, the International Summer School, running at Belfield through 2-19 July, is just a season short of 50 years. Besides the usual range of distinguished lectures on all aspects of Culture and Politics, this years programme includes a panel discussion on Northern Ireland. The director is Fran O'Rourke. Contact UCD Summer School, Newman House, 86 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2; 353 1 475 2004; fax: 706 7211; email <summer.school@ucd.ie; website, http://www/ucd.ie./summerschool>.
The British Association for Irish Studies International Conference, entitled 'The Irish in Britain', is an interdisciplinary venue planned to include a bilingual session on the Irish language. Send 300 word abstract to Frank Neal, European Studies Research Institute, Crescent House, University of Salford, Salford, England, M5 4WT; tel: 44 (0)161 745 5920/5614; fax: 5556.
We are sadly behind time in copying information on the Call for Papers for the conference on 'British, American and Irish Studies' to be held at the University of West Timisoara in Romania on 22-24 May, with a submission deadline in February. Besides literatures, the area of interest include cultural studies, languages, semiotics, and teaching methodology. Contact Hortensia Parlog, St. Narciselor 6, Apt. 104, 1900, Timisoara, Romania; tel: 40 56 198277; alternatively email <pbrinzeu@mb.sorostm.ro> or <alinag@mb.sorostm.ro>.
The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts will hold its 19th Annual International Conference in Fort Lauderdale, 18-22 March 1998. Topics on Irish literature and the fantastic are especially welcome. To propose a paper (20 minutes reading time) or a session of either one hour or 90 minutes, contact Charles Nelson, Michigan Tech. University, Houghton, MI, USA. The IAFA publishes a highly selective hardback conference volume, usually on the conference theme and encourages submission of papers to its journal The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. For further information about the conference email Donald Morse, IAFA Conference Chair at <dmorse@tigris.klte.hu> or <Morse@oakland edu>
The latest issue of The Bridge, the student publication of the English Institute at Kossuth University, Debrecen, Hungary contains two reviews of the student production of Brian Friel's Translations, directed by IASAIL member, Patrick Burke (UCD), and Visiting Professor, Kossuth University (Fall 1996). Pat's production garnered rave reviews both locally and nationally and its impact is still being felt, as these two late-published reviews attest. Visiting Professor Donald Morse was joined by Patrick Burke in presenting the first ever 'Irish Night' at the university (Roll over, Samuel Lover! - ed.) Morse read Irish poetry in English and Burke read ditto in Irish, while both commented on the parallels between Irish and Hungarian experience especially as emerging post-colonial peoples.
In January of this year, the Hungarian Society for the Study of English had its first ever Irish session with papers by Csilla Bertha on contemporary Irish drama, Antal Bokay on Finnegans Wake, and Ed Kelly on British and Irish Foreign Policy and the Northern Ireland. Professor Morse gave a paper on James Stephens' Crock of Gold and Kiely's Cards of the Gambler. Professor Robert Welch, editor of the Oxford Companion to Irish Literature, former IASIL Chairman, and Professor of English at the University of Ulster spoke in a plenary lecture on 'The Unique Vision in Contemporary Irish Poetry'. Maria Kurdi (Pecs Univ.) chaired the conference.
A Day Conference entitled 'Dreams of Nationhood', covering some thirty papers, was held at the Centre for British and Comparative Studies, inaugurating a new Irish Studies MA course. Information and contact addresses connected with this new departure can be reached at Web page http://www.warwick.ac.uk/WWW/faculties/arts/BCCS/ &c.
The Glucksman Ireland House Spring Calendar of Events in New York includes readings and addresses by the writers Sebastian Barry, our own guest writer in 1995 and author of the hugely successful Steward of Christendom (1995); Robert McLiam Wilson of Ripley Bogle fame, whose latest novel Eureka Street appeared last year, Edna O'Brien, still going Down by the River; and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, who is speaking on 'Suspension of Both Belief and Disbelief: An Irish Answer to an Irish Problem?' In early March Alvin Jackson speaks on 'Unionist Militancy', followed by Clare Carroll and Vincent Carey on Richard Beacon's colonial tract, Solon His Follie, which they just have edited. Roy Foster talks about his new biography of Yeats to a limited audience on 9 April. The Film Festival covers 'Women in Irish Film'. Glucksman House now has a web page at http://ww.nyu/edu/pages/irelandhouse/
Under the able and charming direction of Professor Ron Schuchard (Emory Univ.), and with Anne Fogarty (UCD) as Assoc. Director, the Yeats Summer School in Sligo continues the tradition of academic excellence upon which its reputation as the premier Irish venue dedicated to a single author is immoveably founded. Scheduled during 1-16 August, this summer's events include a poetry 'concert' given by Seamus Heaney with Liam O'Flynn (4th), readings by Eavan Boland (8th), Richard Murphy (12th), Medbh McGuckian (14th), and Jennifer Johnston (10th).
Lecturing in the first week are Warwick Gould, John Kelly, James Pethica, Deirdre Toomey, Roy Foster, Heinz Kosok, Anthony Roche, and Seamus Deane. In Week Two, teaching is conducted by Margaret Mills Harper, Geraldine Higgins, Ann Saddlemeyer, Rand Brandes, Nicholas Grene, Patrick J. Keane, Mitsuko Ohno, Peter McDonald, and Jon Stallworthy. In addition to Yeats's poetry, focal topics include 'Writing Belfast', 'Contemporary Irish Women Poets', and other cuts of contemporary Irish literature in its several sites, sections, genres, and genders.
Lest it be thought that the Yeats Society is dormant at other times of year, be it noted the Dr. Fogarty ran a Yeats Winter School over the weekend of Jan. 24-26th, lecturing to an enraptured audience on Yeats's early poetry, his occult concerns (including Maud Gonne), and the 'Poetry of Old Age'. One of the marks of the her approach was the foregrounding of the imaginative and psychological relationship with George (Mrs.) Yeats, to illustrate which she drew deftly on the Vision notebooks and the correspondence. The discussion after demonstrated that a non-professional audience can be made to share in the excitement of true scholarship in conjunction with the force of Yeats's poetry.
Greg Delanty read his subtle and forceful poetry, and also lectured on 'The Uncertainty Principle', a topic of his own devising which-besides identifying a surprisingly wide vein of mathematical and scientific conjuring in contemporary Irish poets-employed Heisenberg as a hinge on which the swing the opening door of the poetical imagination.
The Galway Advertiser is sponsoring a Lady Gregory Award for a one-act play on any aspect of Augusta Gregory's life and times, launched this year with with a prize of £1,000. The competition is aimed at the age group 16-25. The best example of a 20-30 minute play will be performed at the Gort Mini Theatre during the Lady Gregory Autumn Gathering in 1997. Contact Sheila O'Donnellan, Kingston, Galway; tel. 091 5211836, or Ronnie O'Gorman, Galway Advertiser, tel. 091 567077.
The Irish Theatre Studies Master of Philosophy (M.Phil) at Trinity College, Dublin, and basd in the Samuel Beckett Centre for Drama and Theatre Studies, makes a study of the major texts and practices of Irish theatre fromthe nineteenth century to the contemporary scene, and an exploration of the cultural, institutional, and theoretical contexts that have shaped theatre and performance in the island-reaching from Lady Gregory to Marina Carr, and taking in the achievements of such companies as Macnas and Team as well as the Abbey Company and Druid. Courses and dissertation (20,000 words) are followed by placements in theatre. EU students pay £2,000; others more than twice that. Enquiries to Anna McMullan (Director), The Samuel Beckett Centre, TCD, Dublin 2, Republic of Ireland; tel. 353 1 608 1239; fax: 678 3488; email <amcmulln@tcd.ie>.
Conferencing new-style? The James Joyce Center at DU-MOO is available for live academic meetings, informal meetings, interviews, and discussions. DU-MOO is a virtual University supported by a grant from the Annenberg/CPB Project at the following telnet address: moo.du.org 8888. DU-MOO now has a www site: http://www.du.org/places/du, and a Web Gateway at http://moo.du.org:8888 .
The instructions given are as follows: At the James Joyce Center at DU-MOO. Telnet to moo.du.org 8888 or to 128.18.101.106 8888 . log on as a guest, then, once you log on, go to the appropriate room by entering the command '@go #9644'. For information, send a email <Michael J. Ditmore at mditmore@uclink2.berkeley.edu>
A panel on Flann O'Brien, investigating such questions as O'Brien's 'genre-bending', his bilingualism, his '(lack of) canonicity', his 'magical realism', his 'intertextuality', at al., has been proposed by David Fanning for the Thirty-Ninth Annual Convention of the Midwest Modern Language Association to be held 6-8 November at the Ramada Congress Hotel in Chicago Illinois. Willing Flannites should send a 1-page abstract by June 1 to David F. Fanning, Dept. of English, Ohio State University, 421 Denney Hall, 164 W. 17th Avenue, Columbus OH 43210; or email <fanning.10@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu>.
The Seventh Synge Summer School will be held in Rathdrum, Co. Wicklow, on 29 June-5 July 1997, and will address the theme of 'The Imagination of Reality'. Invited speakers include Terence Brown on Yeats and magic; Nicholas Grene on Frank McGuinness and Sebastian Barry; Martin Hilsky (Charles Univ., Prague) whose new translation of The Playboy was recently produced by the Czech National Theatre; W. J. McCormack, now embarked on a new biography of Synge; George O'Brien, scholar of Dancehall Days celebrity, our own Riana O'Dwyer who won a ACIS book-award this year, Theatre-Man Anthony Roche, Angela Bourke and Nicky Grene, the School's Director, now-incidentally-coming to the end of his term as Head of English at Trinity College, Dublin. Celebrated for its atmosphere of fine scholarship in relaxed surrounds, this attractive venue is one of the best-loved of the Irish summer school and a sweet restorative, all against the inimitable backdrop of the Wicklow mountains. For full details contact Irene Parsons at Whaley Lodge, Ballinaclash, Rathdrum, Co. Wicklow, Ireland'; tel: +353 404 46131, or e-mail: ngrene@tcd.ie
The intrepid organisers of the Central New York Conference on Language and Literature, scheduled for 5-7 October at Cortland College, SUNY, are inviting 15-minute papers on several Irish themes. Notably [or do I mean shockingly? - Ed.] on 'Seamus Heaney and Catholicity'. Apparently what is looked for here is a discussion of the impact on Heaney of his religious denomination (what used to be called Catholicism) or its lower-case homonym on the poet's work-or both if you can delude yourself that they are the same thing: all this supposedly by way of change from a high-roughage diet of 'ethnicity, nationality, language, metaphysics, originality and canonicity', &c. Papers may be considered for later publication in New Hibernia Review. Contact Thomas D. Redshaw at Center for Irish Studies, 5008, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN 55105-1096, USA, or email <tdredshaw@stthomas .edu>. Other panels being gathered include 'Modern Irish Drama' (Jaimie Carswell); 'Modern Irish Fiction' (Michael Molino); 'Modern Irish Poetry' (Daniel Tobin); 'Contemporary Irish Literature' (Kathryn L. Kleypas); Irish Women Writers (Beth Wightman); 'James Joyce' (Frank Moliterno). Upstate New York is glorious in October! For further details contact Alexander G. Gonzalez, Prof. of English and Conference Director, at English Dept., Cortland College, SUNY, Box 2000, Cortland NY 13045; or <email: gonzalez@snycorva.cortland.edu>.
The forthcoming National Meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies (ACIS) is to be held on 17-19 April 1997 at the Omni Hotel, Albany, New York, under the direction of the current Vice-President (and former Sec.-Treasurer of IASIL), Lucy McDiarmid. The Conference addresses the theme of 'Faultlines', with Margaret MacCurtain, Angela Bourke, Sean Connolly, Monica McWiliams, Alan Ward, and Roy Foster billed as plenary speakers. The following instruction to would-be panel-makers was issued by way of explication: 'Choose a faultline defined in terms of (for example) gender, geography, generation, nation, religion, language, politics; or define another faultine or a topic related to faultfinding or blaming in Ireland.' Margaret Scanlan tells us that 'faultlines' is a coinage of Alan Sinfield-if so, there should be plenty of queer moments. It turns out that the actually-emergent panels will embrace topics as varied as iconography, iIdeology, immigration, religion, gender, conflict, and 'literature in all contexts and conditions'. [Find fault with that, if you can!-Ed.]
In addition to a living-review of Foster's new biography of Yeats (Vol. I), which has already appeared in the bookshops though the launch is set for 21st-oops!-19th March, the chief sport of the conference may well be the guest-appearance of Nina Fitzpatrick, though a poetry reading by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill can hardly be written off as a tame event. We have already been chastised on email for blathering about the former ingenious duo-personage. Suffice to say that that she/they are wont to offer hardly can be taken either as a 'fairy tale' or a 'a study in romantic realism'. For full details of the programme of the ACIS at Albany, see the web page at http://athena.english.vt.edu/ACIS/FRONTPAGE/HTML and click on 'Calendar', then 'Full Program'.
American Conference for Irish Studies holds its annual meeting for 1998 under the auspices of Nova Southeastern University at Ft. Lauderdale Airport Hilton Hotel on 15-19 April. The Conference theme is 'Revolutions and Evolutions' and the Director is Professor James E. Doan, our own Sec.-Treasurer for the USA. Featured speakers include Art Hughes on Celtic Literature in the Third Millenium, Declan Kiberd on Writing as Exile: The Global Irish; John McGarry on Nationalism in Northern Ireland and the Politics of Recognition; Bruce Stewart on Irish Studies in the Electronic Age; Robert Welch on Redefining the Irish Literary Canon; and Kevin Whelan on Memory in Relation to the 1798 Rising. Medbh McGuckian will read from her recent poetry. Jim Doan, the Conference host and Organiser notes that the year marks both the 200th Anniversary of the 1798 Rebellion and the 150th Anniversary-or do we mean Centenary?-of the 1848 Young Ireland rising.
The conference is expected to reflect somewhat on these events, but also will deal with economic and political changes in contemporary Ireland, including cultural and moral revolutions, and the technological and intellectual developments in the 1990s. Literary and historical revisionism, the Irish in Florida, and Ireland in Europe will also get a look-in. The Conference processes will range from colloquia and round-table discussions, to living book reviews and video conferencing, as well as CD-ROM/Internet presentations [better bring my hard disk with me! - Ed.], as well as the traditional multi-paper panels.deadline for submissions of proposals for 10-minute papers and panel proposals: 10 October 1997. Early indications on the airwaves indicate that Alexander Gonzalez of SUNY (Cortland) is organising a panel on Irish poets and poetry, while Thomas D. Redshaw is seeking to put together a panel on the work of Cork poets since 1960. Gonzalez and Redshaw's energetic activities are noticed elsewhere in this Newsletter. Send to James E. Doan, ACIS, Dept. of Liberal Arts, Nova Southeastern Universitye 3301 College Ave., Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314; fax number (954) 262-3931; e-mail: <doan@polaris.acast.nova.edu>.
Before leaving ACIS, the good news is that the Michael J. Durkan prize has been awarded to Riana O'Dwyer and Nicholas Grene, together with Philip O'Leary for works of literature and cultural criticism in 1996, while Maria Tymocko and Ann Owen Weekes have taken the Donald H. Murphy prize for distinguished first books, along with Karl Bottigheimer. ACIS is sponsoring two Irish panels at the MLA Convention in Washington D.C., viz., 'Crossing Boundaries: The Irish Poet at the Close of the 20th Century', and 'The Autobiographical Voice'. ACIS puts up an excellent web page with links onwards at http://athena.english.vt.edu/~brinlee/ACIS/ (also accessible from the IASIL front page).
The Royal Irish Academy's Committee for the Study of Anglo-Irish Literature will conduct a two-day Conference and Symposium on "Maria Edgeworth and History", 11th-12 April, 1997, opening at Academy House, 19 Dawson Street and proceeding at the Genealogical Offices, 2 Kildare Street, Dublin. Marilyn Butler, Professor of English at Exeter College, Oxford, and Edgeworth's biographer, will offer the keynote address on 'Edgeworth on the Politics of Subversion' on the evening of the 11th. During the following day lectures will be delivered by Claire Connolly (Cardiff) on 'Gender and History in Manoeuvring'; W. J. McCormack (Goldsmith), on 'Private and Public Languages in Patronage'; Brendan Barrington (Lilliput Press) on 'History, Ideology and Anxiety in the Editorial Matter of Castle Rackrent'; Patricia Coughlan (UCC) on 'Edgeworth's Inner Histories'; and Margaret Kelleher (Maynooth) on 'Maria Edgeworth and the Great Famine' [abbreviated titles-Ed.]. A symposium on Ennui chaired by Brian Cosgrove (Maynooth), will ensue, with Connolly and McCormack, joined by Darryl Jones (TCD), and Frank Sewell (UUC). Full participation costs £15; student or unwaged £5, registration up to 4th April; contact The Secretary, Committee for the Study of Anglo-Irish Literature, Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson St., Dublin 2; tel: (0)1 6762570; fax: (0)1 6762346. A previous conference in the same series addressed the life and works of Charles Lever.
The Princess Grace Irish Library Conference (Monaco) on 'That Other World: The Supernatural and the Fantastic in Irish Literature', originally planned for May 1996, has now been rescheduled for 29th May-1 June (Whitsun Weekend), 1998. Previously set up to include 'Irish and Other Literatures', the Conference will now confine itself to Irish literature, addressing any author or text in any or all periods or traditions of Irish writing, and to others literatures only insofar as these illuminate the Irish corpus. Thematic approaches to the underlying question of spirituality and myth in the cultural life of Ireland, past or present, will also be considered.
The conference will be conducted chiefly in English, and the Proceedings, to be published by Colin Smythe (Ltd.) in the PGIL series, will in English also. The Conference Hall holds a capacity audience of three hundred and all lectures will be open to the public. Major speakers and their topics will be widely advertised. There will be no parallel sessions, but provision will be made for discussions arising from the papers.
In all some thirty invited speakers will be accommodated in Monte Carlo as guests of the Princess Grace Irish Library. Those who submitted proposals for the cancelled 1996 Conference will be recontacted shortly to establish if they are still interested in speaking, in which case their welcome still stands. Those wishing to make new proposals should submit abstracts of 300-words to the Library Administrator before 1 November 1997. Completed typescripts of each paper should be lodged with the Adminstrator on arrival to ensure a rapid publishing outcome for all concerned.
For further information, contact Caroline O'Conor (Administrator), Princess Grace Irish Library, 9 Rue Princesse Marie de Lorraine, MC 98000, Monaco; tel: 377 93 50 12 25; fax: 337 93 50 66 65; Internet: http://www.monaco.mc/pglib; or, email Bruce Stewart (Conseil Tech./Lit. Adviser): <bsg.stewart@ulst.ac.uk>
The 1997 Canadian Association for Irish Studies Conference, schceduled for 18-22 June at Laval University in Quebec City, addresses the general theme is 'French Canada and the Irish Connection'. Sessions will explore areas including immigration, literature, folklore, economics, religion, education, and politics. The conference will feature the Gib McGinnis drama "Eighteen Forty-Seven," a concert with major Irish performers and a boat trip to Grosse lle. Quebec City is also the site of the 'Irish Summer' that starts this month and runs through August. Events will include concerts, sporting events (rugby and hurling), trips to Grosse Ile, walks on the 'Irish Trail' and a Famine Aid Dinner and Ecumenical Service to honour those who died and those who helped in 1847. Marianna O'Gallagher, PO Box 8733, Quebec, Q, G1V 4N6, Canada; tel: 418 651 5918.