The Committee for the Study of Anglo-Irish Literature, which mounted a memorial two-day conference on Maria Edgeworth last year, is to the fore in 1998 with a commemorative conference on the 1798 Rebellion. A keynote lecture on 'Making Sense of Violence' will be given by Joep Leerssen, to be followed in successive sessions by offerings from Tom Dunne ('Atrocity and Ideology: Scullabogue and the Interpretation of 1798'), Claire Connolly ('Remembering the Future: Edmund Burke, Revolution and Union'), Katherine O'Donnell ('Who Fears to Speak: Orality and 1798'), 'Harvey O'Brien (An Active Imagination: Film, Revolution, and Ireland'), Dr. Sophia Hillan King ('A Man Flourishing: Sam Hanna Bell's Novel of the Ninety-Eight'), Catherine Jones, 'memory after Revolution: Tom Moore and Walter Scott'), Sean Ryder ('Writing Revolution: The Poetry of English Radicalism and Irish Nationalism'), and Virginia Crossman ('Honouring the Martyrs of '98: Women, Republicanism and the Commemoration of the 1798 Rebellion'). Joint-sponsorship with the National Library of Ireland suggests a display of memorabilia and trouvailles worth attending on its own account. The organising body is the Committee for the Study of Anglo-Irish Literature which has recently reactivated its reporting brief on research in the subject area.
'1798 and its Implications' is the subject of a Joint Conference of the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism (NASSR) and the British Association for Romantic Studies (BARS) to be held at St. Mary's University College, Strawberry Hill, England, on 6th-10th July 1998. Participants will be discussing the resonance of this eventful year down the generations from a wide range of disciplinary and national perspectives. Tim Burke, St. Mary's University College is organising the chief Irish session entitled 'Who Fears To Speak Of '98?: Ireland, Rebellion, and Romanticism'.
A repertory of Irish drama is planned at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in conjunction with the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, during the Fall of 1998, going forward under the title of 'Nationalism and a National Theatre: One Hundred Years of the Irish Literary Theatre'. The simultaneous foundation of an institute on Irish drama is being assisted by Brandon Kershner, Cheryl Herr Temple, Michael Gillespie, Elizabeth Butler Cullingford, Lucy McDiarmuid, John Harrington, Sanford Sternlicht, James Flannery, Jim Hurt, and others, along with august visitors such as Christopher Fitz-simon, Bernard Farrell, Declan Kiberd, Tony Roche, Christopher Murray, Pat Burke, and others. The organiser of this ambitious programme is Steve Watt, author of Joyce, O'Casey, and the Irish Popular Theater, an important study of the subject from Syracuse Press in 1991.
The 10th Irish-Australian Conference on 'Ireland and Australia 1798-1998' is to be held at La Trobe University, Melbourne, on 28th Sept.- 2nd Oct. 1998. Topics to be addressed include The Crown, Republic and the Law; Political Culture; The Land and Native Title; Literature; The Arts; Religion; Migration; National identity; Historiography; Romanticising Ireland; Feminist Agendas in Ireland and Australia. Tenth Irish-Australian Conference on 'Ireland and Australia 1798-1998' is to be held at La Trobe University, Melbourne, on 28th Sept.- 2nd Oct. 1998. Papers on any subject relating to Ireland or to the Irish in Australia were sought before the last day of September in 1997. Topics addressed include The Crown, Republic and the Law; Political Culture; The Land and Native Title; Literature; The Arts; Religion; Migration; National identity; Historiography; Romanticising Ireland; Feminist Agendas in Ireland and Australia. The Convenor is Dr. Philip Bull of the Department of History at La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, 3083 Australia. [No, not Bundoran- Ed.] A proposal deadline of 20 Sept. was mentioned. Communications to Dr. Frances Devlin Glass, School of Literary & Communication Studies, Deakin University, Burwood Campus, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125 Australia; Tel. 61 3 9244 3960.
An enterprising group at Letterkenny Regional Technical College, is compiling 'The Irish Almanac - Facts about Ireland on CD Rom'. This useful resources should be available at the time of printing. Contact Claire McGowan, Room 218, Port Road Letterkenny Co. Donegal Ireland tel. 353 (0)74 24888, ext. 4800; fax. 353 (0)74 24879, or email: <claire.Mcgowan@rtc-letterkenny.ie>
A Conference of the Société Française des Études Irlandaises (SOFEIR) with the title 'Irlande-Exils' is to be held at Hotel Westminister-Concorde on the Promenade des Anglais of the French Riviera under the auspices of the Université de Nice. The mostly French-language programme of papers addresses Irish writers including Swift, Beckett, Flann O'Brien, Kate O'Brien, Seamus Heaney, John McGahern, Brian Friel and Tom Murphy as well as cultural figures such as J. J. Prévost and Wolfe Tone and topics ranging from 'Gaelic Autobiography' to 'Protestants in Southern Ireland in the Days following Independence' ('la valise ou le cercueil?'), all in a neatly ordained programme alternating sessions on 'Literature' with those on 'Civilisation'. The presiding spirits while Daniel Jacquin, Sophie Ollivier, Adolphe Haberer, Claude Fierobe, Martine Pelletier, Godeleine Logez-Carpentier, Paul Brennan, Richard Deutsch, and others well-known from issues of Cahiers des Études Irlandaises and other organs will be presenting papers.
Seamus Heaney will give a lecture there on 'Windows of Opportunity: What a Poem Can Do' on that occasion. On the preceeding evening, he will also be reading before a capacity audience at the Salles des Variétés in Monaco on March 19th, at the invitation of the Princess Grace Irish Library, by arrangement with the SOFEIR/Nice conference organisers. Among those present - besides HRH Princess Caroline and His Excellency Mr. Patrick O'Connor the Irish Ambassador to France - will be Professor George Morgan and Monique Gallagher of Nice University as well as Pierre Joannon, Irish Consul at Antibes whose invitation brings the poet to the Côtes d'Azur. The Irish artists Louis le Brocquy and Anne Madden le Brocquy, will also attend the reading and the SOFEIR conference as distinguished guests and friends to Irish studies.
The Library has conducted a highly successful series of readings and lectures throughout the season 1997-98, with Edna O'Brien, Bruce Arnold, Jennifer Johnston, Richard Pine, and Derek Mahon reading from their work or talking on their specialist subjects both before an invited audience and also at the Lycée Albert Premier in Monaco-Ville by special arrangement. Currently assisted by the IASIL Secretary and Newsletter editor serving in the capacity of Literary Director, the Library has embarked on an drive to establish its standing as the most important of Irish books in a non-Anglophone European country. Further plans reflect its enhanced utility for practitioners of the arts in Ireland will shortly be announced.
At the Whitsun weekend (May 29th-June 1st 1998) the Princess Grace Irish Library will be the setting for a three-day symposium on 'That Other World: The Supernatural and Fantastic in Irish Literature and its Contexts', On that occasion Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, Peter Kuch, Chris Morash, and Terence Brown will be giving keynote lectures, while Medbh McGuckian and Harry Clarke will be reading from their poetry. Forty-five panellists, among them IASIL members Claire Connolly, Matthew de Forrest, Jerry Nolan, Don Morse and Csilla Bertha, Jim Doan, Selina Guinness, and Laura O'Connor - who has just taken up a post in poetry at UC Irvine, the 'advanced' campus of the University of California where Derrida was a visiting faculty member - will participate at the conference.
1798: L'armée des Francais en Irlande/1798: The Year of the French in Ireland', styled 'a commemorative conference', is being held at the Université de Bretagne in Brest during 29th-30th May 1998. Paul Brennan and the Société Francaise d'Études Irlandaises (SOFEIR) are the moving spirits. Abstracts addressed to Francois Boulaire or Guy Le Moigne were sought by a date in mid-January. The contact address is: UFR des Lettres et Sciences Sociales, Faculté Victor Segalen, 20 rue Duquesne, BP 814, 29285 Brest Cedex; fax. 02 98 03 57 57; or e-mail <matthew.graves@univ-brest.fr>.
Centres of Irish Studies in France within the third level educational system have to be accredited by the National Centre for Research (CRNS). To date there are three-Lille, Caen, and Rennes, all originating from the late '60s-but in reality Irish literature is studied much more widely than that, especially following the success of L'Irlande Imaginaire last year. Conference participants at Nice include scholars from Toulouse, Versailles-St. Quentin, Bordeaux 3, Orléans, Nantes, Reims, Tours, and Haute-Alsace, as well as '2s' and '3s' at Rennes, Bordeaux and Lille. [Whatdyamean?- Ed.] The Nice 'Colloque' is hosted by the Centre de Récherche sur les Écritures de Langue Anglaise.
The European Federation of Associations and Centres for Irish Studies (EFACIS), is getting off the ground with an inaugural conference to be held in Paris, in June 1998. No details of the conference programme has emerged, and it is uncertain how the organisation dovetails with SOFEIR or others in the region, but it is known that the new group is hoping to construct a European Directory of current research into all aspects of Irish Studies. The contact address is Dr. Christopher Norton (EFACIS Secretary), School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Wolverhampton University, Dudley Campus, Castle View, Dudley, West Midlands, DY1 3HR. He has an email at <fa1945@wlv.ac.uk>.
From June 29th to August 7th, the New York University Summer School in Dublin will be offering a residental programme at Trinity College, Dublin, with a wide range of courses including 'Contemporary Irish Fiction & Poetry' (Gerald Dawe), 'Contemporary Irish Drama' (Anna McMullen), 'History of Modern Ireland, 1922-present (Eileen Reilly), 'Contemporary Irish Politics and Society' (John Doyle), 'Cinema in Contemporary Ireland' (Luke Gibbon), and Irish courses (Padraig Ó Cearúil). A kindred array of graduate courses are also on offer. The Course Director is Dr. Reilly, recently recruited by NYU after a successful stint at Washington's Catholic University of America during which time her Oxford doctorate was bestowed. Contact address is NYU, Office of Outreach, Special and Summer Programms, 6 Washington Square North, 4th Floor, New York, NY, 10003-6668, tel. 212 998 8172; e-mail: <abroad@nyu.edu>. Graduate tuition is $4,272, with and added $1,932 for Housing and Activities. Both the under- and over-graduate programmes contribute 8 transferrable points towards the little heap.
The Centre for Irish Literature and Bibliography, under its Director Robert Welch, is hosting a season of lectures that began in autumn 1997 with a talk on 'Chaucer and Irish Writing' by Dr. Rory McTurk (Leeds Univ.), and proceeding with a reading of their work by Anthony Cronin and Anne Haverty, coinciding with a well-attended launch of Professor Welch's new novel, Groundwork (Blackstaff 1997). The Irish language publisher Padraig Ó Snodaigh spoke about his experience and the books he has produced, while Andrew Hadfield - author of the recent book Edmund Spenser's Irish Experience: Wilde Fruit and Salvage Soil (Clarendon Press 1997) - Edna Longley, and the prominent Irish bookseller Jack Gamble are scheduled to talk at different times during the Spring of 1998. John Pitcher, the prominent Shakespearean scholar now at Oxford and formerly at Leeds, will lecture on his subject also.
The 'Central NY Conference on Language and Literature', to be held in Cortland 18-20 October 1998, has been seeking participants to fill a number of Irish panels. The titles and contact names are 'W. B. Yeats' (Nick Serra, 3129 Inclinado, San Clemente CA 92673), 'Joyce' (Lynne Bongiovanni, 204-11 33rd Ave., Bayside NY 11361); 'Irish Women Writers' (Bronwyn Beistle, 210 N. 36th St. (Apt. l), Philadelphia PA 19104); 'Modern Irish Fiction' (Michael R. Molino, 5803 N. Cypress Drive, #3004, Peoria IL 61615). 'Modern Irish Poetry' (Joseph Lennon, 5 Willard St., Willimantic, CT 06226); 'Modern Irish Drama (Rick Jones, 1408 E. l 9th St., Lawrence, KS 66046); 'Contemporary Irish Literature' (Kathryn Kleypas, PO Box 4255, Stony Brook, NY 11790-0905); 'The Irish Postmodern' (C. J. Lockett, 2-131 Oxford St. E., London, Ontario, N6A IT4 Canada). The whole conference of some 60 sessions includes others on Postcolonial Literature and topics of general interest. The Conference Director is the indefatigable Alexander G. Gonzalez SUNY Professor of English. The poet Paula Meehan will give a keynote lecture.
The American Conference for Irish Studies, (AICS) will sponsor two panels at the 1998 Modern Languages Association (MLA) meeting in San Francisco. Topics: 'Irish Literature and Popular Culture' and 'The Politics of Gender in Irish Writing'. Abstracts and curr. vitas from paid-up members of ACIS only were solicited by Elizabeth Butler Cullingford, English Department, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78703. email <eifk561@uts.cc.utexas.edu>
A Call for papers for 'The Life and Works of W. B. Yeats' session of North-Eastern Modern Languages Association of America, meeting in Baltimore on April 17th-18th at the Omni Inner Harbor Hotel. Send papers by September 20 to Dr. Connie K. Hood, Box 5033, English Department, Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, TN 38505; fax: (615) 372-6142; e-mail <mch9050@tntech.edu>
At the conference of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) to be held at the University of Notre Dame on April 1st-3rd, 1998, Prof. Dennis Moore of the English Dept. at Florida State Univ. in Tallahassee is organising a session entitled 'A Wretch who seem'd to know nothing but his Brogue when he arrived': Historicising the Stage-Irish Figure in America', and is soliciting interdisciplinary approaches to this topic in particular. Proposals were sought at <dmoore@english.fsu.edu> fax 850-644-0811 by Sept. 22.
A conference entitled 'Literature and Politics in the Celtic World' will be held at the main campus of the University of Sydney from 23th-26th July 1998. Billed as the Third International Celtic Studies Conference, it is a joint undertaking of the University of Sydney Celtic Studies Foundation and the Centre for Celtic Studies. Proposals dealing with any period were invited by March 1st, 1998. The contactee is Pamela James, Archaeology A14, University of Sydney NSW Australia 2006; email: <pamela.james@archaeology.usyd.edu.au> or Dr Aedeen Cremin email <Aedeen.cremin@history.su.edu.au>.
Urbi et Orbi: That's the style of the paper-call for the 1998 International James Joyce Symposium to be held in Rome through the week June 13th-20th (Saturday to Saturday), entitled simply 'Classic Joyce'. Overarching themes will include 'Joyce and the Classical Age'; 'The Classical Temper'; 'Classical Modernism'; 'Classic Joyce/Classic Coke'; 'Joycean Classics'; 'From Classical World to Third World'; 'Class in Joyce/Joyce in Class', and finally 'Joyce in Rome'. Along with names such as 'Homer' and 'Renaissance', more recent coinages like 'Modernism', 'Interpellation', 'Canonicity', 'Minority Literature', 'Commodity', 'Cultural Decentring', 'Subaltern, and even 'Dead White Male' are circulating in the paper titles. This is the grandest of all single-author venues and it is pointless to attempt listing the distinguished names. Suffice to say that Vincent Cheng (Joyce, Race and Empire) is organising a panel on post-colonialism. Carla Marengo and Rosa Maria Bosinelli are the Conference hosts on behalf of the University of Rome, while regional organisation is being handled by Brandon Kershner (English Dept., University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-7310; tel. 352-392-6650 ext. 255; fax. 352-392-0860; e-mail: <rbkersh@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu> and Cheryl Temple Herr, English Dept., 308 EPB, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 53342; tel. 319-335-3219; fax. 319-335-2535; e-mail <cheryl-herr@uiowa.edu>
The James Joyce Summer School, which Anne Fogarty has been directing most successfully since she stepped in at the death of Augustine Martin, is scheduled to run for a fortnight at Newman House, Dublin, over 12th-24th July 1998. The programme includes lectures and seminars on all the works, with a trip to Galway of the Barnacles adding £50 to the base rate of £300 for tuition and accommodation in Muckross Dominican Hostel at £15 per night.
This year's panel of lecturers include Anne Fogarty (Director-for the last season), Weldon Thornton (North Carolina), Peter Costello (the prolific free-lance biographer and critic) Enda Duffy (Santa Barbara), Andrew Gibson (Royal Holloway), Roy Gottfried (Vanderbilt), Michael Groden (Western Ontario), Marjorie Howes (Rutgers), Chong-Keon Kim (Korea U.), Jennifer Levine (Toronto), Frank McGuinness (playwright and teacher, UCD), Margot Norris (Irvine), Eugene O'Brien (Limerick), Gerard Quinn (UCD), Robert Tracey (Berkeley), and Robert Welch (UU/Coleraine). Contact Helen Gallagher, Dept. of English, Univ. College, Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4; tel. 353 1 706 8480; fax. 353 1 706 1174; e-mail gallag@macollamh.ucd.ie.
'1798, 1848, 1898: Revolution, Revival, and Commemoration' is the theme to be addressed at the 1998 conference of the Society for the Study of Nineteenth-Century Ireland, to be held at University College, Cork, on June 26th-28th, 1998. The plenary speakers will be J. J. Lee and James S. Donnelly, Jr. The organisers invited participants to explore the nature, impact, and legacy of the Irish revolutionary tradition and the way in which insurgency is remembered and commemorated both in Ireland and overseas, inviting perspectives of history, geography, ideology, religion, race, gender, and class, as well as their representation in literature, music, and visual arts. The co-ordinator is Dr. Larry Geary, History Department, National University of Ireland, Cork, Cork City, Ireland; tel. 353 21 903047; fax. 353 21273369; web site <http://www.qub.ac.uk/english/socs/ssnci.html>
The South Caroline Central MLA convention at New Orleans, LA during 12th-14th Nov. 1998 will include an Irish Literature section addressing 'an open topic'. A deadline in mid-March was mentioned [Sheesh! -Ed.] Contact Claire Denelle Cowart at English Dept., Southeastern Louisiana Univ., Hammond, LA 709402; ccowart@selu.edu.
A one-day colloqium entitled 'The Trials of Roger Casement' was held at Goldsmith College (Univ. of London), where W. J. McCormack holds the English chair. Among the invited participants were Roger Sawyer, editor of Roger Casement's Diaries, 1910: The Black and the White (London: Plimlico 1997), and Angus Mitchell, editor of The Amazon Journal of Roger Casement (Dublin: Lilliput 1997)-around which publications much journalistic ink has recently been spilt. Did he or didn't he? Was he or wasn't he? Lucy McDiarmid's review-article in the NY Times Review of Books (February 8, 1998) reveals that Sawyer and Mitchell initially planned an edition together though in the process Sawyer renounced his original belief in the forgery theory while-as he himself put it-'my co-editor,' he writes, 'made a journey in the reverse direction.'
Anthony Cronin is among those who hold out for a British conspiracy theory on the matter in spite of handwriting experts declaration in favour of a gayer Casement. Your editor feels that the topography of railway stations in County Antrim is too well caught to admit the handiwork of an English spook. Homosexual acts were decriminalised in the Republic of Ireland in 1993 but Casement's putative associates were probably under age by any national ruling. The deliberations of the Goldsmith quorum have not yet been published. Lucy, who served nobly as our US Secretary-Treasurer in the last term and proceeded to the Presidency of ACIS, is shortly bringing out a book on Irish controversies.
The 39th Annual International Yeats Summer School is scheduled for August 1st-14th 1998, and at the usual handsome venue on the bridge in Sligo. This year lectures and seminars will be addressing such themes as 'The Poetry and Plays of W. B. Yeats', 'Cultural and Critical Contexts', Predecessors, Contemporaries, and Successors', 'Gender, Politics, Nationalism & Postcolonialism', Contemporary Irish Poetry and Drama', and 'Representing History'. The lecturers and tutors include Anthony Bradley, Terence Brown, Neil Corcoran, Patricia Coughlan, Cairns Craig, Patrick Crotty, Adrian Frazier, Michael Patrick Gillespie, Marjorie Howe, Dillon Johnston, Sir Frank Kermode, Elizabeth Loizeaux, Edna Longley, Sam McCready, Riana O'Dwyer, Fintan O'Toole, Antoinette Quinn, and Helen Vendler. In adddition, the poets and novelists invited to read will include Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, Bernard O'Donoghue, Frank Ormsby, Bernard MacLaverty and Thomas Flanagan. Tuition is running at Ir£300/$500 and a night's student-type accommodation at Ir£15-18. Applications forms and information available from the Yeats Memorial Building, Douglas Hyde Bridge, Sligo, Ireland, tel. 353 71 42 693; fax. 353 71 42 780. Professors George Watson and Jonathan Allison, who are jointly directing, have email addressses at <enl066@abdn.ac.uk> and eng016@ukccuky.edu>. [Don't let anyone tell me e-mail hasn't made a difference! -Ed.]
This year the University College Summer School, set for 1st-17th July 1998, celebrates its 50th anniversary to the theme 'Ireland: The Living Heritage', a marker for the ideas of significant change and the capacity to assimilate widely different influences while remaining essentially [oops! -Ed.] the same. The two-and-a-half week teaching programme is leavened with firld tours amd readings, including a visit from Seamus Heaney. Fran O'Rourke is the Director and Louise Richardson the Administrator. Contact UCD Summer School Office, Newman Hosue, 86 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland, before 1 June 1998.
When the American Historical Association in Washington, D.C. addresses the theme of 'Migrations and Diasporas' at its annual conference in 1999, Gary Owens will lead a panel for ACIS dealing with the Irish dimension of the question. A deadline on l February 1998 to Gary Owens, History Rep., ACTS Dept. of History Huron College, The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario N6G 1H3, Canada. Fax: (519) 438-3938; Phone: (519) 438-7224 x244; e-mail <gowens@julian.uwo.ca> or <gowens@iol.ie>
The Canadian Association for Irish Studies CAIS) joins forces with the Congress of Social Sciences and Humanities in 1998 to mount a conference at the University of Ottawa, May 28-30 on the theme of 'Ireland: The Last Hundred Years'. [Aw gee, can't we have a little more time than that? -Ed.]. The hope is to inspire scholars in all disciplines - history, literature, women's studies, political studies, music - join in an appraisal of the century past. CAIS is particularly warm in its welcome to younger scholars and graduate students, whose papers it treats on a par with those of older dogs. A deadline was drawn at 15 January Ron Marken of the Department of English at the University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Canada S7N 0W0; fax: 01 306 664 3224; email <marken@sask.usask.ca>
Voronezh State University in Russia will hold the International Conference 'Ireland: Past and Present' on May 28th-30th, 1998. The organisers tell us rather quaintly that the programme will include 'the conclusions on Irish History, Culture, Literature, Economics, &c.' and that the 'thesis of the conclusions will be published.' The conference languages are Russian and English. Proposals and abstracts were requested for March 1, 1998. Contact address is Prof. Alexander Miroshnikov 15 Lenin Square, Flat 1, Voronezh, 394000 Russia or VSU, History Faculty 1 Universitetskaya Square, Voronezh 394693 Russia; tel. 7-0732-741533; fax. 7-0732-552836; 7-0732-89755; 7-502200-4691; email <root@mhist.vsu.ru>
In a Irish-Britain Exchange Agreement, the Irish Government is offering three scholarships to British students with a first or second class honours degree who are intent of taking a post-graduate place at an Irish university in 1998-1999. The successful candidates will receive £6800 p.a. for a minimum of one year. Contact The Secretary Scholarship Exchange Scheme Irish Embassy 17 Grosvenor Place London SW1X 7HR Tel. 0171-201-2510. A submission date in March was mentioned.
We have received the follow communication from the township where Samuel Beckett spent the War: ,B.'l'Association Pour la Fondation Samuel Beckett, declarée officiellement le 16 mai 1997, a pour object, conformemont à ses statuts, à "réunir les conditions materièlle, intellectualle et humaines necessaire à la création d'une fondation Samuel Beckett a Roussillon en Provence, village ou vécut l'écrivain de 1942 à 1945, periode durant laquelle il jeta les bases de toute son oeuvre." Two sentences from Knowlson's biography are cited to good effect: 'Pour ceux que l'oeuvre de Samuel Beckett rebute encore, la période roussillonaise est une clé', and again, 'Rousillon a été á la fois son salut et son inspiration.' The contact address is Annie Joly, Chemin de la Bergère, 84220, Roussillon.
This Annual J. M. Synge Summer School, scheduled for 5th-11th July 1998 at the usual scenic venue in Rathdrum Co. Wicklow, addressed the theme of 'Theatre and History', with scholarly contributions from Terry Eagleton ('Oscar Wilde; The Divided Self'), Lucy McDiarmid ('The Irish Art of Controversy'), Christopher Murray ('The drums of Sean O'Casey: History into Drama'), Tom Paul ('Ghosts Walking: Synge, Hazlitt and 1798'); John Devitt ('The Wilderness Years: the Abbey in the Queen's'), Kevin Barry ('Brian Friel's Plays as a History of Ideas'), and Nicky Grene ('Synge and the Politics of Irish Drama'). Frnak McGuinness will speak on writing history plays and Lynne Parker will recall her experience in directing Stewart Parker's Northern Star. Entertainment will be provided in situ by The Harlequin Players' production of 'Celtic Dawn: 1798, A Theatrical Revolution', and off-site by the Abbey Theatre. As in previous years, the Director, Dr. Grene, is offering scholarships to selected students at Irish universities. In the spirit of '98 Commemoration, it has been arranged that the Tour de France will cycle past the door of the Synge Summer School this year in a specially arranged occasion to be known now and in time to come as The Races of Rathdrum.
Oxford University Press has undertaken to produce a new and substantially expanded edition of the (British) Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) under the editorship of Professor Colin Matthew. The Dictionary will retain all the entries of the original DNB (though all these will be either re-written or revised) and will add about 12,000 new entries, rounding out at 50,000. Unlike its predecessor NDNB will be illustrated and will be published both in printed form and electronically. The textual scholar and editor of the Yeats Annual, Professor Warwick Gould of London University is acting as Associate Editor for Irish entries. Simon Elliott is charged with entries concerned with the book trade and bibliography. Many an IASIL member has already received commissions in respect of authors whose memory is in their charge.
A one day symposium entitled 'The Wearing of the Green in 1798 and 1848: Ireland's Heroes and Heroines' is being held at Barry University in Miami Shores, on March 14. Programme items include '1776 and 1798: Connections'; 'Songs of '98'; 'Striding Three Worlds: Thomas Francis Meagher'; and 'Deirdre, Ireland and Rebellion'. The presiding hero is Sr. Anastasia Merger, tel. 305-89-3950; <amaguire@jeanne.barry.edu>
The 10th Graduate Irish Studies Conference will be held at the University of Connecticut in Storrs on March 27th-29th. Contact Barbara A. Suess <bas94001@uconnvm.uconn.edu>; web page <http://www.lib.uconn.edu/isa/>