Reports 2016

-Ireland

-North America

-Europe

-IASIL Japan

-Other Countries

-Postgraduate Representative Report

 

 

IASIL Report from Vice-Chair for Ireland, 2015-2016

Submitted by Claire Connolly

The report indicates some of the wealth of research events and public lectures that took place in Irish universities during the last year. Last year saw notable developments in the living tradition of Irish writing with developments and appointments in creative writing in many campuses. A listing of taught masters programmes and related research opportunities at Irish universities may be found on the IASIL website.

Thanks to Dr Steffi Lerner, Prof Patrick Lonergan, Dr Colin Graham, Dr Tom Walker, Dr Emilie Pine and Dr Tina Morin for their help in preparing this report.

Queens University Belfast

  • ‘Stair na Féile – the history of Féile an Phobail’, an exhibition organised by Prof Margaret Topping, Dr Feargal Mac Ionnrachtaigh and Dr Michael Pierse, QUB: St Mary’s University College, Belfast, 4-14 August 2015
  • ‘Towards an Interdisciplinary Research Network on Irish Working-Class Life’ (11 March 2016); workshop at Queen’s University Belfast, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund; organised by Dr Michael Pierse, QUB
  • Cartlann na Gaeilge Bheo (10 February 2016), QUB: funded by the DFA Reconciliation Fund, on Belfast’s Irish language movement archive; covered by NVTV and Raidió Fáilte (12 February 2016); organised by Dr Michael Pierse, QUB
  • Voices for the Voiceless: culture and community resistance: seminar at An Chultúrlann, Falls Road, with various speakers including the Minister for Culture, Arts & Leisure, Carál Ní Chuilín, 15 October 2015; organised by Dr Michael Pierse, QUB
  • Féile an Phobail community workshop, St. Mary’s University Belfast, 28 July 2015; organised by Dr Michael Pierse and Dr Feargal Mac Ionnrachtaigh, QUB
  • ‘Cross-Currents in British and Irish Working-Class Life’, 22 May 2015, Friel Theatre, Queen’s University Belfast (conference co-organised by Dr Michael Pierse with Prof Graham Walker QUB); subsequently broadcast as NVTV documentary
  • ‘Introducing From Dark Tourism to Phoenix Tourism: Our AHRC Project’, 18 May 2015, Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich, Falls Road; workshop organised by Dr Michael Pierse and Dr Feargal Mac Ionnrachtaigh, QUB
  • Interdisciplinary Approaches to Blood in the Soil: Roundtable Two – Representations and Creative Responses, 13 April, 2015, Queen’s University, Belfast; organised by Dr Linda Price
  • ‘A working man in his prime: Van Morrisson’s Belfast’, 27 March 2015 talk by Dr Eamonn Hughes; organised by Dr Michael Pierse, QUB

 

NUI Galway

  • NUI Galway hosted a major international conference entitled Performing the Archives in July 2016, which brought together archivists, librarians, digital humantieis scholars, performing artists, and academics.
  • The “DruidShakespeare Symposium”, a collaboration between Druid Theatre, Fordham University, NUI Galway and Lincoln Center Theater was held in New York in July 2016.
  • NUI Galway awarded honorary degrees to actors Stephen Rea and Marie Mullen.
  • Symposium: Western Worlds Symposium, Moore Institute, October 2015.
  • Launch of Abbey Theatre Minute Books Project http://www.nuigalway.ie/abbeytheatreminutebooks/  making freely available online the full run of Abbey Minute Books from 1904 to 1939, the time when Yeats was involved in the theatre’s management.
  • Symposium: Crisis, Migration and Performance Symposium, March 2016.
  • Conference: 1916 and Irish Theatre/1916 as Irish Theatre, May 2016.
  • Launch of Gate Theatre Archive Digitisation project, May 2016.
  • Conference: Irish Protestant Playwrights, June 2016.
  • Towards a World Literature Network Seeding Event Series’ – Special Topic: Women and World Literature, July 2016.

NUI Maynooth

  • Maynooth University Writer-in-Residence Eoin McNamee and Screenwriter-in-Residence Hugh Travers gave public readings in December 2015.
  • Oona Frawley hosted a series of events entitled ‘Women and the Decade of Commemorations: An All-Island Perspective’ on Nov. 15th (with Eve Morrison and Maureen O’Connor); Jan. 19th (with Roísin Higgins; Mary McAuliffe; Sinéad Kennedy; and Emilie Pine); Feb. 19th (Diane Urquhart); April 6th (with Martina Devlin, Margaret Ward, and Sophie Long). Podcasts of the events are available at https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/english/visiting-speaker-podcasts.
  • Maynooth University English Department hosted a reading and talk by Louise O’Neill on 2 March. A podcast of the event is available at https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/english/visiting-speaker-podcasts
  • Maynooth University Writer-in-Residence Eoin McNamee hosted a public interview of Neil Jordan and Pat McCabe on March 8th.
  • ‘What is a Republic?’ A symposium on the idea of a republic, with a plenary lecture by Professor Philip Petitt. Organised by Dr Conrad Brunstrom. 23 May 2016.
  • Oona Frawley co-hosted, with the International Network of Irish Famine Studies, ‘The Great Famine and its Impacts: Visual and Material Culture’ at Maynooth University 14-16 March. Podcasts of plenary talks are available at http://www.ru.nl/irishfaminenetwork/podcast/
  • Maynooth University English Department hosted a reading by Paul Muldoon on March 29th. A podcast of the event is available at https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/english/visiting-speaker-podcasts

Trinity College Dublin 

  • Academic conferences organised at TCD during the past year have included two events as part of an ongoing series on ‘Institutions and Ireland’, as well as a symposium for the Marginal Irish Modernisms Research Network
  • In response to the centenary of the Easter Rising, the School of English at TCD held a series of ten public lectures on the theme of ‘Literature and Revolution’
  • The 5th Samuel Beckett Summer School was held at TCD in 2015
  • The two-year IRC-funded National Collection of Children’s Books (NCCB) project culminated in the launch of an online platform that facilitates the exploration of over 250,000 children’s books in over 90 languages held in five Dublin libraries.
  • The Roy McFadden Library, containing the late poet’s collection of over 2,000 volumes, was opened at the Oscar Wilde Centre in January 2016
  • The exhibition ‘Death of a Naturalist at 50 – Seamus Heaney in Print, 1966-2016’ opened in TCD’s Long Room Library in May 2016
  • Sara Baume was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2015
  • The novelist Gavin Corbett was the Arts Council-TCD Irish Writer Fellow for 2016
  • Eiléan Ni Chuilleanáin, Emeritus Fellow of TCD, was appointed as the new Ireland Professor of Poetry
  • The novelist and critic Ian Samsom was appointed as the incoming Director of the Oscar Wilde Centre for Irish Writing
  • The School of English also hosted public readings and interviews with writers including Paula Meehan, John Banville, Peter McDonald, Colum McCann and Lia Mills.

University College Cork

  • ‘Creation and Reception – Corcadorca’s live archives’, a UCC/DUETS-funded project led by Dr. Anne Etienne in collaboration with Corcadorca Theatre Company took place in July 2015. The project investigated the legacy of the local company by exploring audience research through oral history techniques. It produced a website, a site-specific exhibition, and a one-day colloquium gathering the audience of their Merchant of Venice (2005) and the creative team.
  • Comparative Coastal Topographies: a workshop exploring the visual and literary codes and conventions that shaped the representation of coastal landscapes in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries, asking these emerge in the context of Britain’s overseas empire. Funded by an Irish Research Council New Foundations Award and organized by Prof Claire Connolly (UCC) and Dr Finola O’Kane (UCD). https://www.ucc.ie/en/english/coast/
  • In 2015, The Irish Research Council funded a public presentation of The Death of Fionavarby Eva Gore-Booth. The play was directed by Julie Kelleher, artistic director of Cork’s Everyman Theatre, and the roles played by both UCC students in Drama and Theatre Studies, as well as professional actors, Mary Lou McCarthy and Niamh Linehan. The event was staged in Cork Gaol, and the initiative was spearheaded by Dr Maureen O’Connor of the School of Engish and Dr Marie Kelly of Drama and Theatre Studies.
  • March 3: Women and the Rising (1) – a reading by Lia Mills author of Fallen, next year’s One City One Book choice, poet Nessa O’Mahony and novelist, Mary Morrissy, all authors of contemporary fiction and poetry inspired by the Rising.
  • In the second event of the School of English’s “Women and the Rising” month, Dr Lucy McDiarmid delivered a lecture entitled “Gender, the other territorial conflict in the Easter Rising” at the Creative Zone, Boole Library on Tuesday, March 15.
  • On Tuesday 1st March, UCC Film and Screen Media hosted an evening with acclaimed screenwriter, film director and playwright, Gerard Stembridge, UCC/Arts Council Film Artist in Residence.
  • On Thursday 10th March 2016 UCC marked the 50th anniversary of the death of Frank O’Connor. With the support of the Irish Research Council New Foundations award, UCC School of English continued its exploration of the significance of O’Connor’s life and writings for our understanding of early twentieth-century Ireland in national and transnational terms. The day features a number of critical and creative contributions from distinguished scholars and writers, and a public lecture by Fintan O’Toole on the topic of ‘The Normal Heart: Frank O’Connor’s Ordinary Lives’.
  • The second Irish-Caribbean Conference, UCC, 22-23 July: an interdisciplinary conference that explores synergies between Ireland and the Caribbean islands.  This event follows the vibrant  Caribbean Irish Connections conference held at the University of the West Indies, Barbados, in 2012. https://irishcaribconnect.wordpress.com/2015/11/30/call-for-papers/
  • The School of English hosts IASIL in July 2016.
  • The year saw public readings and interviews with writers including Eimear McBride and Maurice Riordan.
  • Two Masters programmes in the School of English have been granted dedicated Fulbright awards for the 2017/18 academic year.  One US student on the MA in Creative Writing and the MA in Irish Writing and Film will qualify for a tuition fee waiver plus a stipend of up to €15,000.  The Fulbright Commission of Ireland annually awards grants to Irish and EU postgraduate students, scholars, and professional to study, research and lecture in the US and for Americans to do the same in Ireland. The closing date to apply for these awards is in October, 2016. See http://us.fulbrightonline.org/countries/selected country/ireland

Dublin City University

  • A two day symposium  “Ten Years On: Assessing the Literary Legacyof John McGahern (1934-2006)” jointly organised by the School of English, DCU and the National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies, IT Tallaght
  • Centre for Children’s Literature and Culture: the St. Patrick’s College, Dublin City University will be hosting a public symposium on ‘Irish and American Perspectives on Children’s Literature and Revolution’
  • Marina Carr’s HECUBA was [produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford upon Avon in September 2015. Her By the Bog of Cats was staged by the Abbey Theatre in 2015. She was also involved in Signatories which was performed in Kilmainham Gaol and the National Concert Hall in early 2016.
  • Dr Borbála Faragó, Teaching Fellow in the School of English, DCU organised “But for a Dream”: a Poetic Dialogue with 1916.
  • Children and the Irish Revolution: a one-day symposium. February 2016 This one-day, multidisciplinary symposium explored children’s engagement with the Irish Revolution from the perspectives of history, literature, and education. The symposium was jointly organised by Dr Marnie Hay, a lecturer in the Dept. of History, and Dr Sharon Murphy, Director of the MA programme in Children’s Literature, with support from Little Island.
  • Reading and Writing in a Participative Culture: A Symposium on the Life and Work of Terry Pratchett. May 2016. This one day symposium celebrated Terry Pratchett’s life and work by facilitating a critical discussion of his work and exploring possible reasons for its appeal and significance. The symposium was jointly organised by Dr. Aine McGillicuddy (SALIS, DCU) and Jane O’Hanlon (Poetry Ireland), with support from CYCLOPS, UNESCO City of Literature, ISSCL, and the MA Programme in Children’s Literature (DCU).

University College Dublin

  • Signatories, an extraordinary play written by 8 outstanding writers: Marina Carr, Emma Donoghue, Rachel Fehily, Hugo Hamilton, Thomas Kilroy, Frank McGuinness, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, Joseph O’Connor. Commissioned by UCD as part of the university’s commemoration of the Decade of Centenaries. First production 22 April 2016, Kilmainham Gaol. Script published by UCD Press.
  • Reading 1916 – an exhibition in the UCD Library, curated by Lucy Collins (School of English, Drama and Film). Funded by UCD Decade of Centenaries.
  • Irish University Review, 46.1 Special Issue on Irish Experimental Poetry, Guest Ed. David Lloyd
  • Scholarcast Series 13, Dublin, One City One Book 2015 – The Barrytown Trilogy, ed. Derek Hand, General Ed. PJ Mathews; http://www.ucd.ie/scholarcast/series13.html
  • 2nd Annual Maria Helena Kopschitz lecture, 25 February 2016: ‘The Processes and Challenges of Translating Joyce: Stephen Hero as a Case in Point’, José Roberto O’Shea (UFSC Brazil). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3L4pKCa-mw
  • 26 February 2016, Colloquium on the Contemporary, organised by UCD’s Digital Platform for Contemporary Irish Writing, Margaret Kelleher & Kenneth Keating
  • The Public Spaces of Exhibition, Colloquium organised by UCD/ NLI (Ulysses Centre project committee), Newman House, 3 March 2016; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CisHY9qDNFo
  • A public conversation between Paula Meehan, Ireland Professor of Poetry, and critic Jody Allen Randolph in the seminar room National Library of Ireland, on Wednesday 13 April at 7pm (School of English, Drama and Film); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ7ly8smv9Y
  • UCD/Abbey Shakespeare lectures, including ‘Shakespeare and Thomas McDonagh’, Margaret Kelleher and Prof. Danielle Clarke in conversation on ‘An “Irish Mode”? The Literary Writings and Legacy of Thomas MacDonagh.’ With the UCD Ad Astra Drama Scholars; https://soundcloud.com/ucd-humanities/sets/ucd-abbey-theatre-shakespeare
  • Public Reading by Lia Mills, UCD Arts Council Writer in Residence (Two Cities, One Book), 28 April 2016: https://soundcloud.com/real-smart-media/lia-mills-ucd-fallen-from-one-april-to-another-2016-1916
  • After the War, 7-8 July, Patterns of Commemorating the First World War in Ireland and Beyond. Funded by the UCD Decade of Centenaries.

University of Limerick

  • Joseph O’Connor wrote the monologue ‘Joseph Mary Plunkett’ for ‘Signatories’, a piece of theatre by eight contemporary Irish authors in commemoration of the 1916 Rising. It was performed at Kilmainham Gaol, then at the Civic Theatre, Tallaght, the Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire, and at the National Concert Hall. ‘Signatories’ was published in April by UCD Press.
  • O’Connor wrote ‘Easter 2016’, an updating of the Dark Rosaleen poem, for the Sunday Independent, Easter Sunday 2016.
  • With the Irish Arts Center, New York, and Glucksman Ireland House, and with the close assistance of UL colleague Prof Eoin Devereux, the inaugural UL Frank McCourt Creative Writing Summer School at NYU was founded. Fifty students attended, from the USA and Ireland. Participants in the Summer School events included Gabriel Byrne, Paul Muldoon, Lisa Dwan, Martin Hayes, Pierce Turner, Larry Kirwan, Billy Collins and Maeve Higgins, with UL teachers including Donal Ryan, Mary O’Malley, Sarah Moore, Joseph O’Connor and Giles Foden.
  • Donal Ryan wrote a new novel, which will be published in September: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1102359/all-we-shall-know/
  • Mary O’Malley’s new collection ‘Playing The Octopus’ will be published in August from Carcanet.
  • Margaret Mills Harper published the authoritative scholarly edition of W. B. Yeats’s A Vision (1937). She wrote an essay, “Structural Rhythm in Late Yeats,” which was published in a special issue of Études Anglaises edited by Prof Alexandra Poulain.
  • Harper served as the Director of the Yeats International Summer School in Sligo. As President of the International Yeats Society, she hosted the first conference of the Society at UL, featuring speakers from nearly 20 nations. The Society sponsors annual gatherings and a new journal (edited by Lauren Arrington, University of Liverpool, published by University of Liverpool Press and Clemson University Press).
  • Harper served on the board of Yeats 2015, an international initiative sponsored by the Irish government to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of the poet and dramatist. As part of this initiative, Harper lectured in 11 countries in 2015. Harper also served as an adjunct teaching professor at the University of Lille from January to June 2015.
  • Dr Aileen Dillane was the 2015-2016 O’Donnell Irish Studies Fellowship at Newman College, University of Melbourne, where she studied the c. 1920 song repertoire of an Irish-Australian vocalist and ethnic entrepreneur.
  • Aileen Dillane was invited to present at Mellon-funded Humanities Without Walls ‘Global Midwest’ Project, ‘The History of World Music Recording’, which took place at the Franke Institute, University of Chicago, May 5-7.   Aileen spoke on the theme of ‘The Irish Midwest’, focussing on wax cylinder recordings made by Captain Francis O’Neill in Chicago, c. 1903. The overall research project was coordinated by Philip V. Bohlman, (University of Chicago), Harry Liebersohn (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), James H. Nye (University of Chicago) and Ronald Radano (University of Wisconsin-Madison). See http://www.humanitieswithoutwalls.illinois.edu/initiatives/global-midwest/pastprojects.html
  • Dr Aileen Dillane was appointed course director of a new MA in Irish Music Studies in UL.
  • On 10th June 2016, Drs Maggie O’Neill and Michaela Schrage-Frueh hosted an event entitled Writing Workshop: Women and Ageing, funded by an IRC New Foundations award. This workshop brought together colleagues in Irish studies in UL and internationally to workshop a special journal issue on women and ageing in Irish Literature and Film. The event was attended by Dr Carmen Zamorano Llena, General Editor of the Nordic Irish Studies Journal, and facilitated by Dr Ide O’Sullivan, consultant in writing and writing pedagogy at the Regional Writing Centre, UL.
  • On Saturday February 27th, 2016, Dr Maggie O’Neill gave a public lecture on the new Kate O’Brien archive material at the Limerick Literary Festival in Honour of Kate O’Brien.
  • As part of the programme for the 1916 Centenary Commemorations, Dr O’Toole delivered a plenary paper at the University of São Paulo conference on “Roger Casement and the 1916 Centenary” on 22nd March. Earlier that month, she participated in a symposium curated by Lia Mills, Writer-in-Residence at Farmleigh House “1916: Where Were the Women?”, along with Lucy McDiarmid, Medb Ruane, and others. On 21st April, Dr O’Toole gave a paper as part of the public lecture series at North Down Museum in Bangor on “The New Women of the Glens of Antrim”. The essay collection Women Writing War: Ireland 1880-1922, edited by Tina O’Toole, Gillian McIntosh & Muireann O’Cinnéide is in press, due out with UCD Press this autumn.
  • The annual Sibéal postgraduate conference in feminist and gender studies was held at UL last November; Dr Tina O’Toole delivered the keynote address, titled “#hometovote: (In)visible Lines in Irish Literature.”
  • Dr Tina O’Toole was overall winner of this year’s UL Teaching Excellence Award.
  • Graham Price presented papers at the Irish Theatrical Diaspora conference held at the Gate Theatre on 1st May 2015 and at the “Irish Protestant Playwrights” conference at NUIG on 2nd June 2016. The topics were “Faith Healer, Bracha Ettinger and the Art-Encounter-Event” and “Wilde and Hegel: Irish Peacock and Protestant Aquinas”.
  • Price’s article “‘Habit is a Great Deadener’: Gender, Sexuality and Futurity in Brian Friel’s The Gentle Island and Frank McGuinness’s Dolly West’s Kitchen,” will be published by Breac in August 2016 as part of its special issue Gender, Sexuality and Intersectionality in Irish Studies.

 

 

 

IASIL North American Vice Chair’s Report, July 2016

Prepared by José Lanters, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (with thanks to Susan Cahill, Concordia University, Montreal).

 

Irish Studies in North America, 2015.

Many Irish Studies-related events happen in North America every year, on a local, regional, and national level. This is only a selection.

 

Conferences and Association Events

The annual national meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies (ACIS) was hosted by the University of Miami at the Westin Beach Resort and Spa, Fort Lauderdale, FL, March 25-28, 2015. Plenary speakers were professors Marjory Howes and Moynagh Sullivan.

 

Annual regional ACIS conferences were also held in 2015 at Kutztown University, Valley Forge, PA (Nov. 20-21, Mid-Atlantic), University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (Oct. 8-9, Midwest), University of New Haven, CT (Nov. 20-21, New England), University of South Dakota, Rapid City, SD (Oct. 16-18, Western), and Rome, GA (Feb.20-21, Southern).

 

ACIS awarded five book prizes and a dissertation prize. For all information about past and future ACIS events, see http://www.acisweb.com.

 

The 2015 annual conference of the Canadian Association for Irish Studies was held at Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, May 20-22, 2015. Plenary speakers were Kathryn Reilly (Senator, Sinn Féin), Sunniva O’Flynn (Curator, Irish Film Archive), and professor David Wilson. For all information about past and future CAIS events, see http://www.irishstudies.ca.

 

The Dalhousie Gaelic Colloquium was held at Dalhousie University on March 14, 2015. Speakers were Frances MacEachern, Michael Linkletter, Amy Mitchell, and Heather Sparling.

 

The annual meeting of the Celtic Studies Association of North America was held at the University of California, Berkeley, March 5-8, 2015.

 

At the January 8-11, 2015 MLA conference in Vancouver, Canada, sessions were sponsored by ACIS, the Anglo-Irish Discussion Group, the International James Joyce Foundation, and the Celtic Languages and Literatures Discussion Group.

 

Film Festivals

Irish Film Festivals were held in many places in 2015, including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa.

 

Journals

The main Irish Studies journals published in North America are Breac (breac.nd.edu), the Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, Eire-Ireland, the James Joyce Quarterly, the Field Day Review (annual), and New Hibernia Review.

 

Europe Report: submitted by Ondřej Pilný, Vice-Chair

 

The academic year 2015/2016 was marked by a large number of conferences and events, many of which were related to the W.B. Yeats anniversary in 2015, and to the centenary of the 1916 Rising respectively. It has also been a year of sadness, as we have lost our dear colleague, long-time IASIL Executive member and former Vice-President for Europe, Prof. Werner Huber of the University of Vienna, who passed away on 28 April 2016.

 

The UK, along with Ireland, marked the centenary of the Easter Rising with a varied series of events in major towns and cities across the country which included: in Glasgow the Tron Theatre’s Mayfesto created a programme of work that looked back at the Easter Rising as well as at contemporary theatre and issues in Ireland today and in Manchester a public discussion on “The British Labour Movement and 1916” led by the authors of two recent books on the subject. In Liverpool events told the story of the 70 men and women from the city who travelled to Dublin to support the Rising. The programme, which was funded by the Irish government and the UK’s Heritage Lottery Fund included a display of artefacts, lectures, talks and a play written by a descendent of one of those who went to Dublin. In London, The Irish Cultural Centre Hammersmith, in association with St Mary’s University, Twickenham delivered a 1916 commemorative lecture series titled “1916: One Hundred Years on.” In June 2016 an event was held at Frongoch, in Wales, to mark the centenary of the internment of those taken prisoner after the Rising. This, as so many events in the commemorative year, was attended by Dan Mulhall, the Irish ambassador. Outside of these and other commemorative events across the country, activity was distinguished by continuity. At the University of North London, the Irish Writers in London Summer School, run since its inception by Tony Murray, celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2016. The Institute of Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool, now directed by Prof. Peter Shirlow, ran a series of public talks and lectures throughout the year. In July 2016 it also hosted the 20th conference of the Irish Historians in Britain on the theme of “Irish Revolutions” which was addressed by Prof. Joe Lee. And in London, the Irish Seminar Series at Senate House, which has been running since 2000, culminated in April 2016 with a public lecture under the auspices of the John Coffin Memorial Trust: Annual Irish Studies Lecture delivered by Prof. Clair Wills on “Digs and Lodging Houses: Literature, Ruins and Survival in Post-war Britain”. The British Association for Irish Studies held its annual conference in September 2015 at St Mary’s University Twickenham on “Ireland: Agents of Social Transformation” with plenaries delivered by Prof. Patrick Lonergan and Dr. Linda Connolly. The conference was distinguished by the presence of Prof. Mary McAleese in a public conversation with Prof. Mary Hickman. In terms of academic appointments the most significant was that of Ian McBride to the post of Professor of Irish History at Oxford following the retirement of Prof. Roy Foster. More negatively, and worryingly in terms of the future, 2016 also saw the termination of the Centre for Irish Studies at St Mary’s University, Twickenham.

 

The first major event in France this academic year was the annual Irish studies conference of Caen University, “Waiting for Utopia” (20-21 November 2015; plenary speakers: Dr Eoin Flannery, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick; Prof. Vincent Geoghegan, Queen’s University, Belfast; Mick Hannigan, IndieCork Film Festival). The annual conference of the French Irish Studies association SOFEIR was hosted by Dr Agnès Maillot on the topic of  “Non-Violent Resistance: Irreverence and Counter-Discourse As Subversive Weapons in Irish Culture” (DCU, 10-12 March 2016; plenary speakers: Gráinne Healy, Wesley Hutchinson, Laurence McKeown). On 20-21 May 2016 the Irish studies group of University of Paris 3 – Sorbonne nouvelle hosted a conference on “Tipping the Scales: Reversing Decline in Indigenous Minority Cultures in Europe”, hosted by Prof. Wesley Hutchinson, as part of its ongoing project on the notion of “neglect”. The University of Lille 3 continued its series of seminars on “Dissent, Marginality, Recalcitrance”.  Several conferences were held on Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Louis MacNeice’s The Burning Perch and the question of the Great Famine, as these were on the syllabus of the Agrégation (a competitive examination for secondary school teachers).

 

The Spanish Association for Irish Studies (AEDEI) hosted its annual conference in the University of Zaragoza in May 2016, themed “Revolution/Evolution/Involution in the Twentieth- and Twenty-first-Century Ireland”, with support from the Irish Embassy in Madrid. The XVI International Conference will be held in Logroño (University of La Rioja) in May 2017. The AEDEI e-journal continues to appear each year in March (http://www.estudiosirlandeses.org/) with a new general editor, José Francisco Fernández, from the University of Almería. As part of the EFACIS Irish itinerary, the Centre of Irish Studies at University of Granada convened a postgraduate seminar in December 2015, in which writer Claire Kilroy gave a reading from her work.

 

Within the Nordic Irish Studies Network, a major event commemorating the Yeats anniversary was held at Gothenburg in September 2015, with speakers including Prof. Margaret Harper, translator Thomas Sjösvärd and poet Vona Groarke. Subsequently, Vona Groarke and multimedia artist Steafán Hanvey visited the universities of Aarhus, Agder and Bergen as part of the EFACIS Irish Itinerary. The next conference of NISN will be held at the University of Oulu, Finland on 7-8 October 2016; the conference theme is “1916: Response, Recrimination, Rejection, Redemption?”.

 

The study of Irish literatures and cultures has continued to thrive in Hungary. Major events this academic year have included a W.B. Yeats anniversary symposium themed “The Reform of the Theatre: Yeats, Craig, Hevesi, Stanislavski”; the event was hosted by the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, and featured Prof Anthony Roche as keynote speaker. The same university hosted a 1916 commemoration in April, and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences gave the floor to Paul Muldoon’s illustrated talk on Seamus Heaney (September 2015). Forthcoming events include a conference about the Easter Rising hosted by the Károlyi Gáspár University in Budapest in September this year.

 

The Leuven Centre for Irish Studies in Belgium has successfully completed its Yeats Reborn project by launching a volume of selected translations of the poet’s work into 20 languages; the launch took place as part of the Centre’s Yeats Days on 4-5 December 2015. The complete set of translations is available on the website of the project. The Centre has continued to coordinate the EFACIS Irish Itinerary, co-funded by Culture Ireland and individual host institutions, a project as part of which Irish writers, artists and musicians have been touring Europe. Its celebrated biannual PhD seminar in Irish Studies is going to take place on 29 August – 2 September 2016.

 

The Centre for Irish Studies in Prague, Czech Republic hosted the Third International Flann O’Brien Conference (themed “Metamorphoses”) on 16-19 September 2015, with Dr Catherine Flynn, Prof. Brían Ó Conchubhair and Dr Joseph Brooker as plenary speakers. A W.B. Yeats commemoration took place in November 2015, with Prof. Roy Foster as guest speaker, and a 1916 commemoration in May 2016; both events were hosted by the Ambassador of Ireland, Charles Sheehan. Early in 2016, the Centre launched a thematic issue of the Litteraria Pragensia journal, “Irish Theatre and Central Europe”, triggered by the 2014 Irish Theatrical Diaspora Conference. Forthcoming events include a symposium about Barry McCrea’s recent book on minor languages in Europe (October 2016), an Irish-language conference on liminality in Irish and European literatures, and an international PhD conference in Irish studies (both in September 2017).

 

After the death of Werner Huber, the Vienna Centre for Irish Studies in Austria has been directed by his deputy, Dr Dieter Fuchs. In the summer semester 2015/16, it has hosted a series of distinguished visiting lectures, “1916: Representing the Rising”, and has welcomed Prof. Lance Pettit as a visiting lecturer for the semester. A conference on “Irish Modernisms: Gaps, Conjectures, Possibilities” will take place at the Centre on 29 September – 1 October, and the Fourth International Flann O’Brien Conference will be held at the University of Salzburg in July 2017. The University of Vienna has continued as the seat of the International Flann O’Brien Society and publisher of its online journal, The Parish Review.

 

Following the EFACIS conference held at the university of Palermo in June 2015, major events in Italy included the conference on “Writing the Rising” hosted by the Irish studies centre at the University Roma Tre in January 2016, featuring Prof. Roy Foster, Dr Roisin Higgins, Dr Ben Levitas and playwright Colin Teevan as keynote speakers. Other academic gatherings included the IX James Joyce Italian Foundation Conference, themed “Shakespearean Joyce/Joycean Shakespeare” (Rome, February 2016), and the annual James Joyce summer school in Trieste.

 

In Germany, Prof. Katharina Rennhak has continued in her effort to build up a network of Irish literature scholars. Major events at her home institution, the University of Wuppertal, have included a conference on “Narratives of Romanticism” with a strong Irish focus (October 2015) and a Walter Macken Centenary Symposium (December 2015). A lecture series entitled “Narrating Ireland”, held in Wuppertal in 2010, provided the impetus for a collection of essays which appeared as Vol. 7 of the Irish Studies in Europe monograph series in June 2016.

 

Irish literary and cultural studies in continental Europe have continued to enjoy the presence of vibrant peer-reviewed journals, particularly Études irlandaises, Nordic Irish Studies, Estudios Irlandeses and the Italian journal Studi irlandesi. The editors of all these periodicals deserve particular credit for maintaining these vital publishing platforms.

 

As ever, the role of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and the Irish diplomatic corps in supporting Irish literary and cultural events in Europe has been essential. The funding, relentless assistance and good will have helped the study of Irish literature to flourish. Moreover, the support scheme for Irish language teaching abroad instigated by the Department of Arts, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht has facilitated the teaching of the language in a number of countries across Europe.

 

Activities of IASIL JAPAN, 2015-16

Submitted by Naoko Toraiwa

The term of the IASIL Japan Executive Committee Members from 2013 ended on 21 December 2015. Thanks to the hard work of our very efficient and dedicated former staff: Professor Yoko Sato, President; Professor Kumiko Yamada, Secretary; Professor Yoko Kubo, Treasurer; and Professor Masaya Shimokusu, Editor of the Journal of Irish Studies, IASIL Japan has regained financial health. Joining JSTOR continues to go well. Hopefully, the new office staff will be able to keep IASIL Japan prosperous and successful, as well as implementing a plan for a new scholarship. The Executive Committee for the next two and a half years is Professor Naoko Toraiwa as President, Haruko Takakuwa, Secretary; Professor Mika Momoo, Treasurer; and Professor Beverley Curran, Editor of the Journal of Irish Studies.

    IASIL JAPAN annually holds a conference and publishes an academic journal, the Journal of Irish Studies (JIS). The 32nd annual conference was held on the weekend of 3-4 October at the Prefectural University of Hiroshima. Its theme was ‘Commemorations: Marking Time in Ireland,’ As special guest speakers, renowned sholar, Patrick Crotty, Professor of Scottish and Irish Literature at the University of Aberdeen and a regular reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement, and the poet and musician Moya Cannon, were invited.

    Professor Crotty gave a special lecture entitled, ‘Instant Commemoration? Yeats, ‘Easter 1916’ and the Easter Rising.’ His inspiring lecture, which will appear in the upcoming Journal issue, served to animate the symposium held later that day — ‘Yeats, Easter 1916 and the Ireland of Our Time’ — in which Professor Crotty participated as a commentator.

    On the second day of our conference, Moya Cannon gave a beautiful poetry reading and kindly answered our questions about the relationship between poetry and music. She also took part in our second symposium, “Poetry and Music,” and gave comments based on her own experiences.

    A number of papers on Irish studies were read by our members, including those from Taiwan and Korea. Last year we invited Professor Wei H. Kao (National Taiwan University) to be one of the symposia panelists.

The annual 2016 conference will be held at International Christian University Japan in Tokyo on 15-16 October. This year’s them is ‘Transformations’, and the invited guest speakers are Professor Patrick Lonergan from the University of Galway and filmmaker Alan Gilsenan.

    The 30th issue of the Journal of Irish Studies was published in October 2015, and included a number of refereed articles, reviews, including a fine article by Anne Fogarty, our special guest at the 2014 IASIL Japan conference.

    The series of events held in Japan to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of W.B. Yeats also must be mentioned among last year’s activities, particularly the 3-day event that took place in Tokyo in May 2015. IASIL Japan members were very active in this event, with Professors Ken’ichi Matsumura and Yoko Sato of IASIL Japan were on the panel of a symposium ‘Japan and Yeats’. The performance of Deirdre was based on the Japanese translation by member Professor Seishi Matsuda.

    We are very happy to report that the study of Irish literature and the promotion of public awareness of Irish culture continue to be pursued with enthusiasm in a number of ways in Japan.               (Naoko Toraiwa, President, IASIL Japan)

 

Other Countries, 2015-16

Submitted by Youngmin Kim

 

-Brazil. Submitted by Laura Izarra and Beatriz Kopschitz Bastos

The year 2015-2016 has been very rewarding for Irish Studies in South America.

In August 2015, the Brazilian Association of Irish Studies (ABEI) organized its Tenth Symposium of Irish Studies in South America, “Transnational Irelands” hosted by Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, in Argentina. The plenary speakers were Irish writer Colum McCann who also talked in Buenos Aires at a venue organized by the Embassy of Ireland in Argentina. The guest speakers were: Professor Claire Connolly (University College Cork), Juan Ignacio Oliva (Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife/AEDEI), Miguel Ángel Montezanti (Universidad Nacional de La Plata). In May 2016, ABEI also organized its IV Jornada/Forum “A Hundred Years of Easter Rising: Its Social, Linguistic and Literary Impacts”, which was hosted by Universidade Federal de Tocantins, Rio Grande do Norte. It was organized by Mariana Bolfarine (UFTSP) and Rejane de Souza Ferreira (UFT). The aim of this forum, organized by USP’s postgraduate students in Irish Studies, is to develop their skills in the realization of academic events and motivate young scholars from other Brazilian universities to develop research in Irish Studies.

At the University of São Paulo, the WB Yeats Chair of Irish Studies takes part in the International Research Project SPeCTReSS – Social Performance Cultural Trauma and Reestablishing Solid Sovereignties – led by Trinity College Dublin. In its second year of activities the Chair has received researchers Christian Wicke and Thea Coventry from Rühr Universitaat Bochum (August-October 2015), Jan Sowa from Jagiellonian University (October-December 2015), Davor Dukic from Zagreb University (March-May 2016) and Bernhard Beyerlein from Rühr-Universitaat Bochum (May-August 2016) who lectured at USP while, in exchange, professors and postgraduate students from USP went to TCD, Bochum, Zagreb and Jagiellonian universities to develop their research on theoretical issues of cultural trauma. In October 2015, Prof. Colleen Dube from Uversity lectured on “Ireland – ‘A Republic of Creativity’: Origins & Cultural Outputs” and showed the film Amber, by USP’s student Lorena Ribeiro who was awarded a Uversity scholarship for an MA in Arts in Creative Process (2014-2015). By the end of the month, poet Moya Cannon read from her work and talked with the students at USP. The Chair also received Dr. Emilie Pine (UCD) who gave the lecture “Irish Documentary Theatre and the Documentation of Memory”. On 16th March 2016, Tina O’Toole (University of Limerick, Ireland) gave a lecture on “Two Women Voices in Contemporary Irish Short Story – Edna O’Brien and Claire Keegan.”

The Chair regularly offered a series of extramural cultural seminars “Tradition and Modernity in the Irish Contemporary Short Story”/Tradição e Modernidade no Conto Irlandês Contemporâneo” (2015) and “Trends of the Irish Theatre/Tendências do Teatro Irlandês” (2016) given by postgraduate students with the aim of sharing the themes of their research with the general public.

On 17th March 2016, the W.B. Yeats Chair’s exhibition “Roger Casement in Brazil. Rubber, the Amazon and the Atlantic World” (2010-2011) was re-launched at Banco do Brazil, in Brasilia, for the opening of the Brazilian commemorative events on the Centenary of 1916. A one-day seminar was simultaneously organized by the Ambassador of Ireland in Brazil, Mr. Brian Glynn, who gave the opening lecture, followed by guest speakers, Susan Casement, relative of Roger Casement, Luke Gibbons (NUIM), Carlos Páramo (National University of Colombia), Aurélio Michiles (Brazilian film diretor), Guilherme Assis de Almeida (USP), Mariana Bolfarine (Federal Institute of São Paulo) and Laura Izarra (University of São Paulo). Professors Luke Gibbons, Carlos Páramo and Jane Ohlmeyer (TCD) together with Dr. Mariana Bolfarine and film diretor Aurélio Michiles travelled to Manaus for the Roger Casement Symposium co-organized by Mariana Bolfarine at Universidade Federal da Amazônia where the exhibition “Roger Casement in Brazil” was also shown at the Palace of Justice. The lecture tour ended in São Paulo for the opening of the 2016 academic activities of the WB Yeats Chair of Irish Studies at USP, “Roger Casement and the Centenary of 1916” (21-22 March). Besides the above names, the event included the guest speakers Tina O’Toole (University of Limerick) and Leopoldo Bernucci (University of California, Davis). On this occasion the translation of The Amazon Journal of Roger Casement, with a Preface by President Michael D. Higgins,  was launched together with a new exhibition of photographs by Roger Casement and Silvino Santos, the first Brazilian filmmaker in the Amazon: “Viagem ao Putumayo e Afluentes” (2016). On the second day there was the II Postgraduate Colloquium of Irish Studies, organized by the postgraduate students Caroline Moreira Eufrausino, Camila Batista, Patricia de Aquino Prudente and Dr. Mariana Bolfarine to discuss their projects with the Chair’s guest speakers.

Theatre: Cia Ludens, with director Domingos Nunes and producer Beatriz K. Bastos, presented various rehearsed readings of Diários de Roger Casement / Diaries of Roger Casement, by Domingos Nunez, in the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal (21/08/2015); Teatro Eva Herz, Brasília (16/03/2016). Moreover, Cia Ludens presented the IV Cycle of Rehearsed Readings: Cia Ludens and Irish Documentary Theatre at Teatro Eva Herz, São Paulo (October-November 2015). The play Cathleen Ni Houlihan, translated by Maria Rita Viana and Alinne Fernandes, and directed by Alinne Fernandes was presented in a rehearsed reading at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (19/05/2016).

The W.B. Yeats Chair of Irish Studies at the University of São Paulo invited Patrick Sutton, Director of Waiting for Godot, and set designer Brian Maguire, from Gaiety School, the National Theatre School of Ireland, who were interviewed by Professor Fábio Rigatto de Souza, specialist in Beckett, and theatre Professor and critic Luiz Fernando Ramos, both from USP.

 

Cultural events: “The Memory Room”: Interview and readings with Irish writer Hugo Hamilton was hosted by the Federal University of Bahia (29/10/ 2015). Moreover, the Consulate General of Ireland in São Paulo co-organized with Goethe Institute a lecture by Hugo Hamilton. There was a Film Festival and series of seminars at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Irish Lives: The Cinema of Alan Gilsenan (18-20 May 2016).

In 2016, St. Patrick’s Day was celebrated in Brazil illuminating the statue of Cristo Redentor [Christ the Redeemer] in Rio de Janeiro with a green light, The Cathedral in Brasilia, the suspended bridge in São Paulo and the Amazon Opera House in Manaus.  Bloomsday Celebrations spread in various cities: Natal, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Florianópolis. It was also celebrated in various cities in Argentina: Buenos Aires, La Plata, Santa Rosa and Bahia Blanca.

Among the Courses offered, “Myth and Reality in Irish Theatre” was a postgraduate course given by Prof. Beatriz Kopschitz Bastos at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (March-June 2016).

Among the Brazilian publications on Irish Studies are:

Abei Journal, No. 17, November 2015 (eds. M. Mutran & L. Izarra) which paid tribute to WB Yeats’s 150 years; Lectures 2014 on Irish and Brazilian Romanticism with essays by Professors Claire Connolly and João Roberto Faria (eds. M. Mutran & L. Izarra, 2015); Diário da Amazônia de Roger Casement  [The Amazon Journal of Roger Casement], with a Preface by President Michael D. Higgins (ed. Angus Mitchell, org. L. Izarra & M. Bolfarine; Trans. Mariana Bolfarine, Maria Rita Drumond Viana & Mail Marques de Azevedo. São Paulo: EDUSP, 2016); The Road to God Knows Where / A estrada para Deus sabe onde by Alan Gilsenan (Ed. Lance Pettitt & Beatriz Kopschitz Bastos; Florianópolis: EdUFSC, 2015), with launches in 2016 in São Paulo (Livraria da Vila), Florianópolis (UFSC), Salvador (UFBA), Cork (IASIL 2016) and Dublin (IFI – forthcoming); and Rosalie R. Haddad’s Bernard Shaw in Brazil: The Reception of Theatrical Productions, 1927-2013. (Oxford, Bern, Berlin, New York: Peter Lang, 2016).

Academic agreements and Scholarships: The University of São Paulo has academic agreements with various Irish universities that offer scholarships to USP’s students. All the scholarships are regularly announced through a Call and the best candidate is chosen by a board of Professors that evaluate the merit of their qualifications and a required essay. In 2015, the University of Limerick announced a WB Yeats Scholarship, which was awarded to Érika Leite from the Faculty of Philosophy. The University College Cork granted a Summer School Scholarship to Alessandra Rigonato and Patricia de Aquino Prudente; in 2016, it was given to Aline Sena Teixeira, from the Faculty of Letters.

On the other hand, the ABEI/Haddad Fellowship 2015-2016 was launched for a Brazilian student member of ABEI to register at an MA Programme of Trinity College Dublin in the field of Irish Studies. It was awarded to Thalita Serra de Castro (USP). In 2015, ABEI also granted a scholarship to Maria do Rosario Casas Coelho to attend the X Symposium of Irish Studies in South America which was held in Argentina.

The WB Yeats Chair of Irish Studies Scholarship awarded two grants (2015 & 2016) to USP’s doctoral student Camila Batista and post-doctoral researcher Mariana Bolfarine to attend IASIL 2016 and present their work in progress related to the Easter Rising.

The Maria Helena Kopschitz Scholarship 2015-2016 for a Brazilian student at the MA in Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at UCD was awarded to Thais Vidal Fetka (USP).

 

Research projects: the Chair of Irish Studies has guest postdoctoral researchers in various fields of knowledge, literature, history, medieval studies, contemporary studies.  The projects are available on the website www.catedrawbyeats.vitis.uspnet.usp.br

Furthermore, Beatriz Kopschitz Bastos did her post-doctoral research in the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Ireland on Film: Screenplays and Critical Contexts –  The Documentary Films of Alan Gilsenan. (Aug 2014-Nov 2015).

Domingos Nunez is doing a post-doctoral on drama writing entitled  Os Diários de Roger Casement at UNESP, São José do Rio Preto (Oct 2013-present).

 

Brazilian academics and students participated in various national and international conferences, symposia and seminars. Various members of ABEI, staff and students from the Postgraduate Programme of Irish Studies at USP attended courses (2015), X Symposium of Irish Studies in South America 2015, V Jornada de Estudos Irlandeses (2016), AEDEI 2016, and many other events.

PhDs and MAs:

Alessandra Cristina Rigonato. A presença de As Aves de Aristófanes em Literaturas de Expressões Inglesas, 2015 (MA). Supervisor: Munira H. Mutran (DLM/FFLCH/USP)

Thiago Marcel Moyano. Delineando fronteiras: deslocamentos e subjetividades em Alias Grace (1996), de Margareth Atwood, 2015 (Dissertação de Mestrado). Orientador: Laura P. Zuntini de Izarra – Departamento de Letras Modernas (DLM/FFLCH/USP)

Bruno Ochman Lustoza. Ritmos ocêanicos do inconsciente: memória, arte e metaficção em O mar, de John Banville, 2015 (MA). Supervisor: Laura P. Zuntini de Izarra (DLM/FFLCH/USP).

Maria do Rosário Casas Coelho. Let The Great World Spin: a working through trauma?, 2015 (MA). Supervisor: Laura P. Zuntini de Izarra (DLM/FFLCH/USP)

Maria Rita Drumond Viana. “Não se pode lutar uma batalha com sussuros”: a prática epistolar de W.B. Yeats e sua corresponência para periódicos no século XIX, 2015. (PhD). Supervisor: Munira H. Mutran (DLM/FFLCH/USP)

Mariana Bolfarine. Between “Angels and Demons”: trauma in fictional representations of Roger Casement, 2015 (PhD). Supervisor: Laura P. Zuntini de Izarra (DLM/FFLCH/USP)

Leide Daiane de Almeida Oliveira.  “‘I am of Ireland’: History and Politics in the Poetry of William Butler Yeats”.  2016. MA dissertation. Supervisor: Maria Lucia Martins. (PPGI/UFSC).

 

-Korea

Submitted by Youngmin Kim

Celebrating Yeats 150 in Seoul – Conference

13th June 2015 was the 150th birth anniversary of one of Ireland’s most famous writers, W.B. Yeats. The occasion was marked in Korea with activity all day and night, in collaboration with Dongguk University and The Embassy of Ireland to Korea, organized by Professor Youngmin Kim. The Yeats Anniversary Celebrations Seoul 2015 includes both an academic conference and a broader arts/performance dimension.

Venue for the conference and evening festivities: Dukam Seminar Room, Culture Hall 1F, Dongguk University. During the day (10.00-19.00), an exceptional line up of Irish and Korean scholars discussed the great man’s work and influence. Irish professors Claire Connolly from UCC, and Adrian Paterson from NUI Galway, were featured speakers. There were music and dance provided by Ceoltoiri Seoul Irish music group. As a nod to Yeats’s contemporary, there was short readings from James Joyce’s Ulysses. Yeats’s birthday celebrations continued afterwards at a nearby bar.

 

*The 2015 International Conference on W. B. Yeats

Conference Venue: Hanyang University, Seoul

Time: Saturday and Sunday, September 12-13, 2015

Hosted by The Yeats Society of Korea, Hanyang University

Sponsored by The Embassy of Ireland to Seoul, National Research Foundation of Korea

_______

PROGRAM

KEYNOTE SPEECHES include the followings and 30 presenters at the parallel sessions.

 

Prof. Kim, Chi-gyu,’ Korea University, “A Poem for Yeats; Remembering Yeats’s 100th  Birthday ”

Prof. Charles Altieri, University of California Berkeley, “Yeatsian Poetics and the Resources Grammar

Provides”

Prof. Edward Larrissy, Queens University Belfast, UK, “Yeats and Heaney”

Prof. Rajeev Patke, National University of Singapore, “Yeats’s Use of the Poetic Refrain”

Prof. Zhang Yuejun, Xiamen University of Technology, China, “‘Lapis Lazuli’: Yeats and Chinese

Landscape

Painting”

Prof. James Pethica, Williams College, USA, “‘ [A] Dickens and a Shelley in the one body”:  Yeats, Lady

Gregory, and The Unicorn from the Stars’ ”

Prof. Anne Margaret Daniel, The New School, (New York City), USA, “A Young Man and

Autobiography: Yeats and John Sherman”

Prof. Jerry Weng, National Taiwan University, Taiwan, “Revisiting the Romanticism in Early Yeats”

Prof. Matthew DeForrest, Johnson C. Smith University, USA, “Endtimes and Retrospection: The Place

and Role of Time in Yeats’s Final Works”

Prof. Kazuhiro Doki, Aichi University of Education, Japan, “Yeats and Stephen Dedalus”

Prof. Hiroko Ikeda, Hiroshima City University, Japan, “W. B. Yeats and the Irish Language Tradition”

Dr. Namrata Chaturvedi, Zakir Husain Delhi College, University of Delhi, India, “Re-cognition and

Love:  Reading W. B. Yeats’s ‘Among School Children’ through the ‘Pratibhijna’ Philosophy”

Prof. Peter Mathew, Hanyang University, Korea, “Yeats as a Storyteller”

 

*The 2015 International Conference on James Joyce:  “Glocal Joyce”

Conference Venue: Kangnam University

Time: June 6, 2015

Congratulatory Speech

The following is the partical opening remarks by Ambassador Aingeal O’Donoghue:

 

To-day also Bloomsday and James Joyce’s Ulysses is celebrated around the

world both at traditional events and some with a more modern twist. Worldwide

Bloomsday events include public readings in Brazil, Australia and Italy; drinks at

Madrid’s James Joyce pub, a Bloomsday cabaret in New Zealand and you can even

get Ulysses apps for your tablet or smart phone! Have all of these people read all of that great work of modernist literature—I suspect not. That is why the other strand of the celebration of James Joyce is so important—a deep, sustained, critical and ever evolving scholarship as exemplified by to-day’s conference “Glocal Joyce—the 6th International James Joyce Conference” in Korea.

I would like to pay a very warm tribute to the James Joyce Society and to its

President, Justin Yun for organising to-day’s very high calibre conference. Deepest

gratitude also to Kangnam University as the venue and sponsor for the Glocal Joyce

Conference. The work, commitment and passion of the James Joyce Society and its

distinguished members has furthered the study and understanding of Irish literature

in Korea. And we are now blessed with translations into Korean of both Ulysses

translated by Prof Kim Sung Sook and Finnegans Wake translated by Prof. Kim,

Chong Keon. Both feats of truly outstanding academic and intellectual achievement

which have made Joyce’s work accessible to a new cohort of Korean readers.

Looking at your theme for to-day’s conference of “Glocal Joyce” it is difficult

to think of a more fitting subject for analysis under this heading. Joyce’s work was

in and of Ireland—I well remember how A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

resonated so deeply with me when I read it as a young woman in 1980s Ireland.

His writings are filled with Dublin, the city of his childhood and adolescence, none

more so than Ulysses. Joyce famously said of Ulysses that “I want to give a picture

of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth

it could be reconstructed out of my book.” And yet all this from a man who left

the shores of Ireland in 1904 at the age of 22 and only returned on 4 visits the

last of those in 1912.

 

*Journal on Yeats and Joyce in Korea

Both Jame Joyce Journal of Korea and Yeats Journal of Korea published their 2015 issues as follows:

Jame Joyce Journal of Korea: 2015 Volume 1: 9 articles; Volume 2: 7 articles

Yeats Journal of Korea: 2015 Volume 46: 16 articles, Volume 47: 15 articles,

Volume 48: 24 articles

 

IASIL Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers Forum, 25th July 2016, UCC

Submitted by Rebecca Graham

 

With the help of this year’s conference organising committee, I organised a forum for postgraduates and early career researchers attending the IASIL conference. The forum provided the opportunity for postgraduates and early career scholars to discuss what IASIL as an organisation can do for them. We had a very interesting discussion and number of important points were raised. The main areas of concern, as elaborated by one attendee, were those of access and dissemination.

In terms of access, the feeling was unanimous that waiving the postgraduate fee was an excellent decision and hugely influenced peoples’ ability to attend the conference. It was felt that waiving the fee should continue at future conferences if at all possible and if not, alternative options of reduced fees or day fees for postgraduates were suggested. The IASIL postgraduate scholarship for conference attendance was praised as a very useful initiative.  At this point, an interesting comment was made by an early career researcher who feels that they, as a group, are generally ignored. They are not postgraduates and so pay full fees but they do not necessarily have the security and financial stability of their more senior colleagues. A reduced fee for early career researchers would be a very welcome development. As the cost of attending conferences is often prohibitive, there was a suggestion that live streaming or making the plenary talks available as podcasts for a small fee might be other options for postgraduates and early career researchers to maintain contact with IASIL’s annual conference in years that they cannot attend.

During the forum, a number of ideas were discussed including the organising of practical workshops such as CV writing, career planning, presentation skills, and information on careers outside of academia. These ideas were met with some support. However, overall it was felt that researchers’ universities should provide these kinds of supports.

The postgraduate forum was regarded as a useful and practical way to start the conference as it provided a collegial and supportive environment in which postgraduates and early career researchers could meet other scholars. In order to maintain these new connections, it was suggested that IASIL could establish a Facebook page specifically for postgraduates and early career researchers, or make available a list of conference attendees’ email addresses (with permission). It was generally felt to be useful for postgraduates to attend separate events like the forum during the year or at the start of conferences in the future. ACIS’s model of organising regional events was discussed as it was thought that access to more local events might be more feasible for postgraduates and early career researchers. In line with this and with the idea of maintaining contact with IASIL internationally, it was suggested that regional postgraduate representatives might be appointed.

In terms of dissemination, it was felt that workshops held during the annual conference that provided information on how to get published, on what editors and publishers look for and how to approach them, would be very informative, and provide researchers with invaluable opportunities to meet potential editors and publishers in a supportive environment. Also, organising a roundtable discussion with people who have recently been published was thought to be very useful. A workshop where researchers could get feedback on ways to make their conference papers suitable for publication was also considered. Other suggestions included providing the opportunity for the best conference papers to be published in a conference essay collection, or the establishment of an annual IASIL postgraduate essay prize, similar to that run by BAIS, but available internationally. Also, the profiling of more postgraduates and early career researchers on the IASIL website was welcomed. It was also suggested that an IASIL blog could be set up to make available snapshots of scholars’ research to the Irish studies community.

Overwhelmingly, forum attendees were concerned with providing support to attend conferences and ways to disseminate their research and it was felt that aiding them in these ways would be a very positive step for IASIL in engaging with and supporting postgraduates and early career scholars.

I would like to thank Claire Connolly, Clíona Ó Gallchoir, Anna Pilz, Maureen O’Connor, Heather Laird, Dawn Duncan, and Margaret Kelleher for their support, guidance and encouragement during my time as postgraduate representative for IASIL and, particularly, in organising this postgraduate forum.