Bio

Beth Aherne is a PhD student in the Department of English. Her supervisors are Dr Miranda Corcoran and Dr Maureen O’Connor. Beth completed both her Joint Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and English and her Master’s in English - Modernities: Literature, Theory and Culture from the Romantics to the Present in UCC. Her research focuses on representations of the family in American science fiction. In particular, she is concerned with portrayals of queer families in feminist, Afrofuturist, and Indigenous futurist science fiction novels and short stories. Her project is entitled “Queering the Family in Science Fiction: An Intersectional Approach”.

Proposal 

Despite science fiction’s association with advanced futures, representations of the family in SF remain faithful to the post-war American construct of the nuclear family.  Popular SF families such as the Robinsons from Lost in Space invent fantastic futures for heterosexual married couples with their biological children and thus perpetuate Western patriarchal norms. My project uncovers how certain SF authors use genre-specific traits such as technological advancement to normalise queer (non-conventional) family forms. I show how authors including Marge Piercy employ genre-specific tropes such as time travel to reject and reimagine the gender, sexual, and racial norms upheld by the socially dominant family form. I contribute a nuanced and diverse investigation of queer representations of the family to SF studies by centralising sub-genres marginalised within the genre’s history such as feminist science fiction, Afrofuturism, and Indigenous futurism (SF written by Black and Indigenous authors). To conduct my investigation into alternative family futures, I interrogate how lesbian SF authors such as Ursula Le Guin, Black women authors such as Octavia E. Butler, and Indigenous women authors such as Cherie Dimaline reimagine tropes such as time travel and alien encounters to subvert misogynistic, racist, and colonialist attitudes that marginalise and exclude queer family forms.

Bio

I have completed the Bachelor of Social Science degree in University College Cork. As an undergraduate student at UCC, I received a Quercus College Scholarship for my academic achievements in 2019 and 2020. I completed my final year research project on the relationship between gender and environmental attitudes and behaviour, for which I was awarded ‘Best Final Year Sociology Dissertation’ 2021. 

Proposal

This research shall explore gender relations in youth environmental activism, such as gender differences in participation, leadership, identity, climate concern, climate responsibility, climate justice related knowledge and education etc. This research shall be based in Ireland and focus on gender differences in youth environmental movements such as Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, as well as college environmental societies. The main aim of this research is to understand the experiences of youth involved in environmental activism through a gendered lens, using the research methods of ethnographic observation and interviews to explore the impact that gender inequality and stereotyping can have on climate action in Ireland.  This research is of importance as it highlights potential gender differences within environmental activism which must be researched, analysed, and widely understood to create the societal and cultural shift needed to protect the planet. Research that explores gender differences in environmental activism can help recognize the potential unequal gendered experiences of those involved in these grassroots movements, in ways that can positively inform future approaches to climate policy, research, and practice. 

Bio

Luca Gambirasio is an ecomusicologist, ethnomusicologist, and sound artist, currently studying for a PhD at University College Cork. Luca holds a BA in Jazz Music from Mascagni Conservatory in Livorno and a MA in Ethnomusicology from UCC. His current research interest is how the environment and related issues are represented in music in Italy and how music and sound can be used to mediate the connection between people and places.

Propoal

Environmental Humanities and ecomusicology have started to address the environmental crisis recently, and further research is needed to explore the various possible applications of music in this direction. Considering that the major world’s polluters are developed countries, research in these settings is important to understand how to tackle this issue. My research studies the relationship between musicians and the landscape and nurtures this relationship with applied ethnomusicological research in concomitance with my artistic practice. Under the supervision of Prof. Jonathan Stock and Dr Alexander Khalil, I aim to observe, document, and participate in a series of musical events that highlight the interdependent relationship between humans and nature in this region. With a double role of artist and ethnomusicologist, I aim to explore from those dual perspectives the depth of meanings and impacts inspired by such events. Following a post-humanist approach, I also consider human responses to sounds produced by more-than-humans, conducting research at sound-walks and festivals, thus producing a wide and inclusive analysis of a series of sonic niches designed to engage the ecological crisis. While across the EU there have been several distinct approaches to the raising of a new ecological consciousness, this new research will provide a case study on the strengths and weaknesses of a combined ethnographic-artist approach that could have wide application in other EU member states, including Ireland, thus informing future ecomusical research and interventions on a larger European scale.

Bio

I compose music and sound works for synthesiser and computer that explore emptiness and emergence, of self and of machine. Theey are informed by my experience composing, performing, and presenting works across the gamut of Minimalism. These works place timbre under the microscope; examining fine details of sound over extended durations. Informed by intuitive use of feedback, chaos and chance, these sounds are simultaneously static, yet always in motion. I perform extensively on the international experimental music scene, and my work is released on a number of independent labels.

Research Proposal

Synthesisers are conventionally considered as tools utilised to generate broad sonic paletes by simply executing the instructions of the composer (or operator) in a lead/follow relationship. This research investigates the potential of considering the synthesiser and operator as a dyad or duality in which both have creative agency. Synthesisers are musical tools rich with potential as nodes of a network: they are dense webs of interactions with themselves, the operator and a listener. This practice-led research will develop an ecology of compositional practice for synthesiser in which musical trajectories and meaning will show themselves through emergent processes and the reciprocal relationship between operator and instrument. The resulting portfolio of works will employ methods of mapping creative practice such as Nodalism (Adkins 2014) and Flocking (Cascone 2005) to minimalist and drone-centric forms of electronic music in which timbral development and examination is prioritised. By considering the affordances (Kruger 2014) of the instrument, and the works produced, the portfolio will contribute to the sphere of experimental electronic music by inverting Cybernetic and generative approaches. Self-organising and chaotic methods of patching the synthesiser will be applied specifically to these musics, rather than any minimal or sustainted-tone style being the result of such methods.

Bio

Robyn McAuliffe is a PhD student in UCC’s School of English. Having completed a BA in English in University College Cork in 2020, Robyn was awarded a CACSSS Excellence Masters Scholarship and completed a Masters by Research in 2021. During her undergraduate, Robyn was awarded the Louise Clancy Memorial Prize for her undergraduate dissertation on the use of rape as a literary device in Old English hagiography. She is currently the OMR officer for UCC’s English Literature Society and the organiser of UCC’s Inkwell: Medieval to Renaissance Symposium.

Research Proposal

Robyn’s research primarily focuses on representations of gendered violence in early-medieval literature. Having completed two research projects analysing the gendered nature of virginity and violence in Old English hagiography, Robyn is currently engaging in a cross-cultural and cross-genre analysis of gendered violence in Old English and Old Norse literature. This analysis will compare representations of gendered violence in three popular genres of the Old English and Old Norse-Icelandic traditions, namely hagiography, heroic poetry, and medieval romance. It will also analyse the medieval legacy in contemporary screen media, specifically the fetishisation of gendered violence in TV and film adaptations/reinterpretations of the medieval past.

Bio

complete her Masters in Criminology at University College Cork and using her previous legal and criminological education has developed her PhD research in cybercrime and cybernetics. Her main area of focus is the human factors of cybersecurity, examining ways to mitigate against social engineering attacks. Emily currently works at a Project Manager for Security Technology in Amazon which allows her the insight into how large companies deal with security issues through policy, protocols and mitigating measures. This coincides nicely with her PhD research.

Proposal

Emily Phelan is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology and Criminology. Emily’s research aims to bridge the gap between the social sciences and the technology industry by carrying out ethnographic led research on the role humans play in complex technological systems. These systems otherwise known as Cyber-Physical-Social-Systems (CPSS) are an interconnected network of hardware, software, cloud technologies, security and legal protocols and at every instance have humans engaging and interacting with it either at the development or end user stages. Emily aims to map out the ecology of such a complex system and study the key role humans play. By doing so, she hopes to inform security protocols that are capable of mitigating against social engineering attacks, which are a very common cybersecurity issue when humans are an integral part of the system.

Bio

Originally from California, Josh spent several years working as a writer and theatre producer in Missoula, Montana. He earned his Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh. Currently, Josh resides in County Kerry where he has traded indoor workspaces for a forest-based studio, pursuing a doctoral degree in artistic research.

Proposal

The twenty-first century has rallied ecofeminist, posthumanist, and performance theory to the disruption of anthropocentric cultural dominance. Part of this work has involved shifting non-human animal and vegetable life from the background to center stage. At the same time, other theorists have challenged the limitations of modernist approaches to loss and bereavement established primarily by Freud. Little research exists at the intersection between these topics however, particularly at a juncture of critique and practice. This project explores how entangling a posthuman work of mourning with a forest-based creative practice can challenge anthropocentric perspectives and sustain grief’s latent energies to reorient human/non-human relationships by affecting a transduction from personal to ecological bereavement. My work will use a loosely iterative practice of somatic improvisation to research the animating, empathetic, and disruptive affects experienced in traumatic, irreversible loss and their capacity to catalyse transformation in ecological perceptions, attitudes, and (ideally) behaviours/praxis.

Bio

I am a native of Blackrock. I am currently Principal at South Lee Educate Together National School, a new school which opened in 2019. Prior to this I was Principal at Sundays Well Boys National School since 2015, having taught there since 2009. I hold a BA in Economics and Geography and a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Economics from UCC. Also a Postgraduate Diploma in Primary School Education and a Postgraduate Diploma in Educational Leadership. I am a Director of the Young Knocknaheeny Area Based Childhood Programme where I first became interested in the area of Wellbeing and social and emotional regulation which are major themes in my research.

Research Topic

My research is a sequential exploratory mixed methods study which aims to reconceptualise wellbeing in the Irish Primary school system to encompass 4 domains. Drawing on Ontario’s Ministry of Educations’ depiction of wellbeing, I feel that in a primary school, the four domains of wellbeing should include:Social and Emotional Wellbeing, Physical Wellbeing and Cognitive Wellbeing (Hargreaves et al, 2018, p.40).  Digital Wellbeing. Also to develop a culturally relevant Irish primary school ecological framework using Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory as a guide.

My thesis will contain three distinct stages of research.

1. It analyses policy documents prepared in the development of the published wellbeing strategy as well as investigating the strategy itself.
2. Local data will be gathered to support existing policy and research on Wellbeing in Primary Schools. This will entail qualitative data collection through semi-structured interviews and focus groups with students, parents, teachers and school principals. This is intended to reflect: (a)The Student Voice. (b)The Teacher Voice. (c) The Parent Voice. (d) The Views of School Leaders.
3. Based on Data collected, an ecological model for wellbeing will be developed for the Irish Primary School context. I will then pilot this model across 3 Irish Primary Schools and evaluate it to generate my conclusions.

Bio

Tadhg Dennehy is a PhD student in Film and Screen Media. Tadhg holds an MA in Creative Documentary from the University of Edinburgh and a BA in English and Sociology from UCC.

Proposal

Tadhg’s current research, under the supervision of Dr. Barry Monahan, is focused on cinematic representations of the Northern Irish conflict. Central to this research is the assertion that visual media are the primary mechanisms for the transmission, construction, revision and, ultimately, the shaping of history. Cinema offers the basis for an alternative history; a space to discover a reality that is not immediately visible to the geographically removed spectator. The reality of the Northern Irish conflict was announced to the world with the broadcasting of images from Derry of police brutality at a civil rights march on the 5th of October, 1968. At this time and subsequently, images were carefully managed, censored and propagandised with mechanisms that became familiar (and sometimes unique) tropes, codes and conventions of the representations of that conflict. This research will consider the peculiarities of fiction cinema, documentary and news reportage in creating a specific audio-visual lexicon in the historical reconstructions of the Northern Irish narrative. It is not my aim to argue for the existence of one true mediation of the conflict on screen. Rather my research will involve the close analysis of a number of inter-related cinematic representations dialectically against one another.

Bio

Daniel Fraser is a writer and researcher from Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire. He holds a BA (hons) Philosophy from University of Leeds and MA in Modern European Philosophy from the CRMEP Kingston, University of London. His principal research interests are: European literature and poetry, the failure of language, Marx/Marxist philosophy, and cinema. His poems, essays, and fiction have won prizes and been published widely in print and online including: London Magazine, New World Writing , LA Review of Books, Aeon, Mute, Dublin Review of Books, and Radical Philosophy. His poetry pamphlet 'Lung Iron' is published by the Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre.

Research Proposal

My research examines traumatic temporality and crisis in post-1945 European Literature through an encounter with contemporary philosophy, with particular focus on: Paul Celan, Marguerite Duras, and Samuel Beckett. Primarily a work of critical theory, the project seeks to interpret the broken, fragmentary forms of literature which emerged after the events of the Second World War, in the shadow of the Holocaust and nuclear atrocities in Japan, through a philosophical concept of trauma as a temporal register of untimeliness. In doing so, the project relates the crisis of artistic expression, a crisis of language, and crisis of historical experience, a crisis of capitalism, drawing on Marx, and the critical theory/philosophy of time in the work of Peter Osborne, Theodor Adorno, and Catherine Malabou. At its core the research investigates to how literature negotiates these dual crises, what kinds of historical experience are precipitated by such writing, and to what extent they might open up ways of thinking other modes of being, and opportunities for 'working through the past'. The research builds on the trauma studies work of Ulrich Baer, Cathy Caruth, and Rebecca Comay, re-asserting the productivity of an interdisciplinary philosophical perspective for cultural interpretation and for understanding questions of trauma/history.

Bio 

Sara Kelleher is a Social Work Ph.D. student in the School of Applied Social Studies at University College Cork. After receiving her Master of Social Work (MSW) from New York University, Sara earned her clinical social work license in the U.S. specializing in mental health and worked in the field for thirteen years. She is interested in the effects repeated exposure to trauma can have on those in helping professions, and in studying effective ways to support these workers. Her current research focuses on Secondary Traumatic Stress among Irish mental health social workers and testing interventions that may prevent or mitigate its effects. Sara is registered with CORU. 

Proposal 

Mental health providers who treat victims of trauma are frequently exposed to intense and powerful accounts of traumatic experiences. There is a growing awareness that such repeated vicarious exposure to trauma may lead providers to develop a cluster of psychological symptoms commonly referred to as Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS). STS can cause a variety of short- and long-term disorders in providers, impacting worker well-being and increasing the likelihood that providers will leave the field prematurely. Social workers involved in front-line mental health care are particularly vulnerable to developing STS. For my Ph.D. project, I will conduct a critical, comprehensive review of existing literature on STS theory, research and interventions, examining our current understanding of the nature and causes of STS and exploring how organizational and individual factors may influence practitioners’ vulnerability to developing STS and their resilience in recovery. My research will also explore factors that insulate practitioners from developing STS and possible prevention interventions. This study of Irish mental health social workers and STS will measure the prevalence of STS and its impact upon this group, including potential predictors and protective factors. Finally, guided by the results of the literature review, I will choose and test an intervention that may prevent or mitigate the effects of STS. 

Bio

I have worked in the field of Intellectual Disability for over 15 years; across a range of frontline, Management and Senior Management Roles within Irish Section 38 Disability Providers. Currently, I work in a Senior Management Quality & Development post within the Brothers of Charity Services Ireland- Southern Region.

As an avid believer in lifelong learning and an advocate for quality improvement, I have continued to enhance my education across my career. To date I have achieved a BA in Psychology, a MA by Research, a PG Diploma in Positive Approaches to Challenging Behaviour and a Higher Certificate in Applied Management for Human Services.

Research Topic

The title of my research is: Preserving Quality of Life for Irish Adults with Mild to Moderate Intellectual Disabilities during and Post COVID 19 Using a Participatory Action Research Approach: A Longitudinal Review of Experiences throughout Crisis and Recovery.  

This Employment Based PHD programme enables a unique opportunity to overlap my primary working role and strategic interest with an extremely topical academic focus; which can significantly build my expertise in rights based theory and allow for shared learning across the Intellectual Disability (ID) sector (leading to quality enhancement for those availing of services). The unprecedented phenomenon of Covid 19 has sparked a rich platform to collect data on the experiences of intellectually disabled people; as great momentum prior to the pandemic has been driving a rights based approach marked by normalised community engagement, as is the vision of a social model. All of which has been challenged by public health restrictions aimed at supressing the virus.   As such, my proposed longitudinal research aims to explore the current, medium and longer-term impacts of COVID 19 on the quality of life of mild to moderate adults with ID availing of services from Disability Providers in the Republic of Ireland.

Bio

This year I moved from London to start my PhD in Sociology and Philosophy at UCC. I am researching issues of autonomy and deterritorialisation in relation to stateless peoples. After achieving a first-class degree at Aberystwyth University in International Politics, I obtained a master’s degree in Legal and Political from UCL. I spent the last couple of years working at a legal directory and with Extinction Rebellion in London, before being accepted into this research programme as an Excellence Scholar. 

Research Proposal

My project considers the need for Rohingya people to exercise a model of non-territorial autonomy in order to encourage their leadership in finding solutions to their situation. Through qualitative media, document and interview analysis, I will assess the Rohingya people’s present dissociation from territory, their current lack of autonomy as stateless and displaced people, whilst identifying their coherence as a recognisable people.  Through a perspective of deterritorialisation, as associated with Deleuze, this research will benefit from a dynamic lens, asserting a fluid conception of Rohingya, particularly in relation to land. Whilst recognising present dissociation from territory, this lens aims to account for a dynamic relationship referencing social and contextual developments.  The Rohingya crisis is concurrent with the destabilising rise in statelessness. The continued deterioration of climate and ecological conditions, and increasing prevalence of uninhabitable territory, poses the urgent need for a revised set of rules around territory. It is essential that peoples most affected by these worsening conditions are included in discussions. To avoid a future where only those who presently own territory have a say in this reordering of territorial systems, a framework to enhance the leadership of stateless peoples, such as the Rohingya, ought to be conceived.

Bio

Melissa Shiels attended UCC as a mature student and completed her Bachelor of Arts degree (History Major). As an undergraduate, she was awarded a Quercus scholarship, Student of the Year from the School of History, as well as the Mansion House Prize from the NUI, the John A. Murphy Prize for Best BA Dissertation, and the MacCurtain Cullen Essay Prize from the Women's History Association of Ireland  
She is a Heritage Expert on the Heritage in Schools panel, visiting national schools all over Ireland and supporting the national school curriculum by bringing history to life through presenting costumed history demonstrations. 

Research Proposal

This research will expand the converging studies of material culture, Irish cultural expressions, and Irish social and political actors in the wider definitions of Renaissance phenomenon.  Recent scholarship has widened the net to include aspects of material culture as evidence for Irish participation in the Renaissance and the expansion of Irish cultural expressions.  Cultural historians have studied the rise of fashion, the critique and regulation of clothing, and the role of apparel in the formation of the Renaissance theatre of power. Likewise, the study of the elevation of ritualised gift-giving in Renaissance Courts has shed light on the ways in which diplomacy and politics were negotiated.  This research will explore the intersection of clothing and gift-giving for political ends in the Tudor conquest of Ireland.  Crucially, examining formal and informal gift exchange between Irish female political actors and the Crown reveals elite Irish women’s strategies to secure dynastic protection and promotion for their natal and marital dynasties, shedding light on the heretofore overlooked extent of women’s influence and participation in international politics.  Strategically given gifts of apparel in sixteenth century political intrigues are a useful lens through which to examine the competing ideologies of the Crown and Irish political actors.   

Bio

Maeve holds a BA in Archaeology and History and an MA in Archaeology from UCC. She joined the National Museum of Ireland in 2001 as a curatorial researcher on the Unpublished Burials Project. Since 2004, as Assistant Keeper in the Irish Antiquities Division, she has engaged in a wide range of curatorial tasks including fieldwork and excavation, lecturing and outreach. Maeve was appointed Keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland in July 2017, taking responsibility for the Museum’s archaeological collections. Maeve’s interests are in the early medieval and Viking collections and in the archaeology of death and burial in Ireland.

Research Topic

The study for which the Scholarship was awarded will focus on the archaeological evidence for the practices of feasting and dining in early medieval Ireland through an analysis of a range of vessel types. The corpus to be examined includes copper-alloy bowls and basins, decorative wooden pails, ladles, strainers and drinking horns. While there have been studies of individual artefacts within this group, this will be the first time that this body of material has been examined collectively. This thesis will primarily focus on the function and use of these high status vessels in a secular context by the wealthier classes in Ireland. The use of these vessels in a liturgical context will also be examined, given the fact that some have been found on, or close to, ecclesiastical sites, such as Derrynaflan, Co. Tipperary. The third main aspect of the thesis will be a discussion of the occurrence of these vessels in Viking-age graves in both Ireland and Britain and in Scandinavia, principally Norway. This study will result in the first catalogue of an important category of early medieval objects and will provide the first comprehensive account of feasting material culture in early medieval Ireland.

Bio

After recently achieving a first-class honours master's degree, Jordan is now pursuing a PhD in Applied Linguistics at University College Cork. As an undergraduate student at Maynooth University, Jordan received the Chinese Embassy Prize for excellent performance in Chinese Studies for two consecutive years. His research interests include language ideologies, L2 motivation and the study of Confucian heritage cultures. Furthermore, he is passionate about creating a more welcoming campus for international students and he currently works as a Postgraduate tutor at UCC Skills Centre while also providing assistance to incoming students on UCC's CampusConnect platform.

Proposal

This is a mixed-methods, longitudinal study of Confucian heritage culture (CHC) students from China and South Korea participating in English as foreign language (EFL) study within Ireland. Due to the implementation of international student recruitment initiatives such as ‘Irish Globally Connected: An International Education Strategy for Ireland, 2016 to 2020’, the number of Korean and Chinese SA students in Irish universities is rapidly increasing each year, thus requiring further attention in research. This study aims to investigate the relationship between the participants’ second language (L2) motivation and L2 investment. In doing so, this study will synthesise sociological and psychological research by proposing a new socio-psychological theoretical model. As L2 investment theory encompasses social issues relating to race, gender, class, ethnicity and sexual orientation, this study will critically discuss how an intersection of these social factors (which are typically neglected in psychological-oriented L2 motivational research) affects participants’ L2 learning experience in Ireland. Furthermore, underpinned by neoliberalism and Neo-Confucianism, the findings will therefore, advance the understanding of modern/traditional ideologies in both China and Korea and shed light on whether participants carry their societal and cultural values over to the Irish study abroad context. 

Bio

Aoife Dare is a Doctorate of Social Science student in the School of Applied Social Studies. Aoife has a BA in Modern Foreign Languages from the University of Leeds, an MA in International Education and Development from the University of Sussex, and a PGDip in Youth Work from UCC. She has worked with young people experiencing forced migration for over 13 years, in Thailand, Myanmar and Ireland. Her work has spanned formal and non-formal education, training, facilitation, research, youth work, advocacy and policy. She is currently the Youth and Education Officer at the Irish Refugee Council where she helps to implement creative youth work projects and manage the education programme.

Abstract

This study is about the policy and practice of ‘age assessments’, which are carried out by the Irish state when the age of a young person seeking international protection is in question. The main objective of the study is to critically analyse the age assessment process from a variety of perspectives, including people who work with or support ‘age-disputed’ young people, the young people themselves and representatives from organisations involved in advocating for refugee and/or children’s rights. A further objective of the study is to deconstruct the ‘age assessment’ policy using a poststructuralist/postcolonial lens. A final objective is to deepen our understanding of how policy and practice can be challenged, or refused, in an ethical way, and to consider the role of research in this process. Through providing a thorough and in-depth critical analysis of the policy and practice of age assessments, this research will assist policy makers and practitioners to gain a better understanding of and insight into the age assessment process in Ireland and the impact this process has on young people. This knowledge will support better legal, social and policy interventions on this issue. The study will also reflect on how we theorise and advocate for change, and the role of research in this process. In doing so, the study will argue for a more ethical approach to advocacy, research and practice.

Bio

James Dineen is currently a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at UCC. He holds an MA in Creative Writing from UCC, and a degree in English and Classics from NUIG. He is currently developing a mythos, an integrated ‘mega-text’, whereby every fiction he writes operates within a much larger narrative inspired by ancient ideation. By way of a unique eschatology, his burgeoning ‘mega-text’ mythopoeia project depicts characters who, like his PhD novel's self-mythologising narrator, are in this world but not entirely of it.

Proposal

During a psychotic episode, a man fatally projects his pent-up anger onto his beloved dog. It is 1977 and, newly arrived at a state-care facility, he is drawn to the common room’s eclectic reading materials. Soon, the one-time all-day imbiber of liquor becomes an enthusiastic imbiber of ideas. When books bring him to an understanding of things which encompass much more than self-knowledge, over the course of a single evening, in mitigation of what went wrong, he sets down his mythology of self. The mystic Simone Weil (d. 1943), the poet Rainer Maria Rilke (d. 1926), and the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (d. 1900), are amongst the most distinctive voices of the late-19th century and the first half of the 20th century. I will assess how a sense of personal failure was fashioned, by each of them, into a self-affirmation. I will investigate how they each placed their mythologies of self within the context of a wider cultural/historical narrative. My PhD project will add to the extant body of literature which explores how mythologies are created, why certain mythologies endure, the empowering and also the deleterious effect which self-mythologies can have on us as individuals.

Bio

Gabriella Fattibene (she/her) is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology & Criminology. Originally from the United States, Gabriella graduated Summa Cum Laude from Loyola University Maryland with a bachelor's degree in psychology and proceeded to University College Cork to receive a first-class honours master's degree in applied psychology. Gabriella worked as a research assistant in the Department of Sociology & Criminology, researching the far-right ecosystem in Ireland before pursuing her PhD. Her research focuses on far-right influencers on social media, especially the conspiracy theories and ideology they promote.

Proposal

Although the Irish far-right has been described as weak, disorganized, and non-threatening relative to other contexts, there has been a surge in far-right ‘influencers’ and rhetoric in Ireland over recent years. This project looks at far-right influencers on the video-hosting platform Odysee and their videos over December 2022 – August 2023 to examine far-right discourse in Ireland, namely how it is adapted and situated to the Irish context through the language of these far-right influencers. Analysis will utilize a pluralistic approach using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and critical discourse analysis approach (Potter & Wetherell, 1987) to examine how far-right ideology and conspiracy theories are adapted to fit an Irish context. The aim of analysis is to understand how conspiracy theories spread and adapt, even in different political and cultural contexts. Examining the conspiracy theories that have gained traction among the Irish far-right, as well as the tactics used to disseminate them, is instrumental to preventing conspiracy theory contagion in the future.

Bio

I started my first-ever university education as a mature student after nearly 30 years in the Publishing and IT sectors. In 2023, I completed my Bachelor of Arts in Criminology with a First-Class Honours degree. As an undergraduate, I was awarded the ‘Quercus College Scholarship’, College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences and the ‘Classical Social Theory Essay Prize 2022’ by the Department of Sociology & Criminology. My BA research dissertation was a comparative study looking at housing provision after prison in Hamburg and Cork entitled - Rehabilitative Imaginary or a Right to Re-integration? My dissertation was awarded a first-class honours and I have started to publish in international peer-reviewed journals on this and related themes.

Proposal

In light of the continuing dissatisfaction with the ‘performance’ of prisons in rehabilitating individuals, the study of reintegration after prison and desistance from crime, have gained increasing prominence in the field of Criminology over the past decade, both internationally as well as in Ireland. However, more theoretical and empirical work is needed to help us better understand the interactions and the importance of social structures and contexts in either fostering or hindering re/habilitation and re/integration. Existing criminological research remains underdeveloped in relation to (a) the contributions of zemiological or social harm perspectives on the different domains of reintegration (b) the comparative analysis of the interaction between different domains of reintegration across different welfare state contexts and (c) the contextual subjectivities of reintegration. My PhD study utilises ethnographic methodologies to contribute to the growing body of sensory Criminology across two jurisdictions engaging with criminal justice-involved persons to understand their ‘lived experience’ of available supports, and exploring how the multi-dimensional domains of reintegration after prison are configured and experienced comparatively, therefore, advancing a more sophisticated comprehension of penality beyond prison. The resulting fine-grained analysis will further develop our understanding of reintegration after release from prison and is also aimed at contributing to ongoing debates between structure and agency in the desistance literature.

Bio

Rojin Mukriyan (Fatemeh Mostafavi) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Government and Politics at University College Cork (UCC) , Ireland. She has obtained a BA and MSc from UCC after fleeing from Iran in 2014. For her BA, she double majored in Philosophy and Politics. She then obtained an MSc in Government and Politics from UCC with a thesis on the application of classical republican conceptions of domination and political liberty to the Kurds of Rojava (West Kurdistan). Presently, She is doing a PhD research project that is focused on a detailed analysis of jailed Kurdish political theorist, Abdullah Öcalan, and his conceptions of democratic confederalism and democratic civilization. Her main research areas are in political theory and Middle Eastern politics, especially Kurdish politics. So far, She has published articles in the Journal of International Political Theory, Philosophy and Social Criticism, and Theoria. Her publications have focused on the areas of Kurdish liberty, Kurdish statehood, and Kurdish political friendship. She has also published many think tank commentaries and reports on recent political developments in eastern Kurdistan (Rojhelat), or north-western Iran, at The Kurdish Peace Institute, The Kurdish Centre for Studies and the Mesopotamian Observatory of Justice.

Proposal

The aim of my project is to assess the coherence of Öcalan’s fundamental concept of ‘democratic civilization.’ It is this concept which has guided the political and cultural activities of the participants of the AANES. The first half of the dissertation aims to discover the theoretical background and presuppositions of Öcalan’s notion of democratic civilization, which has appeared throughout his more than 40 books and which serves as the organizing principle for his recent five book collection, the ‘Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization.’ By ‘democratic civilization,’ Öcalan means a kind of civilization wherein the institutional and material benefits that have accrued over the past 10-12,000 years are combined with a social order devoid of the multiple modes of hierarchy and domination that have characterized civilization thus far. A ‘democratic civilization’ would be one where peace and prosperity could be synthesized with certain kinds of egalitarianism specific to distinct social domains.

In politics, a democratic civilization would emerge through an active, participatory, and radical democracy roughly similar to the Swiss cantonal model of a directly democratic confederated republic. With respect to sex and gender, a democratic civilization would entail the complete overcoming of misogyny and patriarchy. In environmental terms, a democratic civilization would involve a social ecological approach to sustainability. Direct democracy, sexual equality, and social ecology are the three pillars of a democratic civilization, for Öcalan. What my project does in its first half is analyze how Öcalan argues for democratic civilization. The goal is to render explicit the metaphysical and theoretical conditions of possibility for democratic civilization that Öcalan often leaves implicit, while at the same time identifying where precisely he fits into the broader history and conceptual landscape of political theory. The point of such an endeavor is to clarify more precisely what the Kurds of Rojava are presently trying to accomplish with the AANES.

The second half of the project takes a more critical tone, but with the hope of remedying some of Öcalan’s inconsistences so to make the concept of democratic civilization more coherent and defendable. Öcalan is a kind of critical theorist, which means he is a social constructivist or idealist, an interactionist, a left-libertarian, and a normative realist. These tendencies lead Öcalan to insufficiently theorize the necessarily political nature of both democracy and civilization, which he treats in more cultural and moral terms. In the second half, my project counters Öcalan by offering a more politically realist and naturalistic conception of democracy and civilization by focusing on the concept of peoplehood. It is by properly theorizing peoplehood that one can thereby develop a conception of direct democracy that could truly overcome the domination inherent to civilization. If this on track, then it is by properly conceiving peoplehood that one could also provide the foundations for the sought-after equality in other social domains like sex and gender and the environment. A democratic civilization rooted in a realist and naturalist conception of the political and peoplehood would assist in the project of its creation and development.

Bio

Kasandra O’Connell is the Head of the IFI Irish Film Archive which preserves Ireland’s national moving image collection as part of the Irish Film Institute. She advocates for film heritage in a variety of ways including chairing the Film Heritage Advisory Group in Ireland. She has been part of the international faculty of the International Federation of Film Archives and is on the editorial board of Association of Moving Image Archivists’ The Moving Image Journal. She devised and taught a Masters module in Media Preservation at Maynooth University and is currently undertaking doctoral studies in University College Cork looking at film preservation policy. Her areas of research interest are film preservation, collections management, cultural policy and women in archives. She regularly writes about and discusses moving image preservation across a range of media.

Research Topic

Out of Focus: An exploration of the History and Development of Film preservation in Ireland over the last century will identify the reasons that Ireland has yet to establish either a national policy for film preservation or a national cultural institution dedicated to this activity. The purpose of this research is to draw on my experience as head of the IFI Irish Film Archive for over two decades to examine the history and development of policy and practice in the field of moving image preservation in an Irish context, particularly comparing it to the position of film preservation in other western countries. The project will look at the political, historical and cultural factors that have shaped Ireland’s attitude to moving image preservation and try to identify the reasons that Ireland has not put in place comprehensive legislative and practical mechanisms to safeguard this material. It will place Ireland within the context of the broader film preservation landscape (looking specifically at Europe and America). It will look at the development of moving image archiving within the State since the advent of film in the 1890s, and explore the State’s attitude to film preservation, especially in contrast to the preservation afforded to other cultural collections. It will examine  the reasons why it is important to afford our moving image collections the same safeguards as other national collections and  will identify what legislative and practical measures exist to support film archiving.

Bio

Is mac léinn dochtúireachta í Cáit i Roinn na Nua-Ghaeilge. Sa bhliain 2021, tar éis di céim sa Ghaeilge agus Ceol a bhaint amach ó Choláiste na hOllscoile, Corcaigh, rinne sí MA sa Nua-Ghaeilge. Bhí a miontráchtas bunaithe ar théamaí an mháithreachais agus an teaghlaigh i bhfilíocht Dhoireann Ní Ghríofa. Bronnadh Scoláireacht ICUF (Fondúireacht Ollscoil Éireann Ceanada) ar Cháit, agus chaith sí bliain ag obair i gCeanada. Bhí an deis aici an Ghaeilge a mhúineadh in Ollscoil Naomh Tomás i bhFredericton, New Brunswick.

Cáit Pléimionn is a PhD student in the Department of Modern Irish. Following her BA in Irish and Music in UCC, she earned an MA in Modern Irish in 2021. She wrote her thesis on the themes of motherhood and domesticity in the poetry of bilingual poet, Doireann Ní Ghríofa. Upon completion of the MA, Cáit was awarded an ICUF Scholarship (Ireland Canada University Foundation) and spent a year in Canada, teaching the Irish language and lecturing on Irish culture at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Proposal

Sa tionscadal seo, déanfar mionstaidéar ar chnuasach cáipéisí pearsanta agus lámhscríbhinní de chuid Pheadar Uí Annracháin, gníomhaí teanga agus ball de Chonradh na Gaeilge. Bronnadh an cnuasach seo ar Leabharlann Boole, Coláiste na hOllscoile, Corcaigh, le déanaí. Cuid ríthábhachtach den tionscadal seo is ea an clárú a dhéanfar ar ábhar an chnuasaigh. I measc na gcáipéisí atá sa chnuasach, tá leabhair nótaí ina ndéantar cur síos ar ról Uí Annracháin mar thimire le Conradh na Gaeilge, paidreacha agus seanmóirí, béaloideas, filíocht agus amhráin a bhailigh sé i rith a shaoil, a chuid véarsaíochta féin, lámhscríbhinní a thras-scríobh sé nó a bhí ina sheilbh aige, agus cáipéisí eile nach iad. Cuirfidh an taighde seo go mór le beathaisnéis Uí Annracháin. Tabharfar léargais nua ar a ghníomhaíochas teanga le linn athbheochan na Gaeilge, agus déanfar athbhreithniú ar insintí agus dearcthaí traidisiúnta ar an gcosmhuintir in Éirinn.

Cáit’s project will be conducted primarily through an in-depth study of an extensive collection of personal papers and manuscripts that belonged to Peadar Ó hAnnracháin, a dedicated Irish-language activist and Gaelic League member. The collection, which dates from 1897 to 1962, has recently been donated to the Boole Library, University College Cork. A crucial part of this project includes the cataloguing of this material, which includes notebooks detailing his significant role as timire (organiser) in the Gaelic League, Irish-language prayers, sermons, folklore, poems and songs that he collected, his own poetry, manuscripts he transcribed or had in his possession, and more. The research will significantly develop Ó hAnnracháin’s biography, providing new insights into his language activism during the Gaelic Revival period, and allowing for a re-evaluation of traditional narratives and perspectives of the agricultural working-class in Ireland.

Bio

Coran is an assistant principal and primary school teacher in Scoil Chill Ruadháin (Brooklodge National School) in Cork. In 2017, he received a Bachelor of Education from Mary Immaculate College (Limerick). In recent years, Coran completed both the PG Diploma in Educational Leadership and M. Ed. programmes at University College Cork. As a teacher and school leader, Coran has led the development of numerous initiatives and action research projects in his own school and other schools in Cork. These projects align with his primary research interests in coaching in education and professional learning. Coran has actively conducted research on educative coaching and presented the findings at multiple educational conferences.

Proposal

An international perspective on the development of coaching cultures in schools and the collaborative enactment of educative policy: A case study analysis

Though the positive benefits associated with coaching cultures in educational organisations abound, the intricacies of establishing them remain illusive and difficult to achieve. Through an interpretive and qualitative approach, this PhD research will draw upon the experiences of a national and international sample of school leaders to elicit the potential uses of coaching in Irish education. Utilising the Global Framework for Coaching in Education as a theoretical framework, this research will focus upon illuminating knowledge, experience, and practice related to coaching, particularly in the context of professional learning, exploring also the related areas of the student experience, educational leadership and wider-community engagement. To generate comprehensive data, this study will employ various research tools. Discourse analysis of key policy texts will provide valuable insights, while an immersive and thorough case study analysis will be conducted over a 12-month period. Semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and surveys will be employed intermittently during the case study analysis. This study's diverse and multi-contextual approach will enrich the research, enabling a comprehensive exploration of the various applications of coaching within Irish education. Moreover, this research will contribute to the increasingly collaborative posture of educational policymaking and promote coaching as a professional learning strategy in Ireland.