Conferences, Seminars and Workshops

Conferences, Workshops and Research Symposia

Both the staff and the graduate students of the Department of English are committed to sharing and furthering their research through activities such as conferences, symposia and workshops. Staff regularly organise conferences which reflect their ongoing research interests, and the Department's graduate students are also active in organizing events, including the Annual Bookends Postgraduate Conference.

2019 Conferences

49th IAAS Annual Conference, "Confidence Men and Huckster: Corruption and Governance", 12th and 13th April, University College Cork - organised by Dr Alan Gibbs and School of English postgraduate students.

2018

2018 Conferences

"Paranoia in the Americas: American Anxieties in a Transnational Context", University College Cork, 24 November 2018 - Organised by Dr Donna Alexander and Dr Miranda Corcoran

Drawing together literary scholars, cultural theorists, historians, political scientists and diverse thinkers from every discipline, this one-day symposium explored the role of paranoia in American culture and politics.

2017

Teachers of Old English in Britain and Ireland (TOBEI) 2017

School of English, University College Cork, Saturday 21 October, ORB G27

The annual conference and AGM of Teachers of Old English in Britain and Ireland will be held in the School of English, University College Cork on the theme of 'Old English Across Borders'.

Registrater for the conference here. See http://www.toebi.org.uk/ for more information about the organisation.

2016

Rediscovering the Vikings: Reception, Recovery, Engagement

Two-day conference and post-conference excursion, 25-26 November 2016, The Creative Zone, Boole Library, UCC

Organised by Dr Tom Birkett and Dr Roderick Dale, and funded by an Irish Research Council 'New Horizons' Grant.

This major international conference brought togather academics and enthusiasts with an interest in community engagement, cultural heritage and reception studies to discuss new approaches to the Viking Age and possibilities for involving the public in the study of the period.

Organised by Dr Anna Pilz and funded by the Irish Research Council

The workshop is free and open to all. Please email anna.pilz@ucc.ie to register.

Overview:

For those studying and researching Irish landscapes, there is a plethora of data and information available ranging from historic maps to GPS data, literary geographies, architectural and archaeological sources, oral histories and visual representations. What are the common codes and methodologies in this inherently inter-disciplinary research field?

https://www.ucc.ie/en/english/leh-workshop/

Annual Meeting of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures

25-29 July 2016

In 2016, UCC invited writers, practitioners and critics to address the shaping role of literature in Irish life and to consider the question of whether Irish Studies itself needs to change in the face of shifting social realities. In addition to the history of political, social and cultural change, the conference theme addresses temporalities of change; the literature of changed lives; the affective power of literature to generate change; the experience of migration and travel; and the languages, media and forms though which Irish literatures move across time and space.
Participants were invited to consider the topic in a wide range of ways, including: change as it is experienced between places, states and cultures, bearing in mind Ireland’s complex experience of inward and outward migration; changes across times and periods, in the context of political revolution; historical change; and theories of transmission and transformation; the changes that occur when Irish writing is adapted, digitized and translated; the changing history of media and cultural forms: adaptation, remediation, seriality and sequels; Continuities in Irish culture.

http://iasil2016.com

Frank O'Connor: A Real Story

10 March 2016

On Thursday 10th March 2016 we marked the 50th anniversary of the death of Frank O’Connor. With the support of the Irish Research Council, 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.

http://www.ucc.ie/en/english/frankoconnor/

2015

Workshop on Comparative Coastal Topographies

6-7 November 2015

Funded by an Irish Research Council New Foundations award, a workshop that asked what are the visual and literary codes and conventions that shaped the representation of coastal landscapes in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries and how did these emerge in the context of Britain’s overseas empire?

https://www.ucc.ie/en/english/coast/

Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society/An Cumann Éire San Ochtú Céad Déag: Annual Conference

12-14 June 2015, University College Cork

Plenary Lectures

Diarmaid Ó Catháin, ‘The Irish Language, the “Wild Geese,” and the Irish Colleges in Europe in the Eighteenth-century’

Prof. Christine Gerrard (Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford), ‘Swift’s Triumfeminate’

Prof. David Dickson (TCD), ‘A peculiar silence: Cork city and Catholic relief 1755-95’

The full conference programme and registration details are available here

The conference is held in association with the School of English, UCC the School of History, UCC, and Scoil Léann na Gaeilge, UCC.

Queries should be addressed to the conference organiser:

Dr Clíona Ó Gallchoir, School of English, University College Cork.

E-mail: c.gallchoir@ucc.ie

2014

From eald to new: Translating early medieval poetry for the 21st century

6-7 June 2014

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This interdisciplinary conference will explore various aspects of the translation of Old English, Old Irish and Old Norse poetry, and the teaching of translation in the modern university setting.

It will combine papers on the practicalities of translation with theoretical, historical and pedagogical approaches to the reworking and reception of medieval texts.

It is being organised by Dr Tom Birkett and Dr Kirsty March, and will be held in UCC on 6-7 June 2014.

The call for papers and more information about the conference theme can be found on the website, http://fromealdtonew2014.wordpress.com/

Ireland and Ecocriticism

19-21 June 2014.

Keynote Speakers

Christine Cusick, editor of Out of the Earth: Ecocritical Readings of Irish Texts

Oona Frawley, author of Irish Pastoral: Nostalgia and Twentieth-Century Irish Literature

Featured Poet

Sinéad Morrissey, Belfast Poet Laureate

To submit an abstract, contact Dr Maureen O'Connor at maureen.oconnor@ucc.ie

The full Call for Papers can be downloaded here Ecocriticism CFP (132kB)

For further information see irelandecocriticism.wordpress.com

Follow the conference on Twitter @IrishEcocritic and Facebook: www.facebook.com/irelandecocriticism

Populating the Irish stage: Questioning the identity of contemporary Irish theatre (1990s-2014)

27-28 June 2014

Confirmed Participants:

Frank McGuinness

Patrick Mason

Louise Lowe

‘We write plays, I feel, in order to populate the stage’. (Thomas Kilroy)

Papers are invited for an international conference to be held at UCC, June 27th-28th, 2014. Coinciding with the Cork Midsummer Festival, the conference will explore the identities of Irish theatre from the Celtic Tiger era to the current economic crisis. It will also offer a fitting opportunity to engage a dialogue between theatre practitioners and academics, notably through a roundtable with established and emerging artists.

The full Call for Papers is available at the Conference website: http://wp.me/p4jicZ-4

The deadline for proposals is 22 March, 2014. Please send abstracts (250-300 words) and short bios to the conference co-organisers:

Dr. Anne Etienne, School of English, University College Cork (Ireland)

Professor Susan Blattès, RADAC (groupe de Recherche sur les Arts Dramatiques Anglophones Contemporains), University Stendhal Grenoble 3 (France)

Professor Thierry Dubost, ERIBIA/GREI, University of Caen-Basse Normandie (France)

populatingirishstages@umail.ucc.ie

Selected papers will be published in a collection of essays.

Ireland, Wales, and the First World War: History, Myth, and Cultural Memory

10-12 September

Prof Claire Connolly of UCC is one of the co-organizers of this interdisciplinary conference which will be hosted by the Wales-Ireland Research Network at Cardiff University on September 10-12, 2014. For further details and the Call for Papers, please click on the link below.

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/encap/research/networks/wales-ireland/

2013

The Limits of the Archive: Classification, Management, Digitization.

16 May 2013.

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Speakers: Dr John Keating, NUI Maynooth, and Dr Justin Tonra, NUI Galway. Conference funded by the Irish Research Council under the New Foundations scheme. Conference Organizers: Dr Mary O'Connell mary.connell@ucc.ie and Dr Carrie Griffin carrie.griffin@ucc.ie

Workshop on the History, Theory and Culture of Roads. 2-3 May 2013.

The workshop focused on developing our undertsanding of the role of infrastructure in British-Irish relations from the eighteenth century to the present, with a particular focus on Wales. Road building and road improvement projects are a key marker of Welsh and Irish modernity. Often thought of in terms of oppressive systems of state or colonial authority, roads facilitate the flow of people and ideas between marginal communities and often provied the routes along which national and regional identities were formed. The contradictory roles played by roads in relation to nationality - emblems and operators of state or imperial authority; mobilizers of intimacy and exchange; routes along which transnational trade and enterprise could flow - provide rich materials for critical reflection. Funded by the Irish Research Council under the New Foundations scheme, with additional funding from the College of ACSSS, UCC and Cardiff University. Conference Organizer: Prof Claire Connolly.

Ireland and Cinema: Culture and Contexts. 18-20 April 2013.

A 3-day international conference facilitating discussions, presentations and debates across a wide spectrum of subjects in the broadest definition of the field of “Ireland and Cinema”. Key note speakers:

Dr Ruth Barton (Trinity College Dublin)
Prof. Brian McIlroy (University of British Columbia, Vancouver)
Prof. Martin McLoone (University of Coleraine)
Prof. Diane Negra (University College Dublin)

Conference Organizer: Barry Monahan, Film Studies, UCC: b.monahan@ucc.ie

Migration, Multiculturalism and Contemporary Childhoods

Conference and Networking Event. 27 April 2013.

The focus of this conference is how Ireland’s increasing diversity is reflected in the lives of children. Questions asked include: how is bilingualism accommodated? How are children affected by Irish laws on citizenship? What are the experiences of the children of asylum seekers living in direct provision centres? Does reading material for children reflect cultural diversity? How can schools be more inclusive? Are cultural and arts organisations engaging with children from diverse backgrounds? Funded by the Irish Research Council under the New Foundations scheme. Conference Organizer: Clíona Ó Gallchoir.

Reframing Cinema Histories Symposium. 22 March 2013.

A one-day symposium focused on historical approaches to the study of cinema. Proponents of the 'historical turn' in film studies and what is called the new cinema history have repeatedly called for an interdisciplinary research model and for practices that require the use of a wide range of primary sources, but as the contexts in which we work evolve, how is our research and our field of study developing? Symposium Organizers: Pierluigi Ercole (UCC) and Gwenda Young (UCC).

2012

Cinema in the Interstices. 7-9 September 2012. The inaugural Alphaville conference was held to mark the successful launch of UCC's film journal, Alphaville. Keynote speakers: Raymond Bellour (Director of Research Emeritus, CNRS) and Angela Dalle Vacche (Georgia Institute of Technology). Conference Organizers: Abigail Keating, Deborah Mellamphy, Jill Murphy, Aidan Power

American Alternatives/Alternative Americas: Annual conference of the Irish Association for American Studies. 27-28 April 2012. Conference Organizer: Dr Alan Gibbs.

"Rhyme and Reason": IRCHSS-funded Workshops on Memory Skills and Poetry Analysis. February-March 2012. Workshop Organizers: Siobhan Collins and James Carney.

2011

Digital Cultures. 29-30 September 2011. As part of the College of ACSSS Research Showcase Month and in connection with the Forfas research cluster on Digital Cultures, this workshop examined how digitality supports, augments, and acts as a catalyst for the transformation of data into knowledge. Event Organizers: Prof Brendan Dooley (CACSSS), Dr Orla Murphy (School of English) and Mike Cosgrave (School of History).

School of English PhD Slam. 15 September 2011. The community of emerging scholarship at the School of English presents a PhD Slam - 55 researchers will showcase their creative and innovative new scholarship in an all day event. Event Organizer: Dr Orla Murphy.

"Queering Ireland: Coming Out in Contemporary Ireland." 25-26 July 2011. Jointly sponsored by the School of English UCC and St Mary's College, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Conference Organizers: Eibhear Walshe (UCC) and Sean Kennedy (St Mary's, Halifax). Plenary Speakers: Emma Donoghue and Margot Gayle Backus.

"Crisis: Bookends Annual Graduate Conference." 30-31 May 2011. Conference Organizers: Miranda Corcoran and Emilie Peneau.

"Living on the Edge: Inspiration, Imagination, Vision": Borderlines XV Annual Graduate Conference in Medieval Studies. 15-16 April, 2011.

2010

Saving Private Reels: An International Conference on the Presentation, Appropriation and Re-contextualisation of the Amateur Moving Image University College Cork, 17-19 September 2010. Conference Organizers: Gwenda Young, Barry Monahan, Laura Rascaroli. Keynote Speakers: Roger Odin and Patricia Zimmermann.

Transgressions: Bookends Annual Graduate Conference. 31 May-1 June 2010. Organizing Committee: Michael Waldron, Deborah Mellaphy, Miranda Corcoran, Niamh O’Mahony, Emilie Péneau, Avril Buchanan, Carmel Murphy, Kate Kirwan, James Cummins, Jesse Dorington, Bairbre Walsh, Colin Lahive, Patrice Reidy and Stanley Arthur Murphy

2009

"Elizabeth Bowen: Visions and Revisions." 7 November, 2009. Conference Organizer: Eibhear Walshe. Plenary Speaker: Claire Wills.

(Re)Interpretations: Bookends Annual Graduate Conference. 9-10 June, 2009. Conference Organizers:

2008

"The Lonely Voice": The 10th International Conference on the Short Story. UCC School of English in Association with the Triskel Arts Centre. 19-21 June 2008. Conference Organizers: Colbert Kearney (UCC); Ann Luttrell (Triskel). Participants: Edna O’Brien, Tobias Wolff, Robert Olen Butler and Bharati Mukherjee.

"Making Books, Shaping Readers" 2-4 April, 2008. Conference Organizers: Graham Allen, Siobhan Collins, Carrie Griffin, Mary O'Connell.

2007

"Making Books, Shaping Readers" 18-20 April 2007. Conference Organizers: Graham Allen, Siobhan Collins, Carrie Griffin, Mary O'Connell.

English Department

Roinn an Bhéarla

O'Rahilly Building, University College Cork, Cork. Ireland