2016
Professor Peadar Kirby – Society for Irish Latin American Studies Inaugural Lecture
28th April – CACSSS Seminar Room, O’Rahilly Building, G27
Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies in association with the Society for Irish Latin American Studies
Inaugural Lecture
Professor Peadar Kirby
Latin American in Irish Higher Education:
New Paradigms?
Thursday, 28 April 2016 at 2 pm
CACSSS Seminar Room, O’Rahilly Building, G27
In this address, Peadar Kirby will discuss the neglect of Latin American studies in Irish higher education. In developing a case for devoting greater attention and resources to them, he will focus on the urgent need to contest the dominance of a technocratic and utilitarian view of the role of education. He will draw on the rise and trajectory of the ‘new left’ in Latin America to illustrate how studying the region can provide fresh perspectives to address contemporary dilemmas in Ireland.
Peadar Kirby is Professor Emeritus of International Politics and Public Policy at the University of Limerick from where he retired in 2012. Before joining UL in 2007, he was Associate Professor in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University. He is a former journalist with The Irish Times and, from 1984-86, was associate editor of Noticias Aliadas in Lima, Peru. A former secondary teacher, Peadar Kirby now lives in Ireland’s only ecovillage in Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary. He also holds the positions of adjunct professor in the Centre for Small State Studies in the University of Iceland, adjunct professor in the Network for Power, Politics and Society in the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and in the autumn of 2012 he held the UNESCO chair of South-North studies in the University of Valencia, Spain. He is currently writing a book on the political economy of climate change.