ACIS Conference: De-Hibernicizing Irish Studies

Friday, October 13, 2023 - Sunday, October 15, 2023 | Connolly House | Boston College |

Please note that this conference will only be available to attend in person and will not be streamed online.

Boston College strongly encourages conference participants to receive the COVID-19 vaccination before attending events on campus.
ACIS Conference: De-Hibernicizing Irish Studies

The 2023 ACIS New England & Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference will take place at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA on October 13-15.

The theme for the conference is 'De-Hibernicizing Irish Studies'. Whereas the Irish Revival, asadvocated by Douglas Hyde, was driven by an introspective ‘necessity for de-Anglicizing Ireland’, it is now timely for Irish Studies to focus on how Ireland and Irish diasporas relate toglobal/international issues of current relevance. We welcome submissions from any academicfield or time period addressing the theme. We would like to specifically highlight topics of race,migration, environment, reproductive rights, and geopolitics as the conference intends to explorethe implications of such currently relevant issues for redefining Irishness.

As part of our initiative to update Irish Studies, this double-regional ACIS will experiment with 'unconference' formats in which participants will present their work in a variety of interactivesessions. We hope that these more flexible and participant-oriented formats will create a spacefor more in-depth discussion, greater peer collaboration, and increased cross-disciplinaryconversations. We encourage participants to consider presenting their work in these sessions, which will be allotted the same weight as ‘traditional’ conference presentations. We also urgeparticipants at every academic stage to consider engaging with an ‘unconference’ format – noprevious experience with such format is necessary. The planning committee will facilitate organizing and explaining all ‘unconference’ formatting to participants. To get a general idea inadvance, you can visit this site for information and examples on .

Note registration deadline is October 1, 2023.

Any registration after October 1 will include a$20 late fee.

Schedule and Registration

Friday, October 13, 2023| Multiple Locations | Pleaseto attend

3:00-5:00 PM

Registration |Connolly House

5:00-5:30 PM

Opening Remarks | Burns Library

  • ‘Welcome,’ Dean Gregory Kalscheur, S.J., Boston College
  • ‘Greetings,’ Síghle FitzGerald, Consul General of Ireland, Boston
  • ‘The Necessity of De-Hibernicizing Irish Studies?’ Guy Beiner, Sullivan Chair of Irish Studies, Boston College
5:30-6:30 PM

Interactive Book Event | Burns Library

The Irish Revival: A Complex Vision, edited by Joseph Valente and Marjorie Howes

6:30-8:00 PM

Opening Reception | Burns Library

Saturday, October 14, 2023 | Multiple Locations | Please to attend

9:00-9:30 AM

Breakfast | Stokes South

9:30-11:00 AM

Panel 1 | Stokes South

  • Queer Literature, Film, & Drama - Room 103
  • Literary Examinations - Room 105
  • Irish America - Room 107
  • Energies for Small and Midsize Irish Studies Programs - Room 109
  • Yeats’ Nobel Prize at 100 - Room 111
  • Collectivism, Trauma, and Appropriation - Room 113
11:20 AM-12:20 PM

Panel 2 | Stokes South

  • Irish Language Poetry - Room 103
  • Irish American Activism - Room 105
  • Northern Ireland: The GFA and Beyond - Room 107
  • Kinship Workshop - Room 109
  • Feminist Interventions: Legitimizing Irish Women Writers- Room 111
  • Mapping & Spacing in Irish Literature - Room 113
12:20-1:40 PM

Lunch | Stokes South

1:40-3:10 PM

Panel 3 | Stokes South

  • Writing & Performing a Climate Crisis - Room 103
  • The Irish Language in Print & on Screen - Room 105
  • Getting Started in Digital Irish Studies - Room 107
  • Immigrating to America - Room 109
  • 21st Century Ireland: The Newest Revisions - Room 111
  • Creating Historical ‘Irishness’ - Room 113
3:30-4:30 PM

Panel 4 | Stokes South

  • Irish Literature & Globalization - Room 103
  • Irish and Irish-American Radicalism - Room 105
  • Domestic Service in Irish Literature - Room 107
  • Ireland & Race, In Print & On Stage - Room 109
  • De-Hibernicizing Irish America - Room 111
5:15-6:30 PM

Keynote | Stokes S195

  • ‘The Sustainability Paradigm in Irish Literature & Culture,’ Malcolm Sen
6:30-8:30 PM

Conference Dinner | Gasson 100

Sunday, October 15, 2023 | Stokes South | Please to attend

9:00-9:45 AM

Breakfast | Stokes South

9:45-11:15 AM

Panel 5, 9:45-11:15 am, Stokes South

  • Contemporary Women’s Fiction- Room 103
  • Irish Literature in America - Room 105
  • Irish Literature & the Environmental Humanities - Room 107
11:45-1:00 PM

Keynote | Stokes S195

  • ‘Racial Dynamics, Decolonial Praxis, & Reparative Remembering in Irish Screen Narratives,’ Zélie Asava
1:00-2:00 PM

Lunch | Stokes South

Speakers

Dr Zélie Asava

Dr Zélie Asava

Dr Zélie Asava is a specialist in questions of race, gender, screen studies and visual culture. She is the author of The Black Irish Onscreen: Representing Black and Mixed-Race Identities on Irish Film and Television (Peter Lang, 2013) and Mixed Race Cinemas: Multiracial Dynamics in America and France (Bloomsbury, 2017), and co-editor of a Special Issue of the Journal of Scandinavian Cinema on black and ethnic minority representation (2022). She has held teaching and research positions at University College Dublin and Dundalk Institute of Technology (where she was Programme Director of the BA in Film Production and the BA in Creative Multimedia), as well as at Trinity College Dublin and Dún Laoghaire’s Institute of Art, Design and Technology. She sits on the Boards of Screen Ireland, the Irish Film Institute, the journal French Screen Studies, Catalyst International Film Festival and the arts magazine Unapologetic, works for the Irish Film Classification Office and is a member of the European Commission’s ‘Capital of Culture’ panel of experts.

Malcolm Sen

Malcolm Sen

Malcolm Sen is associate professor in the Department of English. His work focuses on the role of non-STEM disciplines in confronting the multi-scalar challenges of the climate crisis. His research is especially focused on the changing nature of political governance, at local, national, and international levels because of climate pressures. He is also a scholar of race politics and is interested in the transforming landscape of violence, warfare, and migrancy in the twenty-first century.  He directs the Environmental Humanities Specialization in the Department of English and leads the Environmental Humanities Initiative at UMass Amherst.

He is the editor (with Lucienne Loh) ofPostcolonial Studies and Challenges of the New Millennium(Routledge, 2016).He is the editor ofThe History of Irish Literature and the Environment(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022); andRace in Irish Literature and Culture(with Julie McCormick Weng) to be published by Cambridge University Press in January 2024. Sen’s monographUnnatural Disasters: Irish Literature, Climate Change and Sovereigntyis under review.

Recent articles include “An Ordinary Crisis: Covid-19 and Irish Studies” in Mike Cronin et al., Eds.,A Handbook of Irish Studies(Routledge, 2021);“Sovereignty at the Margins: The Oceanic Future of the Subaltern,” in Barbara Haberkamp-Schmidt, Ed.,Representing Poverty and Precarity in a Postcolonial World(Amsterdam: Brill, 2022); “Joyce and Race in the Twenty-First Century” in Catherine Flynn, Ed.,TheNew Joyce Studies:Twenty-First Century Critical Revisions(Cambridge University Press, 2022).

His forthcoming essay “Climate Wars in the Anthropocene: Migrant Lives and Militarized Statehood,” will be published in Sharae Deckard, Kerstin Oloff, and Treasa DeLoughrey, Eds.,Routledge Companion on Literature and the Environment(London and New York: Routledge, 2023).

Hotel, Campus Map and Parking

Accommodation:

The AC Hotel Boston Cleveland Circle has set aside a discounted block of rooms for conference participants.

You must register before September 27 in order to receive the discounted rate.

Campus Map and Parking:

Parking is available at the nearby Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue Garages.

Boston College is also accessible via public transportation (MBTA B Line - Boston College).

Directions, Maps, and Parking

Visitor Parking Information

Boston College strongly encourages conference participants to receive the COVID-19 vaccination before attending events on campus.