AMERICAN CONFERENCE for IRISH STUDIES, INC.
 formerly AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR IRISH STUDIES
FOUNDED 1960

LIMERICK 2000

Arrangements for ACIS Limerick 2000 are being finalized. As of now, over 170 people have registered for the conference. The local organizers wish to stress that registrations are still being accepted; however, rooms in the selected hotels at the specially negotiated rates cannot be guaranteed after April 1. Unreserved rooms will be released to the hotels on that date or shortly thereafter.

The President of Ireland's office has confirmed that Mary McAleese will open the conference officially on Tuesday evening, June 27. The official opening will be followed by a gala concert in the University Concert Hall featuring, in the first half, songs associated with the life and writings of James Joyce to be introduced by Senator David Norris. The songs will be sung by Sinéad Blanchfield (one of the 'three Irish sopranos') and Declan Kelly (tenor). The second part of the concert will feature contemporary arrangements of Irish music played by Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin and a chamber ensemble drawn from members of the Irish Chamber Orchestra. Poetry Ireland/Éigse Éireann have confirmed that Dermot Healy, Ciaran Carson and Moya Cannon will be reading from their work on Thursday evening, June 29. Other poets or musicians may be added to the line-up and the poets/musicians will be introduced by Theo Dorgan, director of Poetry Ireland/Éigse Éireann. The most popular destinations for excursions listed by those who have registered so far are the Burren, followed by South Galway, with the Cork Gaeltacht and Monastic Midlands an equal third.

There will be book displays by Irish and US publishers throughout the week. There will also be an 'Old, Rare and Secondhand Bookfair' all day on Thursday, June 29. Secondhand booksellers from all over Ireland will be invited to have stalls at this bookfair. Those attending the conference should note that the award-winning play, 'Pigtown' by Mike Finn, giving a vivid portrayal of life in Limerick from the beginning of the 20th century to its end, will be returning to the Belltable Arts Centre, O'Connell Street, Limerick (Tel. 011-353-61-31 9866) in June and will be running during the week of June 26 to July 1.

The conference will conclude with the banquet in the Bunratty Fitzpatrick Hotel some six miles from Limerick on Saturday, July 1. Bus transfers will be arranged between the University and Bunratty before and after the banquet. As previously announced, Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh will be the guest speaker and ACIS Limerick 2000 will conclude with dancing to the music of Brass & Co. from Waterford, a very popular band for dinner dances and other functions, who trace their origins back to the showband era in the '60s and '70s.

Further details will be available on the ACIS Limerick 2000 Web site <http://www.ul.ie/~acis2000/> which will be updated in March and May. Further copies of the Final Notice for the conference can be requested from Lucy Imbusch, Conference Secretary, at imbusch@iol.ie The conference organizers look forward to welcoming ACIS to Limerick on June 26.

 IN MEMORIAM ADELE DALSIMER

It was with considerable sorrow that we learned of the passing Feb. 13 of Professor Adele Dalsimer, who co-founded and co-directed Boston College's Irish Studies program. In 1978 Adele and and Prof. Kevin O'Neill created the program, 'believing that Irish culture, history and literature should be taught and viewed as an integral academic discipline. The ground-breaking program provided opportunities for both undergraduates and graduate students to study in Ireland, thanks to Irish Studies' collaborations with the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and at universities in Cork, Dublin, Galway and Belfast, among others' (from The Boston College Chronicle, 2/17/2000, obituary). Prof. Dalsimer's books included The Unappeasable Shadow: Shelley's Influence on Yeats (1988) and Kate O'Brien: A Critical Study (1990).

In recent years she had begun to focus on Irish visual arts, contributing to exhibitions at the McMullen Museum of Art, and editing several volumes dedicated to interdisciplinary analysis of the Irish arts. All of us in Irish Studies owe a tremendous debt to her painstaking work, and those of us privileged to know Adele will miss her greatly.

PRESIDENT'S REPORT

Dear Fellow Members,

The Executive Committee approved the two reports printed below, which may provoke further discussion at our upcoming general business meeting at Limerick. First is the report of the Election Procedures Committee (Michael Gillespie, Robert Mahony, and Lucy McDiarmid), which, as amended by the full Executive Committee, transforms oral history and tradition into specific guidelines for the vice-president and nomination committee. Appended a minority report objecting to that provision of the guidelines that stipulates that no more than two people shall appear on the ballot for each office.

The second report comes from the Publications Committee (Michael Gillespie, Charles Fanning, and Guinn Batten) and recommends that ACIS not renew its contract with the University of Massachusetts Press to publish the ACIS Annual. While we have already produced two very strong volumes, and a third is in the works, our confidence in producing future volumes has been undermined by the sheer difficulty of finding editors and contributors. Concerned that ACIS have a strong publishing profile, however, we have asked a new subcommittee (Robert Mahony, Guinn Batten, and David Miller) to explore the possibilities of launching an journal. The Finance Committee (Monica Brennan, Timothy Meagher, and Audrey Eyler) are also considering occasional publishing ventures.

These two reports will most definitely be on the agenda at Limerick. Those of who will not be attending the meeting are encouraged to contact your representative on the Executive Committee if you wish to have your voice heard on either question. All of us can be contacted via our Web site - www.acisweb.com.

Collegially,

Nancy Curtin

 Election Procedures

Area 1. Appointment of the Nominations Committee

A. The Nominations Committee shall be made up of five members, and chaired by the ACIS vice president.

B. Those selected for the Nominations Committee shall have been ACIS members for the four consecutive years preceding appointment.

C. In forming the committee, the ACIS president will select four people who with the vice-president will make up the full committee. The president shall then submit those four names to the Executive Committee for its approval.

D. The president's choices shall reflect the diversity of ACIS membership. In selecting members of the committee president shall remain attentive to academic field, generation, and gender.

 Area 2. Nominations

A. The call for nominations shall appear on the front page of the fall issue of the ACIS newsletter preceding the election. It shall be simultaneously posted on the ACIS Web site.

B. Anyone who is a current member of ACIS may nominate any other current member.

C. A person may nominate only one candidate for each elected office.

D. A nomination shall be considered to have taken effect when the nominee has submitted the Form for Candidacy which will be available on the ACIS website. This Form will include the ACIS office sought, the nominator's name, the nominee's address(es), length of ACIS membership, current professional position, prior service to ACIS in an elected or appointed capacity, other ACIS involvement, professional honors and awards, publications in book form, three most important articles, other Irish Studies service or involvement, and any other information deemed pertinent by the Nominations Committee. The completed form will serve as the source of biographical information about the nominee for all purposes of the Nominations Committee.

Area 3. Slating

A. Nominations are due on 1 December. Ballots will be mailed to current ACIS members by 31 January.

B. Members of the Nominating Committee may nominate candidates.

C. Any current ACIS member (i.e., dues paid in full for the current academic year as of 1 December) may be nominated for an elected position with only the following exception.

1. No member of the Nominating Committee may be nominated for any of the elected positions.

D. If it is not possible to find at least two candidates for an elected office, the ballot shall be run with only one. Before publishing the slate, however, the committee shall, beginning on 1 December when nominations have been closed, solicit more candidates for any office for which only one was nominated.

E. The Committee shall rank candidates for each elected office. The rankings and the reasons shall be kept confidential.

F. The committee shall slate two candidates for all offices. The committee may slate one candidate for an office only if all the procedures listed in III.D have been followed and no other acceptable nominee is found. The vice-president shall vote only to break a tie.

Area 4. Election Procedures

A. The information about candidates that is printed on the ballots shall be taken exactly as typed on the Form for Candidacy by candidates themselves. The candidates shall be informed of the deadline after which the information on the Form for Candidacy shall be printed on the ballots.

B. The vice president shall prepare ballots based on the committee's slating. Each ballot shall be marked in some way to prevent photocopying or other tampering. (Colored numbering has been used in the past. That practice shall be continued unless and until a better procedure is found.) Before mailing the ballots, the vice president shall give the members of the Nominations Committee a final opportunity to read the complete text of the ballots, in case there are any errors or omissions.

C. No later than January 31, the vice-president shall mail ballots, and copies of the biographical information about the candidates as set forth in their entries on the Form for Candidacy, to all current ACIS members.

Current membership shall be determined by the ACIS treasurer who will provide mailing labels with the names and addresses of current members.

Ballot papers will be machine-readable, and when completed will be returned no later than March 15 to the appropriate and designated technological office at the university of an agreed member of the committee, where they will be counted and the votes tallied.

D. No later than March 22, the technological office shall open and count all ballots, certify the results of this count, and transmit those results to the vice president. The technological office shall retain all ballots until directed by the president of ACIS to send them to the ACIS archives at Boston College.

E. After all candidates, both winners and losers, have been notified of the results by the vice president, those results, shall be published on the ACIS Web site. The tally shall be circulated among the Executive Committee, recorded by the secretary in the Executive Committee minutes, and held as confidential information.

 17 November 1999

The motion to adopt the Elections Committee report was approved.

YES: Gillespie, Brennan, Watt, Bitel, Moran, Conrad, Bizot, Eyler,

Batten, Miller, Meagher (11)

NO: none

ABSTAIN: Mahony, Johnston (2)

NOT VOTING: McDiarmid, Owens (2)

 Dissenting opinion (Mahony, Johnston), submitted 21 December 1999:

SLATING MINORITY REPORT

If we believe in the principle of democracy, we ought to believe in free and open elections to underpin it in practice, in any society, whatever its size. Certainly democratic practice ought to characterize the American Conference for Irish Studies, but a majority of the ACIS Executive Committee has recommended a system for electing ACIS officers (the vice-president and discipline representatives) which in fact denies the principle of open, democratic elections. The recommended procedure does, indeed, allow that any ACIS member of four years' standing may be nominated for any office by the membership at large. But not all such nominees would then be presented to the ACIS membership as candidates for those offices. Instead, if more than two nominees for a single office are proposed by the general body of ACIS members, a committee appointed by the ACIS president must eliminate all but two from that group of nominees. Each member of this appointed committee - not necessarily composed of persons who have themselves been elected to any office - ranks the three or more nominees, according to criteria not specified, and these rankings determine which two candidates will go forward for election. Thus, a non-elected committee is empowered to veto the candidacy of one or more properly qualified nominees, on whatever grounds they deem important.

This is guided democracy, compromised democracy: an elite group chooses who the ACIS membership can vote for. The intention is to allow only two candidates for any office, thereby ensuring that one of them will win the majority of the votes. This is certainly efficient, but it is hardly democratic.

We consider instead that the members of ACIS should be allowed to vote for any person properly qualified and nominated for office. Occasionally, even frequently, this would mean that three or more candidates would run for a single office, and none would win an absolute majority of members' votes. That situation often arises in U.S. democratic electoral practice, and is dealt with either by accepting as the winner the candidate with the largest number of votes (a plurality), or by holding a run-off election between the two candidates with the highest number of votes. Some organizations, while adopting one or the other of these procedures, reduce the chances of a crowded field of candidates by stipulating that a valid nomination for candidacy should be supported by a petition or nominating form signed by a certain number of members.

But the majority of the Executive Committee of ACIS refused to consider nominating petitions, accepting a plurality or holding a run-off election to determine the winner in a race among more than two candidates. They chose instead to have an elite group determine before an election who may be allowed to become a candidate: the technique of "guided democracy."

We hope that those members of ACIS present for the Business Meeting at the Limerick Conference next June will support our attempt to amend the ACIS elections procedures and empower the membership to exercise their right to actual democracy when voting for ACIS officers.

 Publications Committee Report

1. At present, Colin Ireland and Maria Tymockzo are in the process of preparing an edition of an ACIS Annual entitled Celtic Ireland. Its appearance will fulfill the contractual obligations that ACIS has with U Mass Press.

2. With that obligation fulfilled we do not recommend renewing the ACIS/U Mass Press contract. The following reasons have contributed to our decision:

A. Based upon the annual's publication history, it will take approximately two years to bring an edition into print.

B. With no one other than Tymockzo/Ireland coming forward with a proposal, it does not seem prudent to obligate ourselves to an additional prescribed number of volumes.

3. We do see the benefit of sustaining a program of publication, and we offer the following proposal to do so:

A. The ACIS Executive Committee should announce our willing- ness to produce occasional volumes whenever a suitable proposal for such a volume has been approved by the Executive Committee.

B. Whenever such a proposal is approved, the proposal's author will be designated as volume editor.

C. The editor will be responsible for:

1. Soliciting contributions of top notch essays for the volume.

2. Preparing in a timely fashion a manuscript of an appropriate length made up of first-rate contributions.

3. Submitting the finished MS (hardcopy and disk) to the ACIS Executive Committee.

D. The Executive Committee will:

Approve a volume review committee proposed by the ACIS president.

E. The review commitee will:

1. Review and approve or reject individual essays.

2. Work with the volume editor to revise as needed any essays judged of insufficient quality for inclusion or to find alternative essays as substitutes.

F. The ACIS vice-president will:

Supervise the desktop publication of the volume and mail it to all ACIS members.

30 November 1999

The motion to adopt the Publications Committee report was carried by the following vote.

YES: Gillespie, Brennan, Watt, Moran, Miller, Conrad, Eyler, Bizot,

Batten (9)

NO: none.

ABSTAIN: Bitel, Mahony, Johnston (3)

NOT VOTING: Meagher, McDiarmid, Owens (3)

 REGIONAL MEETINGS

New England

This year's New England regional conference will be held at the College of Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, on Friday and Saturday, September 29-30. The conference theme will be '20th- Century Ireland: A Retrospective.' The host is Jim Flynn, and the program co-ordinator Conor Johnston. Paper and panel proposals should be sent by May 31 to Dr Conor Johnston, Massasoit Community College, Brockton, MA 02302.

 Midwest

The 2000 Midwest Regional Conference will be held at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, on October 13-14, 2000. The theme of the conference is "Politics, Culture and Identity in Ireland and Irish-America." The plenary speaker will be Professor David Miller. The aim of this multi-disciplinary conference is to explore the intersection and inter-relationship of politics, culture and identity in Ireland and Irish-America. Contributors might address this theme through history, literature, philosophy/ideas, ideology, geography, sociology, religion, gender, race, as well as its representation in music and the visual arts. As always, the Midwest Regional will consider papers outside of its formal theme and encourages the participation of graduate students. The organizers are hoping to publish the proceedings of the conference.

Oakland University is located in the northern suburbs of Detroit. The site of this year's meeting is Oakland University's historic Meadowbrook Hall, a 100-room mansion once belonging to the wealthiest woman in the United States, Matilda Dodge Wilson. A national historic landmark, the house is widely recognized as an architectural masterpiece, and has been featured on national television as one of "America's Castles." It also contains a gourmet restaurant which will house the meeting's banquet on Friday evening.

Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes in length. Already formed panels are encouraged. If you wish to participate, please send a title and an abstract of not more than 100 words, before July 15, 2000, to Dr. Seán Farrell Moran, Department of History, Oakland University, Rochester, MI 48309-4401; tel. (248) 370-3533; fax (248) 370- 3528; moran@oakland.edu

Mid-Atlantic

The Fall 2000 meeting will be held at the College of Mount St. Vincent in New York City next October 27-28. The Keynote speaker will be Prof. Nicholas Grene of Trinity College, Dublin, on "Yeats and Dates," and the general theme of the conference will have to do with "The Irish and Unions": e.g., the Union with Britain (200 years old on January 1, 2001), the Irish in the Union Army in the American Civil War, in the labor movement on both sides of the Atlantic, in the European Union, and Irish Unionism (including the UUP, DUP, UKUP, etc.). Proposals on the theme of 'unions,' broadly defined, are welcome from a literary or sociological, as well as historical/political perspective. In terms of literature, this theme would embrace papers on the themes of love, family, attachment to place or to political or social causes. Abstracts should be received by May 15 by: Robert Mahony, Irish Studies, Catholic University, Washington DC 20064, or by email to MAHONY@cua.edu.

Western

Central Washington University hosted the Western Regional meeting, October 22-24, 1999. Organized by Virginia Mack and her colleague from Yakima Community College, Shannon Hopkins, various neighboring and university groups helped to fund readings by poets Tess Gallagher and Siobhán Campbell to large and appreciative audiences. Ireland's Consul to San Francisco, Kevin Conmy, generously sponsored a reception.

Saturday=s opening session honored Berkeley professor emeritus Robert Tracy for his long, distinguished career in Irish studies and his loyal support of ACIS; a panel of Bob's colleagues gave celebratory papers from selected essays in his latest publication, The Unappeasable Host. In addition to a dozen other academic papers, many like Bob's book in dealing with questions of Irish identity, members were treated to a dramataic reading from Damian Gorman's Loved Ones, performed by Charlotte Headrick and Trischa Goodnow of Oregon State University.

Among the agenda at the business meeting, members discussed ways to promote the participation of graduate students at regional ACIS meetings. These included our sending representatives to the annual Irish Graduate Students Conference in March. Charlotte Headrick was elected to the office of secretary-treasurer, replacing Audrey Eyler, who moved into the presidential chair vacated by Ann Owens Weekes, who was applauded for her superb leadership over the past two years.

This year's meeting will take place October 13-15 in Gig Harbor, WA, and on the campus of Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. The theme will be "Ireland's Children." Among the featured participants will be Irish children's literature specialists, Robert Dunbar and Celia Anderson, and writer Laurel Holliday. Abstracts or drafts should be sent by July 25 to Audrey Eyler, Dept. Of English, Pacific Lutheran Univ., Tacoma, WA 98447-0003 (eyleras@plu.edu). Graduate students are welcome at discounted prices.

Southern

The tenth annual meeting of the Southern Region of the ACIS was held February 4-7, 2000, aboard the Carnival Ecstasy, sailing from Miami, FL, to Nassau in the Bahamas and back. The group consisted of 71 individuals, including a number of partners and children who came from 18 states as well as England and Ireland.

Many of the 27 papers, presented in seven sessions (none of them concurrent), pertained to the conference theme, "The Irish in the Atlantic World: A Celtic-Caribbean Odyssey", focussing on the Irish diaspora. Highlights of the meeting includes a poetry reading by Cathal Ó Searcaigh; a song performance by Lillis Ó Laoire; a dramatic reading of Gardner McKay's Sea Marks by John Countryman and Charlotte Headrick; a poetry reading by Nathalie Anderson, Kathryn Kirkpatrick, David Lloyd and John Menaghan; and a tour of Nassau and Paradise Island, including several 18th-century forts and the new Atlantis Hotel, with a marvellous built-in aquarium. The meeting was organized by Jim Doan, and the program was organized by Mary Donnelly.

 AHA

The ACIS session in Chicago went very well. The session attracted close to 50 people. Raymond Gillespie was not able to make it, but James Donnelly gave a superb paper and Ellen Skerret an equally superb slide show presentation. A lively discussion followed. Emmett Larkin presided with grace, charm and good humor. The session's success is a testament to the participants, but also to Gary Owens, the former representative for the discipline of history, who did such a terrific job in putting it together. The ACIS reception followed the session, was attended by about 30 people, and lasted from 5 to 8 p.m.

MLA

The following are the subjects for the ACIS sessions at the 2000 MLA, to be held in Washington, D.C.: "The Irish Gothic and Modernity" and "Material Histories and Modern Irish Poetry." Abstracts should be sent by March 15, 2000, to Guinn Batten at mgbatten@artsci.wustl.edu or English Department, Box 1122, Washington University, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130.

GUIDE TO IRISH STUDIES IN THE UNITED STATES

Please send updates to the Guide to Irish Studies in the United States to ACIS secretary Katie Conrad (kconrad@ukans.edu). Check the ACIS Web site (http://www.acisweb.com/guide.html) and the format before suggesting changes.

 ILS E-MAIL ADDRESS

Please note that articles, reviews and noteworthy items for the Irish Literary Supplement should be sent to the Editor, Robert Lowery, at IrishLitSup@cs.com.

 CONFERENCE NEWS

Irish Fiction in Transition

A one-day conference on contemporary Irish fiction will be hosted by the Centre for Irish Studies, St Mary's College, Strawberry Hill on Friday April 28, 2000. Speakers include Eileen Battersby, Anne Enright, Robert Welch, Colm Tóibín, Eamonn Hughes, Seamus Deane, Emma Donaghue and Bernard MacLaverty. For further information, visit http://www.smuc.ac.uk/dept/hscs/is/index/htm

 Roger Casement

At the request of the Taoiseach, Mr Bertie Ahern, TD, the Royal Irish Academy has organized a symposium to examine the complex life and career of Sir Roger Casement. The conference will be held in Academy House on May 5-6. Among those who have agreed to speak are Professors Mary Daly, Owen Dudley Edwards, J. Ronan Fanning, J.J. Lee, Lucy McDiarmid, Eunan Ó Halpin, Dr. Martin Mansergh, Dr. Séamus Ó Siocháin, Angus Mitchell and Roger Sawyer. The Academy web site is http://www.ria.ie

 Visions and Revisions

NUI Galway will host a major conference on Irish Studies in June (15-18), bringing together some of the foremost scholars associated with the discipline. 'Visions and Revisions: Millennium Perspectives' will feature contributions from Barry Cunliffe, Olwyn Hufton, Joep Leerssen, Terry Eagleton, John Waddell, Ondrej Pilny, Kieran Kennedy and others. There will also be a series of readings by creative writers in Irish and English, including Michael Davitt, Michael Gorman, Biddy Jenkinson and Moya Cannon, and a panel discussion on the present state of Irish Studies and its future, presented in association with Boston College. For further information, contact Dr. Louis de Paor, NUI Galway; tel: 011-353- 91-524411, x 3660; e-mail: louisdep@hotmail.com

 The Irish in New Zealand

A conference, entitled 'The Irish in New Zealand: Historical Contexts and Perspectives,' will be hosted at the National Library of New Zealand on July 20-22, 2000, under the initiative of the Stout Research Centre, an interdisciplinary unit at Victoria University of Wellington. The stimulus for the conference is a return visit to the Centre by Don Akenson, who will deliver this year's annual Stout Lecture.

In addition to keynote papers by Professors Akenson and O'Farrell (and possibly another overseas guest), 12-14 original papers by local scholars will be presented. For further information, contact Brad Patterson, Senior Research Fellow, Stout Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

 Writing Diasporas: Axial Writers, Plural Literacies, Transnational Imagination

A conference on the role of travelling and translating writers, artists and intellectuals in the cultural politics of diasporas and nations will be held at the University of Wales Swansea, September 20-23, 2000.

The main sponsors are the Transnational Communities Research Programme (Economic and Social Research Council UK), with Re-inventing Britain (The British Council & Arts Council of England): details at http://www.swan.ac.uk/conferences/transcomm

The deadline for proposals is June 6, 2000, and papers should fall into one of six strands: 'Axial Writers,' 'Online Diasporas,' 'Marketing Ethnicity,' 'Transnational Cinema,' 'Performance, Poetry and Song,' or 'Plural Literacies and Policy.' Plenary panels include:

*Multilingual Community Publishing in the UK

*The Politics of Literary Translation

*Re-inventing Wales? Nation, Migration, Imagination

In addition, there will be workshops for practitioners in cultural policy and in multilingual community writing and translation, exhibitions, readings by local and visiting writers, and literally diverse literary/social events. General enquiries should be made to: t.cheesman@swan.ac.uk or m.b.gillespie@swan.ac.uk; fax: 011-44-1792-295710.

Cultural Identity, Difference and Resistance

St. Mary's College, London, England, will host a conference on Cultural Identity September 23, 2000. The keynote speakers are Professor Elizabeth Meehan (Queens University) on 'New Citizenships in Northern Ireland' and Dr. Ben Bowling (King's College, London) on 'Policing Cultural Identities.' There will be strong Irish representation within the program of papers, including presentations on Irish Travellers in Britain and Ireland, divorce referenda, young Catholic values, sexual minorities in Ireland, racism and ethnic monitoring. For fuller details, visit the Centre for Irish Studies Web site: http://www.smuc.ac.uk/dept/hscs/is/index/htm

 Shaw's Brave New World

At Marquette University, on April 19-21, 2001, a conference organized around the 19th Annual Shaw Festival will be highlighted by a series of productions by the Milwaukee Chamber Theater and the Marquette Theater Department of the Back to Methuselah play cycle. Conference organziers welcome paper abstracts on any topic relating to Shaw and his dramas.

Abstracts and requests for further information should be sent to: Michael Patrick Gillespie, English Dept., Marquette University, PO Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881, fax: (414) 288-5433; e-mail: Michael.Gillespie@marquette.edu or Web site (after April 15th): http://academic.mu.edu/shaw/

JOURNALS

Irish-American issue of Éire-Ireland

Éire-Ireland invites submissions on all aspects of Irish-American history and culture for a special issue devoted to that topic. Emphasis will be on the Irish migration to North America along with the themes of labor, race, religion, gender, politics, nationalism, social mobility, ethnicity, and assimilation in the history of the American Irish, including the impact of emigration and American culture on Irish society. Articles on cross-Atlantic influences between Ireland and America in the areas of art, music, film and literature are also encouraged. Please send a one-page abstract of your proposed essay by May 31, 2000 to Professor Kevin Kenny, Department of History, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3806; e-mail: kennyka@bc.edu

SUMMER SCHOOLS

Fourth Annual Trieste Joyce School

University of Trieste, July 2-8, 2000

In the light of Joyce's own recollection of his Triestine sojourn, it is entirely fitting that Trieste is home, for the fourth consecutive year, to the Trieste Joyce School, which aims to satisfy the needs both of seasoned Joyceans and newcomers to the world of Joyce studies. A wide range of critical approaches to Joyce studies is encouraged and each morning two or three lectures are held followed by week-long afternoon seminars on Dubliners, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, and Joyce's Triestine writings. Walking tours of Joyce's Trieste and visits to places of Joycean interest, such as the Greek Orthodox Church, the Jewish Synagogue, the Teatro Verdi, the Archivio Svevo, and the Caffé San Marco are also an important part of the program. This year=s speakers include: Morris Beja, John Bishop, Leonardo Buonomo, Claudia Corti, Renzo S. Crivelli, Ellen Carol Jones, Richard Kearney, Agostino Lombardo, John McCourt, Joaquim Mallafre, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Laura Pelaschiar, David Pierce, Fritz Senn and Clare Wallace.

The school, in association with the Trieste Azienda di Promozione Turistica, offers a number of full and partial scholarships to students. Those wishing to apply should send a brief letter of application, a curriculum vitae and a letter of reference before May 1, 2000. For further information, e-mail: Crivelli@univ.trieste.it or Mccourt@univ.trieste.it or call 0039/040/6767249/50. Internet: http//www.univ.trieste.it/nirdange/school/index.html.

The Irish Seminar 2000: International Graduate Program in Irish Studies

Keough Notre Dame Centre, Dublin, July 3-28, 2000

The University of Notre Dame and University College Dublin will jointly run the Irish Seminar 2000 under the directorship of Seamus Deane, Thomas Bartlett and Kevin Whelan. This year's theme is: "Modern Ireland 1880-1930." The Seminar is interdisciplinary and open to all graduate students and faculty in Irish Studies. This year's faculty members include: Thomas Bartlett, Joseph Buttigieg, Joe Cleary, Seamus Deane, Terry Eagleton, Christopher Fox, Luke Gibbons, Seamus Heaney, Marjorie Howes, Frederic Jameson, John Kelly, Declan Kiberd, Joe Lee, David Lloyd, Emer Nolan, Margaret O'Callaghan, Derek Walcott and Kevin Whelan. For further information, contact: The Irish Seminar, Summer Session Office, University of Notre Dame, 510 Main Building, Notre Dame, IN 46556 e-mail: sumsess.1@nd.edu. Internet: http://www.nd.edu/~sumsess/

 John Hewitt International Summer School: A Well-Kept Secret

St MacNissi's College, July 24-29, 2000

Those who have attended the John Hewitt International Summer School, beginning its thirteenth year, recognize it for the gem it is. Held at St. MacNissi's College, Garron Tower Road in the Glens of Antrim, it offers views of the North Channel, some of Scotland, and the hills and vales, themselves. While lodging is dormitory rooms, the food approaches gourmet quality and there is a pub on the premises. The program is varied, with only the occasional lecture on Hewitt's own works, but always reflects Hewitt's broad interest in the Arts, social sciences, and active politics. Poetry readings and workshops, plus readings from fiction, theatrical presentations, and a sizable book display supplement the more academic parts of the program. Each day has plenary sessions conducted by well-known scholars, performers, and artists and also allows for smaller discussion groups conducted by specialists, as well. Each year's program is built around an imaginative topic. In 1999, it was 'Dancing With Hewitt'; in 2000, it will be 'Across A Roaring Hill: Strangers, Neighbours and the Arts of Communication' -- inspired by two of Hewitt's important poems. The main themes will be cultural diversity in Ireland (taken in its broadest sense), the mechanisms of creative, interpretative and communicative media; and 'The Arts at the Margins -- The art that cannot speak its name.' Invited speakers for plenary sessions include Patrick McCabe, Andrew Motion, Maurice Leitch, Declan Kiberd, David Marcus and Arundhatl Roy (1997 Booker Prize winner) and others too numerous to mention. Costs are reasonable. Attendance averages 200 but there is room for more. Further details may be secured from the school's Web site:  http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/John_ Hewitt_InternationalSS