President
Gillespie called the meeting to order at
1.Book
Awards Presentation
The
Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Books: Sean Farrell, Rituals
and Riots:Sectarian Violence and
Political Culture in
The
Robert Rhodes Prize for Books on Literature:Declan
Kiberd, Irish Classics.The
prize committee writes “Irish literature, [Kiberd] argues, has since the
flight of the earls repeatedly found strategies for comprehending the disruptions
of modenity. Torn between the claims of the Irish past, the stress of anglicization
at home, and encounters in exile that offered different perspectives on
both, writers from thefili to Flann O'Brien, from O'Bruadair to Beckett
have found formal strategies for representating personal and national dislocations.
In 700 pages of lucid prose that is, on every page, a pleasure to read,
Kiberd in this book uses his grounding in Irish-language literature to
illuminate not only the broad outlines of the history that he is perhaps
uniquely qualified to retrace from the hybrid literary perspectives of
two languages but also any number of individual literary lives and texts.It
is a pathbreaking work that does similar service to theorists from Marx
to Benjamin, breathing life into these and other methodological sources. Irish
Classics demonstrates once again the inimitable intellect
of one of
The
James S. Donnelly, Sr., Prize for Books on History and Social Sciences:Angela
Bourke,The
Burning of Bridget Cleary. The prize committee writes: “In the
distinguished traditon of historians like Natalie Zelmon Davis, Professor
Bourke has focused on a single, small incident to illumine a vast historical
landscape. Bourke tells the story of the killing of Bridget Cleary in 1895
by relatives who suspected her of being a fairy double. In the analysis
of this tragedy, puolic reaction to it, and the trials that followed, Bourke's
analysis opens up new perspectives on subjects as diverse as British attitudes
towards Irish Home Rule, gender and class relations in rural
The
Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books on Language or Culture:Eamonn
Wall, From the Sin-E Café to the Black Hills, and Tony Crowley,
The Politics of Language in Ireland, l366-l922. The
prize committee writes:“Eamonn Wall's
the Sin-E Café to the Black Hills is a fascinating and formally
innovative book, rich with insights into the cultural productions of a
new generation or "wave" of Irish immigrants to America. It is a pleasure
to read and provides a real education for those of us geographically removed
from this important cultural work. Tony
Crowley's Politics of Language
in
The
Adele Dalsimer Prize for Distinguished Dissertations:Ben
Novick,
2.President’s
Report
President
Gillespie reported on the progress of the Ad Hoc Committee on the History
of ACIS.The
committee suggested that this project be framed as a history of Irish studies.A
new subcommittee, chaired by Maureen Murphy, will solicit a writer. ACIS
will likely revisit this issue at next year's business meeting.
3. Treasurer’s
Report
President
Gillespie presented the summary of the report in lieu of David Gardiner.The
Treasurer’s report noted that ACIS resources have increased, despite the
drop in our stock holdings.He reported
that the member database was trimmed after he sent a first-class mailing
and received hundreds of dead letters with no forwarding addresses.After
the purge of expired memberships (approximately 400 members), we are back
to 1200 members in good standing.The
budget for next year sees no significant changes.
Motion:
To approve the Treasurer's report.
Moved,
seconded.
Discussion:
A
member asked how and when do members renew? President Gillespie encouraged
members to consult the Fall Newsletter, wherein is printed a membership
form.Members can also print a current
form from the website at http://www.acisweb.com.
Motion
approved unanimously.
4.Secretary’s
Report
Conrad
encouraged members to check their institution’s entry in the online Guide
to Irish Studies in the
5.Committee
Reports
A.Election
Committee Report:
At
the ACIS Executive Committee meeting on June 9, 2001, President Michael
Gillespie asked the Election Committee (John Harrington, Vice President
and Chair, Nancy Curtin, and Ed Madden), to propose a motion concerning
Joint Memberships in ACIS.
Currently,
fees for Joint Memberships (termed "couples" on the membershiprenewal
form) are $35 per year, and Memberships are $30 per year. The intention
apparently was to control printing costs by avoiding duplicate mailings,
and so to reflect that organization saving in the discounted membership
fee for a second person.
The
Treasurer David Gardiner estimates that there are approximately 50 Joint
Memberships in ACIS in 2001-2002.
The
question has arisen of whether Joint Memberships are entitled to one or
two votes in ACIS elections. The number of votes concerned is substantial:
50 Joint Memberships, if awarded duplicate votes, represent an additional
50 votes, or a substantial percentage of recent counts of votes cast.
Further, Joint Memberships are poorly defined: they could be construed
to be entitled to more than two members and so more than two votes.
The
Election Committee recommends that one membership, of whatever kind, represent
one vote in ACIS elections.
John
Harrington (Chair)
Nancy Curtin
Ed Madden
(Approved
by the Executive Committee,
Motion:To
accept the Election Report.
Moved,
seconded.
Motion
approved unanimously.
5.New
Business and Announcements
A.Harrington
announced the Nominations Committee for 2003 ACIS
elections, which was approved at the Executive Committee meeting
on June 5:
Kathryn
Conrad
James
MacKillop
John
Harrington (Chair).
The
deadline for nominations is
B.President
Gillespie asked Jim Rogers to update the membership on next year's ACIS
National Meeting in Minneapolis/St. Paul.
“The
The
opening reception on Wednesday evening, and sessions on Thursday and Friday,
will be held at the university’s downtown
The
conference hotel will be the Doubletree, literally across the street from
the
The
closing banquet will be held in the ballroom at Bravo!,
a theater–themed restaurant only two blocks from the conference hotel.
Joe Dowling, former artistic director of the Abbey Theatre, and now artistic
director at the Guthrie Theatre in
We
look forward to working with the program committee to present a varied
and innovative program. Our committee would especially like to see panels
that represent disciplines infrequently heard from in Irish Studies --
for instance, economics, folklore, environmental studies, or the history
of science. We’ve already invited (and received an acceptance from) Síghle
Bhreathnach-Lynch of the National Gallery to be a plenary speaker, and
from our invited poet, Eamon Grennan. The committee is seeking a third
plenary speaker, to speak on contemporary Irish environmental concerns.
Other
collateral events will include an exhibition of rare books from the university’s
9000-volume Celtic Collection, and we are undertaking to engage photographer
John Minihan’s collection of historical photographs of Athy,
C.Motion
to thank Michael Patrick Gillespie and Bill Starr for the
Moved,
seconded.
Motion
approved unanimously.
The
motion to adjourn proposed and was approved unanimously. The meeting was
adjourned at
Respectfully
submitted,
Kathryn
Conrad
Secretary,
ACIS