ACIS
NEWSLETTER
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Dear Friends,
The Executive Committee discussed a number of issues at the Fordham ACIS meeting. One proposal that I think will be of particular interest to the membership was the formation of an ad hoc committee -- chaired by Bob Rhodes and including Maureen Murphy, Nancy Curtin, and Larry McCaffrey -- to explore the possibility of producing a history of ACIS that will expand upon the version that Larry wrote fourteen years ago. By the time of the Marquette ACIS, Bob’s committee will come up with suggestions on how to proceed, and I hope to report to you then on specific plans.
Organizing for the Marquette meeting is going forward. John Harrington and his program committee have been working very hard to set the schedule of panels. Final decisions on the program should be made soon, and a draft version will be posted on the ACIS and the conference websites early in 2002. Local arrangements are also going well, and we hope to give conference attendees a good sense of the rich heritage of Milwaukee’s Irish culture. Information on housing and a conference registration form are included in this issue, and I am looking forward to seeing you all here in Milwaukee next June.
Announcements of the winners of the annual ACIS book prizes appear in this issue. It is a great pleasure to honor the achievements of these fine scholars, but it also provides an opportunity to remember the significant contributions that all of our members are making to Irish Studies. Your efforts in scholarship, classroom teaching, and community outreach continually reinforce the importance of our discipline and enhance understanding, both within the organization and in the broad Irish community, of the importance of this field. The success that ACIS now enjoys is a tribute to the work each member.
Warm regards,
Michael
2002 ACIS CONFERENCE
The next national meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies will take place at Maquette University, 5-8 June 2002. Highlighting the conference will be plenary talks by Senator David Norris, Professor Nancy Curtin, Professor Charles Fanning, and Professor Thomas Hachey. There will also be a special production of Eugene O'Neil's Ah Wilderness, a screening of Irish Destiny, and performances by Leahy's Luck and the Cashel-Denehey Dancers. For general information consult the Web site: http://www.marquette.edu/courses/engl/gillespm/
Housing is available on campus at the newly refurbished East Hall (central air, private bath, rec. facilities with pool) at $35/night for a single $48/night for a double. For further information contact Sean Berchtold at (414) 288-7208 by 30 April 2002. Hotel rooms are available at the Milwaukee Hilton at $129/night. Contact reservations: (414) 271-7250. Rooms are also available at the Holiday Inn Milwaukee City Center at $74/night. Contact reservations: (414) 273-2950 by 15 April 2002. For all reservations, identify yourself as a participant in the Marquette University Irish Studies Conference. Incidentally, there is a unique opportunity for selected scholars attending the Marquette ACIS to view the Ed Ward Irish Music Archive. It is one of the best collections in the country of sheet music and other materials relating to Irish and Irish-American music. Access is limited, so if you are interested in viewing the collection please contact Michael Patrick Gillespie at michael.gillespie@marquette.edu
BOOK PRIZES
The following are the winners of the 2000 ACIS Book Awards:
The Adele Dalsimer Prize for the best dissertation submitted to the committee is awarded to Ben Novick for his Ireland’s Revolutionary War.
The James S. Donnelly, Sr., Prize for the best study in history and the social sciences submitted to the committee is awarded to Angela Bourke for her book, The Burning of Bridget Cleary.
The Michael J. Durkin Prize for the best study in language and culture submitted to the committee is awarded to Eamonn Wall for his book Notes on the New Ireland and to Tony Crowley for his book The Politics of Language in Ireland.
The Robert Rhodes Prize for the best study in literature submitted to the committee is awarded to Declan Kiberd for Irish Classics.
The Donald Murphy Prize for the best first book submitted to the committee is awarded to Sean Farrell for his Rituals and Riots.
Michael Gillespie thanks the individual chairs, Guinn Batten, Tim Meagher, Stephen Watt, David Miller, and Coilín Owens, and their subcommittee members, for their conscientious work on this very important project.
REGIONAL MEETINGS
Western: The regional met at the Sheraton Tacoma on 12-14 October. Hosted by Pres. Audrey Eyler of Pacific Lutheran University and Kendall Reid of Tacoma Community College, the meeting highlighted a presentation by Micheline Sheehy Skeffington, National University of Ireland, Galway, on her grandparents, feminist and suffragette Hanna and journalist Francis Sheehy Skeffington. She is recreating her grandmother's American tour, raising interest in Hanna's House, site for a women's education center she hopes to open in Dublin in her family's former home. The Saturday night banquet was followed by a performance of Jennifer Johnston's Twinkletoes, acted by Kimberly Gifford and directed by Charlotte Headrick of Oregon State University. Helen Lojek of Boise State responded to the production on Sunday morning. The conference was pleased to host many of the next generation of Irish studies scholars: graduate students from Notre Dame, the University of Maine, the University of Oregon, the University of California, Davis, Emory University, and the University of Wisconsin were among the presenters.
Southern: Next year’s meeting will take place at Young Harris College, Young Harris, GA, 21-23 February 2002. The theme is "Ireland in the 21st Century: Change and Continuity": we encourage papers addressing this theme but welcome scholarship on any aspect of Irish Studies. The Conference will feature a reading by Ciaran Carson, a plenary address by Ronald Schuchard, a Theatre Young Harris Production of Brian Friel's Translations, and an evening of Irish and Appalachian music. Contact Louisa Franklin at lfranklin@yhc.edu for information concerning lodging, which will be at the Brasstown Valley Resort.
MLA 2001
The ACIS will, as usual, host two panels at the MLA in New Orleans:
Saturday, Dec. 29, 8:30-9:45 a.m. - "The Poetics of Space and Modern Irish Literature," Gavin M. Drummond, Frank C. Manista, Beth A. Wightman, and George J. Watson. Chair, Christine L. Cusick.
Sunday, Dec. 30, 1:45-3 p.m. - "Ireland and Empire: Recent Approaches in Theory and in Literature," Joseph A. Lennon, John Paul Waters, Brian Cliff, and Michael Patrick Gillespie. Chair, Jill B. Hampton. The ACIS will also co-host a party with the International Joyce Foundation, to be held in Margot Norris’s suite at the Fairmont Hotel (12 Baronne St.) on Dec. 28, from 8:30 to 10:00 p.m. Call the hotel at (504) 529-7111 to get the suite number.
MLA 2002
Margot Backus invites submissions for the following panels:
1) "Representing Northern Ireland: The Form of Politics, and the Politics of Form" - This session solicits analyses of fiction and nonfiction representations of Northern Ireland from the Civil Rights Era through the current moment, set forth in a manner that explores the political significance of generic form, or the aesthetic or formal significance of political modes of representation. Comparisons of representations of Northern Ireland with other areas are welcome.
2) "‘Provincialism and Censorship’?: Revisiting Ireland, 1930-65" - Irish cultural production from 1930-65 has not been treated with the same hyperbolic respect and passionate interest as has the literature of the Irish Renaissance. Even The Field Day Anthology, Vol. III, with its useful and extensive treatment of the period, titles the first of its sections on the period "Provincialism and Censorship" -- a title that does little to dispel a general if seldom explicitly argued-for association between the literature of this period and a DeValerian dark ages during which the whole of the twenty six counties languished under a miasma of cultural and political backwardness. For this panel, papers are invited which reconsider the significance of this period, whether through a discussion of one or more specific authors (Corkery, O'Brien/na gCopaleen, O'Faolain, O'Connor, Behan, Kavanaugh, Johnston), in relationship to the Irish Renaissance, in relationship to specific historical or cultural events or debates, or as conditioned by Joyce's hypercanonical status.
Please send 1-2 page abstracts to: Margot Gayle Backus, 8514 Braesview Lane, Houston, TX 77071 or e-mail to: mbackus@mail.uh.edu by 15 March 2002.
An international conference on "Ireland today: Change or Renewal?" will be held at the University of Social Sciences, Toulouse, France, on 1-2 February 2002. The conference will be concerned with the changes taking place in Ireland today in the wake of political, economic and cultural events, both in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland: it will raise the issue of contemporary changes in the fields of social sciences such as the legal system, the economy, sociology and politics and will ask whether the solutions currently adopted are inherently Irish or still influenced by the past or are imported foreign models. For further information, contact Christian Mailhes, Département des Langues et Civilisations, Université de Toulouse 1, Place Anatole France, 31042, Toulouse Cedex - France; e-mail: cmailhes@univ-tlse1.fr; Web site: www.univ-tlse1.fr
The 4th Annual GRIAN Conference on Irish Studies will be held at Glucksman Ireland House, New York University, 1-3 March 2002, on the theme, "Irish Studies: Work in Progress." These days, centrality is distinctly uncool. The centre has been marginalised, and marginality is the place to be. -Terry Eagleton, "The Centre Cannot Hold." To GRIAN, "‘Work in Progress’ means more than presentation of work that is unfinished. It means problematizing our individual investigations to consider the relationship of ‘work to ‘progress,’ to imagine what those new questions might be. This work, we believe, can be work towards progress, work that is itself progress. We invite papers on any topic in Irish studies whose subjects and/or methodologies not only ask new questions but enact them. How have you proceeded when you, like all of us, hit the walls - the walls of disciplinarity, the walls of theory, the walls of material? Rather than texts focusing solely on narratives of subject or methodology, we seek texts that navigate the spaces in between. Possible areas of investigation include: (Inter)- disciplinarity, Neglect, Collaboration, Frustration, Criminals and Criminality, Mental Illness, Translation, Misuse and Disruption, Enclosures, Rejections and Failures, and Double Agency." Send one-page abstracts by 3 December 2001 to: GRIAN, c/o Glucksman Ireland House, 1 Washington Mews, New York, NY 10003. Send abstracts via e-mail to: prestonmatto@excite.com (.rtf files only, please). Visit the Web site at: www.grian.org
The 2002 IASIL conference will be held in São Paulo, 28 July - 1 August, on the theme: "Interrelations: Irish Literatures and Other Forms of Knowledge." The conference aims at developing an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Irish literatures in connection with history, psychology, philosophy, science, other arts (such as music, dance, cinema, painting), critical theory and translation. Papers and panels may also address the following issues: intertextuality, cultural encounters, Irish images abroad, and Irish culture. The deadline for proposals for papers (aprox. 300 words) and previously organized panels is 15 January 2002. All proposals and one-paragraph c.v.’s must be submitted to the organizers electronically: Munira H. Mutran & Laura Izarra, Universidade de São Paulo - DLM, Av. Luciano Gualberto 403, 05508-900 São Paulo - SP / Brasil; fax: 0055-11-3032 2325; e-mail: iasil@usp.br. For further information, see the Web site at http://www.fflch.usp.br, then click on Eventos and IASIL 2002.
NEH Keough Fellowships in Irish Studies
With the major support of a National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant, the Keough Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame announces the availability of a new faculty fellowship program. The new NEH fellowship will permit an outstanding scholar to continue his or her research while in residence at Notre Dame's Keough Institute during the academic year 2002-2003. The stipend is $37,500. Eligibility is in all fields of Irish studies; the closing date is 4 January 2002. For further information and applications: http://www.nd.edu/~irishstu/nehfellowships.html
Boston College
Boston College will offer a summer research fellowship in Irish studies beginning in 2002. The scholarship will provide housing at the Mill Street Cottage adjacent to the Boston College Law School and an office in Connolly House, the home of the Irish Studies Program. Scholars will be able to conduct research at Boston College libraries including the Burns Library, which houses the Special Irish Collection, the O'Neill Library and the Irish Music Archive. The fellowship will allow researchers access to other institutions in the Boston area such as the Boston Public Library, the Massachusetts State Archive, and the John F. Kennedy Library. Scholars studying in all fields of Irish studies are invited to apply. A travel grant of $1,000 will be offered to assist the research fellow. Those interested in applying should write to Robert Savage c/o Boston College Irish Studies Program, Connolly House, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467.
University of Limerick ACIS Postgraduate Scholarship in Irish Studies
The first recipient of the ACIS Postgraduate Scholarship in Irish Studies at UL, intstituted to commemorate ACIS 2000 in Limerick, is Ms Roberta Raymond, BA, MSc (Ed) (with distinction from Hofstra University). Ms Raymond's application came under the general heading of "Irish traditional culture." Her research topic in Limerick is "Literary Theory and the Construction of the Famine in Ireland" and she is conducting her studies under the direction of Dr Brian Coates of the English Section in the Department of Languages and Cultural Studies at UL.
Mary McNeill Scholarship in Irish Studies, 2002 - 2003
A scholarship to the value of £3,000 is available for a well-qualified student, enrolled in the one-year MA degree course in Irish studies at the Queen’s University of Belfast. This scholarship is open only to citizens of the USA or Canada, enrolled as overseas students on this course. Applications will be judged by a panel on the basis of academic merit and reasons for taking the course. The closing date for applications is 31 May 2001. Further information and applications are available from: Catherine Boone, Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University Belfast; tel: 44 (0) 28 9027 3386; e-mail: irish.studies@qub.ac.uk
A New Summer School in Irish Studies at Limerick
The College of Humanities at the University of Limerick is introducing a new Summer School in Irish Studies at Limerick in June 2002. There will be two streams in the summer school, one on "Irish life and literature" for liberal arts/humanities students, and "Ireland - gateway to Europe" for students of business/politics/ economics. The courses will be taught at the 300 level, and each stream will consist of 45 taught hours with associated excursions each week. UL will be awarding three academic credits for the 3-week school. Housing will be provided in UL's newest student accommodation (Dromroe Village) and full use of UL's sports facilities (including the new University Arena and 50 metre swimming pool) will be included in the summer school fee. The 2002 Summer School dates are Sunday 2 - Saturday 22 June 2002. For further information, contact the International Education Office, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland (Tel. 353-61-202700; fax 353-61-213062; e-mail: int.ed@ul.ie).
International Summer School in Irish Studies at Queen's University
The Irish Studies Summer School (22 July - 9 August 2002) is co-ordinated by Queen's University Belfast's Institute of Irish Studies, founded in 1965 and the first of its kind in the United Kingdom. The Institute is an internationally renowned centre of Irish scholarship. Lectures and seminars are given by leading scholars in the fields of Irish history, politics, anthropology, film and theatre, language and literature. In addition, participating students will visit sites of historical and cultural interest in the northern capital itself and beyond, such as Stormont Parliament Buildings, Belfast City Hall, and the Barony of Lecale and Strangford Lough. This fieldtrip visits sites of historical and archaeological interest, including the former Gaol (now Down County Museum), the burial place of Saint Patrick and the medieval Cistercian Monastery at Greyabbey. In one of the most popular sessions, Summer School participants have the opportunity to meet and dialogue with leading members of the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont. Further information can be found on the Web site at www.qub.ac.uk/iis/summerschool.htm or from Ms Catherine Boone, Summer School Administrator, Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland; e-mail: irish.studies@qub.ac.uk; Tel: 44 (0) 28 9027 3386.
The University of Wisconsin Press announces the inauguration of two series devoted to Irish Studies. The first, "Irish and Irish American History," is under the general editorship of James Donnelly and Thomas Archdeacon. The second, "Irish Literature and Culture," is under the general editorship of Michael Patrick Gillespie. The editors are actively seeking book proposals and manuscripts for possible inclusion in these series. For more information contact the series editors: James Donnelly at jsdonnel@facstaff.wisc.edu; Thomas Archdeacon at tjarchde@facstaff.wisc.edu; Michael Patrick Gillespie at michael.gillespie@marquette.edu; or Robert Mandel, Director of the University of Wisconsin Press, at ramandel@facstaff.wisc.edu
JOURNALS
Published since 1983, Working Papers in Irish Studies seeks contributions in all areas of Irish and Irish-American studies, including reports of empirical research, theoretical analyses and essays, and creative writing in poetry, prose and drama, for the 2002-03 volume. Send MSS in triplicate to the Editor: James Doan, Dept. of Liberal Arts, Nova Southeastern University, 3301 College Ave., Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33314, or via e-mail to: doan@nova.edu New subscriptions and orders for back issues should be sent to the Editor. The subscription rate for the 2002-03 volume remains $20.00.
REVIEWS
Irish Film Watch by Jim MacKillop & Gerard Furey
Say the words "film festival" and the first towns to come to most people minds are Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Toronto or even Telluride. But just as Irish-made films have come to command world attention so too the four Irish film festivals, Galway, Cork, Kerry and Dublin, now draw large international crowds, actually surpassing those for the famed literary summer schools. It is not, however, the size of the host city nor the longevity of the festival that creates the most buzz.
Now in its thirteenth year, the Galway Film Fleadh, July 10-15 now attracts the most attention of any of the four, a news event worthy of extensive coverage in the international press. The glossy, 92-program offers more than a body could possibly see in six days, with only a portion of the showings Irish-oriented. The featured star performer this summer was acclaimed Iranian director, Abbas Kiarostami, who was honored with a retrospective of his films. Items such as The Wind Will Carry Us (1999), favorites at many international festivals, have not received wide commercial distribution in either North America or Ireland.
Actor Colm Meany, memorable from adaptations of Roddy Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy, The Commitments (1991), The Snapper (1993), The Van (1996), etc., appeared in a public interview on the closing day, July 15. Organizers had clearly hoped Meany's appearance would coincide with the premiere of Goran Paskaljevic's much-anticipated How Harry Became a Tree, an absurdist comedy set in 1924. The film had completed production but was not ready for viewing. In its place came David Caffrey's caper comedy On the Nose, with Dan Aykroyd, Brenda Blethyn and Robbie Coltrane. The film had been an Irish entry at Cannes in May but made its Irish premiere here.
Two Irish features opened and closed the Fleadh. First was John Carney's On the Edge, a young man with a mordant sense of humor and a seeming bent on self-destruction. After a near fatal accident, 19-year old Jonathan Breech is given the choice between prison and a psychiatric hospital. Known in production as The Smiling Suicide Club, the film stars Cillian Murphy, Stephen Rea, Jonathan Jackson and Tricia Vessey.
Les Blair's H3 deals with the blanket protest and hunger strikes of Republican prisoners at Northern Ireland's H-Block in 1981. Writers Laurence McKeown and Brian Campbell participated in the protests, McKeown having starved himself into a coma. While much of the shooting has a claustrophobic, documentary feel, it does build on the hardening of one prisoner, Declan (Aiden Campbell), who arrives doe-eyed at H3, the toughest wing of "The Maze." More news of the Galway Fleadh is found at www.gilwayfilmfleadh.com or via e-mail at gafleadh@iol.ie.
Spirits ran high at this year's 46th Cork Film Festival, October 7-14. Not only will Cork be the European City of Culture in 2005, but the featured film of the Festival was Cork-based, Kristen Sheridan's Disco Pigs, adapted from Enda Walsh's stage play originally produced there by the Corcadorca Theatre Company.
Always known for short films, the Cork winners for this year included Dubliner Cathal Gaffney's two awards for Give Up Your Auld Sins, based on Margaret Cunningham's recordings from Dublin school children in the 1950s. The Claire Lynch Award for Best Short Film by an Irish Director went to Steven Benedict for Escape. Ronan Phelan's Gangs of Waterfall won the best "Made in Cork" Award, while the stylish Welsh black comedy Sister Lulu took the award for the best black and white short. As at other festivals, audiences have different tastes than judges. Their choices were the French short The Crow and Zulu 9 by Dublin-based stage director Alan Gilsenan. Other details are available at www.corkfilmfest.org.
Coming in one week before Cork, the upstart Kerry Film Festival completed its second year at several venues around the county, October 2-7. Fifty-one short films, most represented by their directors, competed for four prizes of £500. Not all winners were Irish: Collette Cullen's Old Sock, Cashell Horgan's Paddy, Barry Murphy's Nosoma, and Maria Ganovska and Inger Sund's Petra: Up Close and Personal. News of next year's Festival may be found at samhlaicht@indigo.ie.
The 16th annual Dublin Film Festival, April-16, was described by filmmaker Niamh McCaul as a "wounded animal which needs to be cured." Coming about a week before Cannes and at a time when many university students are facing final examinations, the Dublin has long suffered poor attendance. Then again the small crowds and non-competitive format have encouraged other filmmakers, such as Canadian Rosemary House, who said she loved the informality and intimacy that allowed her to meet more people at the bustling Toronto Festival. Irish full-length features included Vinny Murphy's road movie Accelerator, Declan Lowney's Wild About Harry and Eoin Moore's Conamara. For further information consult www.iol.ie/dff or e-mail dff@iol.ie.
NEWS FROM ACIS MEMBERS
New York University announces the development of the Archives of Irish America, including a new body of primary materials about the American response to the Northern Irish Hunger Strikes in 1981. See: http://www.nyu.edu/irelandhouse/archives/exhibits/0501_hunger
As Graduate Student Representative, Fitz Smith welcomes comments or
suggestions about how the ACIS can assist Irish studies graduate students
in career development and professional success. Direct all correspondence
to jfsmith@artsci.wustl.edu