Call for papers: the Parish and the Universe

Deadline for abstracts: August 20^th, 2007

The 2007 meeting of the New England Region of the American Conference for Irish Studies will take place at the University of Massachusetts-Boston on Saturday, November 10^th, 2007.

Building on the 2006 conference hosted by the University of Connecticut—“Changing Ireland”—the 2007 meeting seeks to address post-national, global, international, and/or cosmopolitan dimensions within Irish Studies today, though we certainly welcome papers on any topic related to Irish Studies. The NEACIS is an interdisciplinary conference fostering the exchange of ideas between scholars working in fields of study ranging from history, literature, sociology, and linguistics to cultural studies, musicology, dance, film, anthropology, theater, and political science.

The conference this year aims to explore the diverse articulations and critical assessments of the pronounced “cosmopolitical bearing” in Irish Studies today, a contemporary topic very much under discussion in Patrick Kavanagh’s mid-century essay, “The Parish and the Universe.” Kavanagh’s distinction between “parochialism” and “provincialism” brings our attention to where our “eyes [will be] turned” at the conference, towards, for example, interactions between local culture and imagined global communities, the Irish region within the European Union, Northern Ireland and a devolving Great Britain. Following Kavanagh, and by bringing together a diverse range of scholars, researchers, writers, and students, the NEACIS will study a range of debates, discussions, critical frameworks, stories, etc. emerging from our simultaneous and critical gaze at these various sites.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Please e-mail paper and/or panel proposals (300-400 words) to Matthew Brown Matthew.Brown@umb.edu by August 20^th, 2007. Please include your proposal in the body of the e-mail and not as a separate attachment.

Please note that all who attend the NEACIS must be members of the ACIS with dues paid through the end of the year.

If you have further questions about the conference, please contact Matthew Brown Matthew.Brown@umb.edu or Thomas O’Grady Thomas.OGrady@umb.edu in the Department of English at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.