Photo: Children of Lir by Oisín Kelly (1971), Garden of Remembrance, Dublin, Ireland. Credit: Sara Dybris McQuaid

This multidisciplinary conference brings together experts in history, film, theatre, classical reception, heritage management, gender studies, politics, and memory studies to examine the impact and significance of events in Ireland during the current decade of centenaries (2012-2022), which mark the anniversaries of major changes in Irish history and society that took place between 1912 and 1922.

Invited experts will examine events both related and unrelated to the Irish government’s official programme of commemorations from a variety of scholarly perspectives. Topics addressed will include: political appropriations of Greek tragedy; competing narratives of the 1916 Rising on film; multi-media public engagement; the differences between scholarly history and public history; the politics of spectatorship as a form of witnessing; the significance of women in politics; the concept of hunger strikes as a political tool; the political narratives of the Irish republican party Sinn Féin; the theoretical differences between commemoration and celebration; and comparative perspectives on postcolonial Ireland and India. This exchange will generate new insights into the current climate of memorialization in Ireland, as the decade of commemorations begins to come to a close, and may serve as a useful comparative study for other contexts of commemoration.    

For more information on the programme and venue, please visit the conference site: http://aias.au.dk/events/aias-conference-politics-and-narrative-in-irelands-decade-of-commemorations/

Keynote speaker

• Emilie Pine, Associate Professor of Modern Drama and Irish Studies, University College Dublin, Republic of Ireland

Confirmed speakers

• Dominic Bryan, Reader in Political Anthropology, Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  
  
• Stephen Joyce, Associate Professor of English, Aarhus University, Denmark
  
  
• Isabel Kusche, Associate Professor (Political Sociology), Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, Denmark
  
  
• Laura McAtackney, Associate Professor in Sustainable Heritage Management, Aarhus University, Denmark
  
  
• Mary McAuliffe, Assistant Professor of Gender Studies, University College Dublin, Republic of Ireland
  
  
• Fearghal McGarry, Professor of History, Queen’s University Belfast, Republic of Ireland
  
  
• Sara Dybris McQuaid, Associate Professor in British and Irish History, Society and Culture and Director, Centre for Irish Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark
  
  
• Isabelle Torrance, Associate Professor (Classics and Classical Reception), Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, Denmark

Registration

The conference is open to all and participation in the talks is free of charge. If you wish to join the conference including catering, registration is mandatory. REGISTER HERE  

Deadline for registration is 12 October at 12:00 noon.

Support

• Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS)
• Carlsberg Foundation

• Centre for Irish Studies, CISA, and the Department of English, Aarhus University