Seminar Three - The Trouble with Trauma

The theory of trauma is becoming more and more popular but can it help us deal with political trauma or state sanctioned torture? How are we representing trauma, and torture? Has a new form of trauma theory and cultural representation emerged?

For our next seminar we will be discussing Roger Luckhurst's article 'Beyond Trauma: Torturous times' kindly suggested by Dr Maria Beville

The article is available here
http://www.tandfonline.com.libraryproxy.mic.ul.ie/doi/abs/10.1080/13825571003588247#.UoTBBHBSjTo

The seminar takes place on Thursday, Nov 21 at 6pm in T2.02

All are welcome!

Seminar Two - The Question of Ecology

In an age of climate change has our understanding and representation of nature and the environment changed? How is literature, philosophy and theory reacting to global warming? What is 'third wave' ecocriticism?

Timothy Morton has published widely on the topic of ecocriticsim, and in his article (2010) 'Queer Ecology' he suggests that ecological criticism and queer theory have a lot in common.

The article is available via academia.edu
http://www.academia.edu/1050754/Queer_Ecology

The Seminar takes place on Thursday, Oct 17th at 6pm in T2.02.

All are welcome!

Seminar One - In Defence of Poetry?

Contemporary Concepts is back up and running for the 2013/2014 academic year and for our first discussion we will pit the philosophers against the poets. 

Reading 'On Love and Poetry - Or, where Philosophers Fear to Tread' an article by Jeremy Fernando published in 2011 we will ask if Plato is right and there is still no defence for poetry in 2013? Or if Fernando is correct suggesting that poetry and wisdom are of equal merit? Which makes you cringe, think, feel or understand more? Should the question be philosophy or poetry? Baudrillard or Boland? Agamden or Angelou? Heidiegger or Heaney? Or Derrida and Durcan?

His interesting and entertaining article can be viewed here

http://continentcontinent.cc/index.php/continent/article/view/7

Jeremy Fernando is a Jean Baudrillard Fellow at The European Graduate School and a Fellow of Tembusu College at the National University of Singapore. He works in the intersections of Literature, Philosophy, and the media. He is the author of numerous books and articles. 

For more information 

http://jeremyfernando.com/

The first seminar takes place on Thursday, September 26 at 6pm in T2.02, Tara Building, Mary Immaculate College.

Seminar Seven - The changing identity of Young Adult Literature

For our final seminar of the semester we will look at how Young Adult Literature has changed over the years, and what the implications are for teenage identity formation.

Writing for adolescents has moved on from Mallory Towers to include issues such as incest, self-mutilation, and date rape. Writing featuring such dark subject matter coupled with isolated protagonists in dystopian realities is becoming increasingly popular, not just with teenagers, but also adults.

With these issues in mind, we will discuss who the books are aimed at, their reception and dissemination, what constitutes young adult fiction, and consequences for young adult identity.

Our discussion will be informed by an article suggested by Michelle Cooney
'From the Chalet School to the Hunger Games' by Amy Ellis-Thompson

http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/how-does-retro-schoolgirl-fiction-translate-for-the-modern-reader

The seminar takes place Thursday, May 9th in T1.01 at 5pm.

Hope to see you there.

Seminar 6 - What is a monster?

For our next seminar we will explore what constitutes a monster, how it is repressed, represented and realised in society, culture and psychology.

Using Steven Schneider's article 'Monsters as (Uncanny) Metaphors: Freud, Lakoff, and the Representation of Monstrosity in Cinematic Horror' as a guide we will examine how the monster manifests itself in literature, film and culture.

A copy of the article, kindly suggested by Dr Maria Beville can be found here:
http://www.othervoices.org/1.3/sschneider/monsters.php

The seminar takes place on Thursday, April 11 at 5pm in T1.01 in the Tara Building, Mary Immaculate College. All are welcome! 

The Gender Question - A MIC and UL Sibeal symposium

The Gender Question

A MIC and UL Sibeal Postgraduate Symposium

Call for Papers

DATE:

Wednesday May 15^th 2013 5-7pm

VENUE:

G08

Mary Immaculate College

Limerick

When Judith Butler tried to undo gender, she questioned whether the traditional categories of gender were still important today, or if they were restrictive. Do we still need the category of woman? Or should we remove gender as a category entirely? What does gender mean? And how is it represented, differentiated, exploited or maintained?

We invite papers of 15 minutes duration from all disciplines on the topic of gender, it's construction, deconstruction, function and requirements for what promises to be a multivalent symposium. Topics include, but are not limited to:

Gender

Sexuality

Queer/Intersexual/Transexual/Feminist Theory

Construction of gender identity

Gender in literature, film, tv, theatre, art, music and culture

The other/The second sex

Corporeality

Submission requirements:

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted along with a short bio to thegenderquestion@ymail.com before April 17^th

^{For more information on Sibeal - the Irish Postgraduate Gender and Feminist Network check out www.sibeal.ie}

Seminar 5 – Gender in the 21st Century

This month we will be looking at gender and sexuality, and if the norms of the 20^th century still hold weight today. Are traditional ideals about gender and sexuality still necessary important or recognisable? Or are they restrictive? And how is sexuality and gender constructed in contemporary society, culture and thought?

To inform our discussion we will examine the introduction to Judith Butler's text Undoing Gender available here:

http://selforganizedseminar.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/butler-undoing_gender.pdf

We will meet on Thursday, March 7^th at 5pm in T1.01, Tara Building, Mary Immaculate College. All are welcome!  

Call for Papers

I would like to draw your attention to a number of interesting calls for papers

Transcultural Imaginaries
Making New, Making Strange

14–17 June 2013

A Moving Worlds Conference
organized by

Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS), NTU
and Division of English, NTU

Organizing Committee:
Neil Murphy, Shirley Chew, Jennifer Crawford, Daniel Jernigan, Lim Lee Ching, Bede Scott

 

We invite papers and proposals for panels (of 3-4 papers).
Suggested topics include, but are not restricted to:

Translation and transcreation
Interregional exchange — the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean
Forms in Architecture
Rewriting diaspora
The transport of styles
Postcolonial aesthetics
Technology and visual arts and media
Inventing Asia
Travelling theory
Sustainability: contesting paradigms
Contact zones and linguistic identity
Transcultural cities

Abstracts of 250 words to be sent by email to <movingworlds@ntu.edu.sg> by 20 Feb 2013.
http://portal.cohass.ntu.edu.sg/TransculturalImaginaries/default.asp

 

***************

10th Ralahine Utopian Studies Workshop

Cognitive Mapping in Contemporary European Literature

University of Limerick (Ireland)

Thursday 13 June 2013

Proposals (300 words) are thus invited for papers (in English) on instances of cognitive mapping observable in contemporary European literature(s), and should be sent (as an e-mail attachment) to Dr Michael G Kelly (michael.g.kelly@ul.ie) by Friday 8^th March 2013.

 

http://www3.ul.ie/llcc/10th-ralahine-utopian-studies-workshop/

 

 

**************

 

International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures Annual Conference
URBAN CULTURES
School of English, Queen's University Belfast
22-26 July 2013
Call for Papers

We welcome proposals for individual papers and panels on topics including but not limited to:
Literary and cultural representations of the city;
Cognitive geographies;
The literature and culture of individual cities;
The Belfast Group;
Diasporic and migrant cities;
Re-reading The Irish Writer and the City (1984);
Gender and the urban;
Urban sexualities;
Urban coteries;
The divided city;
The archipelagic city;
Urban genres;
Class and the city;
The city and memory.

Abstracts (250-300 words) to be sent to iasil2013@qub.ac.uk<mailto:iasil2013@qub.ac.uk> by 17 March 2013.

Please also include a brief biography (50 words including affiliation).
Individual papers should be no more than 20 minutes in length.
Research students in good standing who have papers accepted will have the conference registration fee waived.

************************


Emerging Perspectives graduate conference

May 2-3, 2013 at University College Dublin in association with the UCD English Graduate Society and Humanities Institute
The UCD English Graduate Society warmly invites MA and PhD students of all levels to submit abstracts of no more than 300 words which engage with the theme ‘Emerging Perspectives’ for the 2013 EGS Postgraduate Symposium.

We invite submissions from a broad range of areas within the below disciplines including but by no means limited to:

• New approaches to literature, multiculturalism, devolution, globalisation, migration, diasporas, historical materialism (American, British, Irish Literature.)

• Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Romantic, Victorian, Realism, Naturalism.

• Modernism, the Beats, Surrealism, Peripheral Modernities.

• Postmodernism, Digital Age/ Post-postmodernism?

• Theory: Materialism, structuralism, deconstruction, postmodernism, gender & queer theory, psychoanalysis, postcolonialism, world literature, digital humanities.

• Novels, poetry, film, drama

This event will be held in the UCD Humanities Institute on the UCD Belfield campus. A selection of the proceedings from the conference will be published in the fourth volume of Emerging Perspectives.
Deadline for submission of abstracts, 300 words maximum, by March 1st 2013 for 20 minute presentations. Submissions for panels are also invited.
Please email submissions as well as any queries regarding the event to englishgradsoc@ucd.ie
http://www.facebook.com/egs.ucd 

 

*********************

 

If anyone wants me to include any other call for papers just email them to me deirdre.flynn@mic.ul.ie



Seminar 4 - Security, Terror, Democracy and Violence

For our first seminar of 2013 we are going to be looking at something very upbeat - the concepts of security, terror, democracy and violence after 9/11.

The seminar will take place on Thursday, February 7th at 5pm in T101 in the Tara Building in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.

Looking at the ideas of state, we will discuss how all of these concepts have changed dramatically in the 21st century, and how this is reflected in society.

Using a lecture from Giorgio Agamden "The State of Exception" we will look at the idea of emergency powers and increased control exercised by Governments in supposed times of crisis. What does this extension of power mean for the individual, the citizen and democracy?

The essay is available on the European Graduate School website:
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/giorgio-agamben/articles/state-of-exception/

For those interested in further writing a number of Giorgio Agamden's articles are available here:
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/giorgio-agamben/articles/

*****

Also I just wanted to draw your attention to a performance of The Third Policeman on next week in The Lime Tree Theatre

The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien
With Stephen Rea as The Narrator
Music by Colin Reid

Accompanied by a live quartet:  Neil Martin (Cello), Niamh Crowley (Violin), Colin Reid (Piano) and Becky Joslin (Cello).

A murder thriller, an hilarious comic satire about an archetypal village police force, a surrealistic vision of eternity, the story of a tender brief unrequited love affair between a man and his bicycle, and a chilling fable of unending guilt…

A music and spoken word presentation of Brian O’Nolan’s blackly comic masterpiece, featuring one of this country's most exceptional actors, Stephen Rea.

Saturday, 9th February @ 8pm

Tickets €20/€16

Lime Tree Theatre Box Office - 061 774 774 or book online www.limetreetheatre.ie.