Deadline for submissions: June 15, 2017
Full name/name of organization: American Conference for Irish Studies–western region
Contact email: donnal.potts@gmail.com
Ireland, Irish America, and Work is the theme of the 33rd annual meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies-Western Regional [ACIS-West] for Oct. 19-22, 2017 at the Davenport Hotel in Spokane, Washington. Many prominent members of the American Labor Movement were Irish and Irish-American. Jim Larkin and James Connolly worked for the I.W.W in both Ireland and the United States, where, in 1917, the I.W.W. began to face vicious repression. By July 1917, federal troops began to be used to suppress industrial conflicts, to raid I.W.W. halls, to break up meetings, and to arrest Wobblies. In Spokane, Irish I.W.W. leader James Rowan was arrested and sent to Leavenworth.
Featuring
*Moya Cannon, author of Carrying the Songs (Carcanet 2007);
*David Brundage, Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of Irish Nationalists in America: The Politics of Exile, 1798-1998 (Oxford University Press, 2016)
*Erin Wecker, University of Montana, author of “Reclaiming Magdalenism or Washing Away Sin: Magdalen Laundries and the Rhetorics of Feminine Silence”
This is an interdisciplinary conference that welcomes papers from all disciplines, including literature, theatre, film, dance, history, economics, sociology, music, religion, politics, language, culture, diaspora, conflict and border studies, the material and visual arts, and comparative studies. Particularly welcome are papers that deal with:
Irish Labor in the United States, Irish/Irish-Americans in the labor movement, Representations of work and the refusal of work, The Unpaid Labor of Women, The Magdalen Laundries, The writer or artist as worker, Irish/Irish-American Literature and work, Work and play, Gender and class related aspects of work, New professions and professionalization, Intellectual vs. physical labor, The Empire at work, Disability and work, American Capitalism and the Irish Economy
The annual meeting of ACIS-West will also feature the Donald E. Jordan, Jr. – Willard C. Potts, Jr. Award, which recognizes exceptional work by emerging scholars in Irish Studies. It is awarded annually to the ACIS-West member judged the most meritorious emerging scholar (current graduate students and scholars within three years of having received a PhD). The recipient is chosen by a committee of ACIS- West members appointed by the President, and the award will be presented at the conference’s closing banquet. The award is accompanied by a $500 honorarium. For more information about the award and the generous donors who have made it possible, see https://aciswest.wordpress.com/awards/.
Please submit your proposal by June 1 to http://acisweb.org/regionals/western/submissions/. Individual paper and panel submissions (3-4 participants) are welcome, as are proposals for live performances, dramatic readings, poster presentations, or exhibits. Individual proposals should be 250- 500 words in length and include a brief biographical statement for the submitter (50 words). In the case of panel proposals, live performances, dramatic readings, posters, or exhibits, please submit a rationale (250-500 words), as well as biographical statements for each of the presenters. To recognize undergraduate research in Irish Studies, we will also organize a special undergraduate panel at the conference, and we encourage exceptional undergraduate students to submit individual paper proposals.