Melissa Baird, Queen’s University Belfast

The Postgraduate (PhD) Travel and Research Bursary enabled me to travel to the United States for two weeks to gather sources from several different archives relating to my thesis which examines Irish-American responses to the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland from 1967-1972.

On this trip I spent the first week in Washington D.C., viewing the Ancient Order of Hibernians Collection held at the Catholic University of America, and the Department of State files on Ireland from 1963-1975, held in the National Archives at College Park, Maryland. The second week I spent in New York City, visiting the special collections held at St John’s University, New York University, and the American Irish Historical Society. At St John’s University, I reviewed the papers of Paul O’Dwyer, an Irish- American lawyer, and Hugh Carey, a congressman from New York.

In New York University, I visited the Tamiment Library to explore the Archives of Irish America, especially the papers of Judge James Comerford, who was a leading figure in New York Irish-American social circles, and oral histories interviews from Paul O’Dwyer. In the American Irish Historical Society, I reviewed their holdings of their journal The Recorder and the papers of another Irish-American organisation, The Friendly Sons of St Patrick. This bursary was an enormous help in allowing me to complete this trip and gain access to these sources. This material will massively inform my understanding and analysis of this topic, from which I will now be able to write at least two chapters of my PhD, detailing both the responses from Irish Americans at the grassroots level as well as Irish Americans involved in lobbying the United States, Irish, and British governments.

 

Jennifer Gouck, University College Dublin

 

The PCA/ACA national conference (17th-20th April, Washington Marriott Hotel) was my first experience of a large international conference, as well as my first time presenting a paper in the United States. With an attendance of around 5,000 delegates, the sheer size of this conference was the most difficult thing to wrap my head around. Indeed, its size was both its attraction and its downfall; with over 100 areas of interest, choosing which panels to attend was almost overwhelming. The stamina required for this conference, both mental and physical, was also astounding as panels ran back-to-back from 8am until around 9pm each day. This meant that I occasionally felt I was missing what looked to be a fascinating panel because although the mind was willing, the flesh was weak.

Given that my research into the Manic Pixie Dream Girl in Young Adult literature, media, and culture is interdisciplinary and cross-media, I wanted to make the most of the variety of strands available to me and increase my knowledge of the fields in which I have less experience. On Wednesday 17th, I attended panels on the Netflix era of television, on YA novel adaptation, on femininity, masculinity, and empowerment in magazines and literature, and on animation and Disney (I’ll admit the last one was out of pure curiosity rather than for my academic enrichment). Thursday morning kicked off bright and early at 7am with the Graduate Student Breakfast. Although I was feeling nervous, this mixer proved to be a great opportunity to network, and I met a number of PGRs from across the United States and from across several disciplines. It was here I learned that keynote speaker, April Ryan, would be juggling several commitments that evening. As keen Americanists, readers will no doubt have noted that Thursday 18th April was the day the Mueller Report was released to the American public. Thus, though scheduled to speak at the PCA/ACA Grand Reception, Ms Ryan’s occupation as a White House correspondent meant that she would also have to participate in a segment for news channel CNN. To facilitate this, April gave her speech to the PCA/ACA delegates before dashing to the news trucks parked in the Marriott’s driveway to give her report. She then returned to the ballroom for a Q&A session. Needless to say, the delegates, the majority of which were US residents, were abuzz for most of the day. The deep anger amongst those present was palpable, and the Mueller Report dominated nearly every panel, regardless of its theme.

The following day, I presented on a panel entitled “Children’s and YA Literature and Culture IX: Changing Gender Role(model)s.” Using Franco Moretti’s argument in ‘Conjectures on World Literature’ (2000) that literature can be considered a planetary system, my paper argued that the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) trope can be read in a similar way. I suggested that the Manic Pixie is not purely an invention of the twenty-first century but is instead a constellation of canonical literary and cinematic tropes which have evolved through patriarchal storytelling practices over thousands of years.

For me, attending and presenting at this conference was an enriching experience both academically and personally; I was able to travel to a part of the world I had never visited before, meet with upcoming scholars in the field of Children’s and YA Literature, and get a feel for scholarly developments ‘across the pond’. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the IAAS for this award. I have been involved with the Association since 2015 and their support has allowed me to take up more opportunities than I ever could have managed alone. I thank them not only for their financial support but also for the community’s genuine interest in my personal progress as well as in my research. Special thanks also go to Dr Patricia Kennon of Maynooth University who also supported me financially and gastronomically on this trip by buying me lunch on several occasions. I hope to pay this kindness forward in future.

The IAAS Postgraduate Symposium
“The Land of the (Un)Free: Interrogating Democracy in America”
University College Cork
23
rd  November, 2019


This year, the Irish Association for American Studies Postgraduate Symposium welcomes proposals for papers that interrogate Democracy in America – in how it is constructed, understood, and the extent to which it is successfully enacted. Inspired by current events and political trends within the United States, from the strict abortion laws imposed in Alabama in February, to the on-going humanitarian crisis at the U.S.- Mexico Border, we seek papers that engage with and respond to the paradoxical relationship between the American ideal of democracy, and the actual practice of that democracy. We invite papers that consider the gulf between democratic principles and fundamentally unconstitutional behaviours, with a particular emphasis placed upon undemocratic and authoritarian actions that have both historically shaped America and continue to resurge in the Trump era.

“The Land of the (Un)Free: Interrogating Democracy in America” is a one-day interdisciplinary symposium that seeks to provide an opportunity for Postgraduate Students and Early Career Scholars to share their ideas and contribute their individual voices to the inclusive academic community of American Studies across the island of Ireland.

We welcome proposals for fifteen-minute papers which engage with the concept of democracy within the field of American Studies, encompassing Continental American perspectives (Canada and South America) as well as those related to the United States. Proposed topics may include, but are by no means limited to:

  • Representations of American democracy, American people, and American culture in literature and film
  • Historical insights and social/political considerations regarding democracy and attacks on democracy, political polarisation and democracy
  • New perspectives on Alexis De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America 
  • The relationship between American exceptionalism and democracy
  • Philosophical conceptions of democracy and their application in the U.S. context
  • Explorations of democracy in American music, comics, popular culture
  • Issues of gender, sexuality, class & race in relation to American democracy
  • Democracy in visual culture

The deadline for submissions is Friday, 11th of October 2019. Proposals for papers should include a title, an abstract (max. 300 words), and a short biography. For more information, or to submit a proposal, please email postgrad@iaas.ie

The deadline for bursary applications is Monday, 4th November, 2019.
There are two bursaries available for symposium presenters. Application forms and information can be found at https://iaas.ie/funding-opportunities/. References are *not* required for this bursary application process.

Counter-narratives and Hidden Histories

Irish Association for American Studies

50th Anniversary Conference

Maynooth University, Co. Kildare

3-4 April 2020

CALL FOR PAPERS

As the IAAS turns 50 in 2020, we are delighted to announce that a special anniversary conference will be hosted at Maynooth University on 3rd and 4th April. In keeping with the Association’s ongoing ethos of providing space and opportunity to voices, stories, and bodies historically marginalised by dominant discourses, IAAS 2020 invites submissions on the theme of ‘Counter-narratives and Hidden Histories’.

Confirmed keynote speaker: Professor Amy Mooney (Columbia College Chicago; Terra Foundation for American Art Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford).

Abstracts for individual papers, panels, or roundtables are welcomed on topics related to this broad theme across all disciplines of American and Latin American Studies, including:

  • Anthropology
  • Art
  • Education and pedagogy
  • Film
  • History
  • Literature
  • Music
  • Politics and International Relations
  • Theatre and Performance Studies
  • Visual Culture

The conference will also host a special roundtable session on ‘Anti-racist Teaching and Scholarship’, and welcomes submissions of individual abstracts considering, for example, whiteness in academia, academia and activism, teaching ‘race’, and other related subjects.

Individual submissions:

  • Please provide an abstract of no more than 250 words, along with your name and a brief biography.

Panel submissions:

  • Please provide a brief description of your panel (3 presenters), along with the names and brief biographies of the proposed presenters, and an individual abstract (250 words) for each paper.
  • The composition of panels should be diverse whenever possible, and all-male panels should be avoided.

Roundtable submissions:

  • Please provide a brief description of your roundtable (between 4 and 8 presenters), along with the names and brief biographies of the proposed presenters, and an individual abstract for each paper (no more than 100 words).
  • The composition of roundtables should be diverse, and all-male roundtables will not be accepted.

 

** There will be concession rates for students, ECRs, and scholars on fixed-term contracts.**

** Bursaries are also available. **

 

Deadline for submissions: 1st November 2019

Please send submissions to: IAAS2020conference@gmail.com

Please send enquiries to: Catherine.Gander@mu.ie

For a downloadable PDF copy of this CFP, please see the following link

CFP IAAS 2020

The IAAS Postgraduate Symposium
“The Land of the (Un)Free: Interrogating Democracy in America”
University College Cork
23
rd  November, 2019

Call for Roundtable Participants:

In addition to accepting proposals for traditional fifteen-minute papers at this year’s Irish Association for American Studies Postgraduate Symposium, we will host a roundtable session entitled ‘Inception, Evolution, Completion: Navigating PhD Research in American Studies’.

The objective of this roundtable is for final year or recently graduated PhD researchers to share experiences of how their research, particularly in contemporary studies, may have changed direction or evolved in light of cultural developments: for example, how the #MeToo movement has impacted projects in Gender Studies, or how the #BlackLivesMatter movement has affected research in African-American Studies.

This session is intended to foster inclusive and lively discussion amongst postgraduate and early career scholars in the IAAS community, whilst also offering prospective postgraduate students the unique opportunity to gain an insight into how the PhD process functions in a variety of interdisciplinary and institutional contexts.

We invite roundtable participants to submit a proposal, including a brief description of their research – from its inception, to its evolution, to its completion – and why they think it may be beneficial to share their experience (300 words), by Friday, 18th October 2019. Potential participants are invited to contact postgrad@iaas.ie to express their interest, or to ask any further questions they may have.

CFP: Alternative Realities: New Challenges for

American Literature in the Era of Trump

Friday 13 – Saturday 14 December 2019

Clinton Institute for American Studies, University College Dublin

 

Watching the televised debates between then-presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1959, and reflecting on the growth of televisual media and the gradual transformation of politics into spectacle, Philip Roth observed that “the American writer” was now challenged “to understand, and then describe, and then make credible much of the American reality,” at a time when the actuality was “constantly outdoing our talents”. After the election of Donald Trump in 2016 it feels like, once again, reality is outpacing fiction, with the Trump presidency inaugurating a new stage in the process of aestheticization in which politics and entertainment converge as never before. This paradigm shift—which is not exclusive to the US, but that is especially acute given Trump’s celebrity status and his leadership style—has been sharpened by the disruptive impact of new and social media in the public sphere, bringing to the fore concomitant concerns about the derealization of political and cultural discourses. In a context where the relationship between fact and fiction has been deeply destabilized, writers are challenged to make sense of this new “American reality” that is troubling core assumptions about the purpose and value of literature.

This conference seeks to bring together scholars in literary studies and adjacent fields to consider literary responses to the new American realities.

We are delighted to confirm as Keynote Speakers:

Aleksandar Hemon

novelist and short-story writer, author of Nowhere Man and The Lazarus Project

Professor of Creative Writing at Princeton University

 

Karen E. Bender

novelist and short-story writer, author of RefundThe New Order, Like Normal People

Distinguished Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Hollins University

 

Chris Beckett

novelist and short-story writer, author of America City and Dark Eden

Arthur C. Clark Award winner 2013

 

Topics may include (but are not confined to):

  • Narrative strategies and innovations in the literary representation of American reality
  • Intersections between fiction and non-fiction
  • Fictional subversions of the “real”
  • The valence of realism in contemporary American literature
  • Literary criticism in the age of “Fake News”
  • Politics of representation, dissent, and resistance
  • Genre and gender in contemporary American fiction(s)
  • Diasporic, minority, immigrant, and Native American literatures
  • Right-wing/conservative American literature
  • The resurgence of American protest poetry
  • The currency of dystopian and counterfactual literature
  • The role of irony, satire and parody in the era of Trump
  • The demands of writing the contemporary
  • Reading publics/audiences and the role of fiction
  • Shifting economies in the publishing industry
  • The currency of prior literature for making sense of the present

Please submit the paper title, an abstract of 300 words and a short bio to dolores.resano@ucd.ie and catherine.carey@ucd.ie . We also welcome applications for full panels of 3-4 papers. We will soon update information on our website, but don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have.

The deadline for paper and panel proposals has been extended to 1st October 2019. Registration fee for participants is €120, reduced fee of €50 for postgrad students.

The IAAS Postgraduate Symposium
“The Land of the (Un)Free: Interrogating Democracy in America”
University College Cork
23
rd  November, 2019

This year, the Irish Association for American Studies Postgraduate Symposium welcomes proposals for papers that interrogate Democracy in America – in how it is constructed, understood, and the extent to which it is successfully enacted. Inspired by current events and political trends within the United States, from the strict abortion laws imposed in Alabama in February, to the on-going humanitarian crisis at the U.S.- Mexico Border, we seek papers that engage with and respond to the paradoxical relationship between the American ideal of democracy, and the actual practice of that democracy. We invite papers that consider the gulf between democratic principles and fundamentally unconstitutional behaviours, with a particular emphasis placed upon undemocratic and authoritarian actions that have both historically shaped America and continue to resurge in the Trump era.

 

“The Land of the (Un)Free: Interrogating Democracy in America” is a one-day interdisciplinary symposium that seeks to provide an opportunity for Postgraduate Students and Early Career Scholars to share their ideas and contribute their individual voices to the inclusive academic community of American Studies across the island of Ireland.

 

We welcome proposals for fifteen-minute papers which engage with the concept of democracy within the field of American Studies, encompassing Continental American perspectives (Canada and South America) as well as those related to the United States. Proposed topics may include, but are by no means limited to:

 

  • Representations of American democracy, American people, and American culture in literature and film
  • Historical insights and social/political considerations regarding democracy and attacks on democracy, political polarization and democracy
  • New perspectives on Alexis De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America 
  • The relationship between American exceptionalism and democracy
  • Philosophical conceptions of democracy and their application in the U.S. context
  • Explorations of democracy in American music, comics, popular culture
  • Issues of gender, sexuality, class & race in relation to American democracy
  • Democracy in visual culture

 

The deadline for submissions is Monday, 30th September 2019. Proposals for papers should include a title, an abstract (max. 300 words), and a short biography. For more information, or to submit a proposal, please email postgrad@iaas.ie

Call for Papers

Crossing the Atlantic:  Visual Culture at the Crossroads of Ireland and the United States

Americans who travelled to Ireland, many compelled by familial connections, developed rich relationships with Irish artists that led to cultural exchange between the two countries, while social and political unrest in Ireland prompted Irish artists to leave their homeland, and that migration resulted in cultural exchange as well.

One of the best known examples, Irish painter John Yeats and Irish American art collector John Quinn facilitated cultural exchange between the two countries in the early twentieth century, including the advancement of Irish painting and design in America. In addition to his friendship with John Yeats, Quinn developed close ties with his children, including Jack Yeats, one of Ireland’s most celebrated painters and designers Elizabeth and Lily Yeats.  But there is much more yet to be explored by scholars in this area of study.

Thus, we are seeking articles for an anthology that will focus on Irish/American transcultural exchange as it relates to visual culture.  For this project, visual culture is being defined broadly to include the visual arts, images from popular culture, material culture, and craft.  If interested, please contact Cynthia Fowler at email:  fowlecy@emmanuel.edu.  A one-page abstract that describes your project should be sent by September 15, 2019.

Edith Wharton’s New York

A conference sponsored by the Edith Wharton Society

New Yorker Hotel

June 17th-20th 2020

 

Please join the Edith Wharton Society for its upcoming conference marking the centennial anniversary of the publication of Edith Wharton’s Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, The Age of Innocence. We will celebrate this momentous year in New York, the setting not only of so many of Wharton’s works but also of much of her life.

While all topics are welcome, we are particularly interested in whole panels and individual papers that focus on New York as a geographical and thematic element in Wharton’s life and works. Papers could explore the role of New York City and/or the Hudson River Valley in Wharton’s works, Wharton’s own history with the region, or Wharton’s relationship to place and space more generally. Papers that offer new readings of The Age of Innocence—such as new historical approaches or legacies of The Age of Innocence, the novel’s relationship to other works by Wharton and/or her peers, and adaptations of the novel (for film, theater, etc.)—are also welcome.

Since 1920 marks the beginning of what many consider the “later years” of Wharton’s career, examinations of Edith Wharton’s works in the shifting literary and political foundations of postWWI society are also of interest. The 20s mark the centennial of other significant Wharton texts, and essays that examine these later works are of particular interest.

In addition, there will be a keynote speaker and opportunities for tours of local attractions. Further details forthcoming.

We welcome submissions for full panels of 4-5 participants and roundtables of 6-7 participants as well as individual paper submissions. Please submit proposals no later than August 1st, 2019 to whartonnewyork@gmail.com

For full panel and roundtable proposals, please submit 200-350-word summaries of each presentation included in the panel or roundtable as well as a brief 50-word bio and A/V requests for each presenter.

For individual paper proposals, please submit a 350-500-word abstract, a brief 50-word bio, and A/V requests as one Word document.

All conference participants must be members of the Edith Wharton Society at the time of registration.

For additional information, contact co-directors at email address above or individually:

Margaret Toth (Meg), Manhattan College margaret.toth@manhattan.edu

Margaret Jay Jessee (Jay), University of Alabama at Birmingham mjjessee@uab.edu

 

Narratives of (Un)sustainability: Assessing U.S. Oil Culture

Keynote Speaker: Prof. Stephanie LeMenager, University of Oregon

Until newly-elected Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez propelled the “Green New Deal” into the public discourse following the 2018 midterm elections, ecological issues had remained largely absent in American political debate and agenda. Unsurprisingly, the US emerges as a longstanding contributor to the rising concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, one of the leading causes of climate change. The holder of one of the most important carbon footprints, the US ranks among the most unsustainable states. If the “American way of life” were to be replicated on a worldwide scale, its rate of resource consumption and waste production would require close to five planets to sustain itself. Since the end of WWII, the US has accumulated a colossal ecological debt at the expense of future generations, whose access to natural wealth is substantially jeopardized, and developing economies, which rely on a much lower resource supply.

Climate disruption is a symptom of this socio-economic matrix of unsustainability and of the unclaimed “check” or hidden cost of the US and other countries’ dysfunctional modes of existence. Specifically, unsustainability results from the harmful triad consisting of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas), a high-energy society, and economic growth. The refusal to address pressing environmental issues by engaging the country in broad, systemic changes (for instance through a national plan for a fossil fuel phase-out) attests to the pervasiveness of oil culture and its coterminous ideology of perpetual growth in American society. That being said, counter-narratives that seek other ways of relating to the environment and of living on earth’s rhythms have emerged in the past years (from the US itself and from elsewhere), and they offer an avenue for moving past the oil predicament.

With Prof. Stephanie LeMenager (University of Oregon, author of Living Oil: Petroleum in the American Century), an expert on America’s petroleum culture, as our keynote speaker, we would like to invite scholars from various disciplines to reflect on the narratives surrounding the US oil culture. We conceive of this conference as an opportunity to explore both ends of the spectrum: from narratives of how unsustainability fuels the oil culture by disseminating ideas such as the existence of inexhaustible abundance or the possibility of a technological “fix” to all environmental ailments, to narratives of sustainability that demonstrate how American culture could be changed through an awareness of the fundamental incompatibility between a politics of infinite growth and a finite biosphere.

Interested in presenting something? Please submit an abstract of 200–300 words and a biography of 100–200 words by 30 June 2019 to the conference organizers:

Audrey Loetscher@unil.ch

Agnieszka.SoltysikMonnet@unil.ch

Contributions should be twenty minutes in length, followed by approximately ten minutes of Q&A.

Please note that there is no conference fee.