The Cormac McCarthy Society’s Eighth International Conference
Cormac McCarthy’s Irish Roots and Influences: Yeats-Joyce-Beckett-O’Brien-Celtic Myth and Lore
Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland – June 16-18, 2020
Call for papers
The Cormac McCarthy Society and the Department of English of Trinity College Dublin announce an international conference on Cormac McCarthy’s Irish literary influences to be held in the Long Room Hub at Trinity College in Dublin on June 16, 17 and 18th, 2020. Our hosts will be Stephen Matterson of the Department of English, Trinity College, and Steven Frye, President of the Cormac McCarthy Society.
We welcome submissions for papers for this conference. Our special areas of concern will be Cormac McCarthy’s roots in, allusions and indebtedness to Irish literature, religious practices, folklore and mythology as represented in his novels and screenplays, as well as in films of his work. We invite particular focus on McCarthy and William Butler Yeats, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. Discussions of the current political issues occasioned by the United Kingdom’s de facto Brexit revision of the Good Friday Agreement and possible rekindling of “the troubles” are invited as long as some organic connection with literary issues is maintained.
We also invite papers on all other areas of McCarthy’s work, especially with regard to Irish and Catholic literature worldwide.
For those of you who are submitting conference proposals for the first time, please check the existing critical literature to be sure that you are breaking new ground or, at least, looking at the existing texts or criticism in some new or novel way.
Please submit your one to one and a half page precis for papers with an approximately 20-minute reading time, or for three to four paper complete panel proposals. Submissions should be accompanied by brief one-paragraph author’s biography or CV. Full session times for panels will run about 90 minutes. All proposals must be submitted by no later than March 30, 2020. Proposals should be submitted to Stephen Matterson and Rick Wallach, conference co-directors, as Word.doc or PDF attachments at info@cormacmccarthy.com. We will make every effort to qualify your submissions within a short period of time so you can make your travel arrangements as early as possible.
We will be posting more information on accommodations at and near Trinity College, and the costs of conference registration fees, in the near future on our web site, www.cormacmccarthy.com, and will contact all who submit proposals immediately by email as we firm up our plans. Please also direct any questions you have about the conference to info@cormacmccarthy.com. Check our web site periodically for regular updates.