Funding Opportunity: Louth County Archives

Louth County Council invites proposals for research projects on the mercantile, industrial and commercial heritage of Co. Louth (using the Byrne Family of Allardstown as a focal point). Applicants should be suitably qualified researchers, including PhD students, historians, or archivists. Proposals from companies which provide research and writing services are also welcome.

For further information, please visit https://www.louthcoco.ie/en/louth_county_council/latest-news/mercantile-industrial-and-commercial-heritage-research-project.html

Introducing Project Erin: Thomas Moore in Europe

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ERIN documents two of Thomas Moore’s song series – the Irish Melodies (1808-1834) and National Airs (1818-1827) – as well as music inspired by his ‘oriental romance’ Lalla Rookh (1817). ERIN enables the user to track the production and dissemination of these works in Europe, from their respective dates of creation through to 1880. Any contributors to this process (composers, arrangers, editors, illustrators, engravers, publishers, etc.) are indexed or tagged as part of the project. All of ERIN’s resources are now available at www.erin.qub.ac.uk. This website unites the previously available blog and OMEKA resources with some new features, including podcasts and a catalogue that unites the collections of eight European repositories. ERIN was co-produced by Dr Tríona O’Hanlon (Dublin) and Dr Sarah McCleave (Queen’s University Belfast).

To complement ERIN’s launch, the exhibition, ‘Discovering Thomas Moore: Ireland in nineteenth-century Europe’ is on display at the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin from 17 June to 23 December 2019. ‘Discovering Thomas Moore’ is curated by Dr Sarah McCleave (Queen’s University Belfast). For further information about this exhibition and a series of complementary lectures on Thomas Moore, visit: https://www.ria.ie/discovering-thomas-moore-ireland-nineteenth-century-europe-0

CFP: EMBODYING ROMANTICISM

The fifth biennial conference of the Romantic Studies Association of Australasia will take place in Canberra, Australia on 21-23 November 2019.

The conference theme is ‘Embodying Romanticism’ and proposals are now invited for 20-minute papers on any aspects of Romanticism and embodiment. Proposals may be for individual papers or for panels of 3-4 papers. Postgraduate bursaries are available.

See the conference website for the call for papers and further details:
https://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/conferences/rsaa

New Books: Henry Redhead Yorke, Colonial Radical

A 20% discount for Amanda Goodrich’s new book, Henry Redhead Yorke, Colonial Radical Politics and Identity in the Atlantic World, 1772-1813 (Routledge, 2019) is now available.

This is the first biography of Henry Redhead Yorke, a West Indian of African/British descent. Born into a slave society in Barbuda but educated in Georgian England, he developed a complex identity to which politics was key. Yorke was radicalised in revolutionary Paris, became a citizen of the world and the most revolutionary radical in Britain between 1793–5. Imprisoned for his politics, Yorke recanted to loyalism but never lost his political zeal. This book raises important issues about political exclusion, the impact of ‘outsider’ politics in England, political apostasy and the complexities of politicisation and identity construction in the Atlantic World

A blog post about the book is now available at The Victorian Commons.

Follow this link to obtain the discount code and further information about this title.

DRI Early Career Research Award

Digital Repository of Ireland invite early career researchers to apply for a new annual Research Award. This Award grants a prize to an original short article or blog post summarising research informed in whole or in part by objects/collections deposited in DRI. Submissions will be assessed by a panel made up of DRI staff and an external judge, and the winner granted the bursary award of €500.

This Award is open to early career researchers in the areas of arts, humanities, social sciences and digital humanities, including (but not limited to)

  • Masters students
  • Those awarded a masters within the last two years
  • PhD students or those awarded a PhD within the last year 

For further information, please visit https://www.dri.ie/dri-research-award.

Seminar: The Irish to the Rescue

A seminar entitled ‘The Irish to the Rescue: the Tercentenary of the Polish Princess Clementina’s Escape’ will take place on 30 April in Europe House, 12-14 Lower Mount Street, Dublin 2.

This event is organized on the occasion of the tercentenary of the rescue of the Polish Princess Maria Clementina Sobieska from captivity in Innsbruck in April 1719 by a small group of Irish people and one French woman in a most dramatic fashion.

The rescue itself will be retold and complemented by other perspectives offered by six world-class historians. The seminar will commence with an opening address by Professor Marian Lyons (NUIM) to be followed by papers from Dr Declan Downey (UCD), Dr Jarosław Pietrzak (University of Poznań), Dr Eamonn Ó Ciardha (UU), Dr Aneta Markuszewska (University of Warsaw), Professor Edward Corp (Université Toulouse), Dr Linda Kiernan (TCD), Richard Maher (Rathmines College / TU Dublin).

Tea and coffee will be provided during a short break between panels and wine will be offered at the closing of proceedings.

This example of Franco-Irish-Polish cooperation is generously sponsored by The Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Dublin; the Embassy of France in Ireland; the Alliance Française Dublin; Rathmines College of Further Education; The Technological University of Dublin.

This event is free to attend and you can reserve a seat by following the eventbrite link below:

https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/the-irish-to-the-rescue-the-tercentenary-of-the-polish-princess-clementinas-escape-tickets-56482014225

History Ireland Hedge School

HA Maritime People? A Conversation on the Irish at Sea

With a panel of guest speakers chaired by Tommy Graham, editor of History Ireland Saturday 16 March 2019, 15:00–16:30 in the vaults, CHQ building, Custom House Quay, Dublin 1 

In 1986, the prominent maritime historian John de Courcy Ireland wrote: ‘the lives of island peoples like Ireland’s [have] been dominated by the seas encircling them. Yet this fact has been largely ignored by Irish historians.’ This History Ireland Hedge School asks why, three decades later, Ireland’s maritime history and heritage continues to be under-valued. Panellists will reflect on the potential of a better appreciation of Irish maritime history and heritage, to help improve understanding of Ireland’s relationships with the wider world over past centuries and into the future.
Panel: Dr Lar Joye, Dublin Port Authority; Dr David Murphy, Maynooth University; Dr Marie-Louise Coolahan, NUI Galway; Dr Angela Byrne, EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum. 

All welcome. Booking essential at https://www.stpatricksfestival.ie/events/event/history_ireland_hedge_school_a_maritime_people_a_conversation_on_the_irish

CFP: 2019 ECIS Annual Conference

Proposals are now invited for twenty-minute papers (in English or Irish) on any aspect of eighteenth-century Ireland, including its history, literature, language, and culture.

There is no specific conference theme, but proposals for papers and panels addressing the following topics will be particularly welcome:

  • Eighteenth-century Belfast
  • Ireland and Europe
  • Music and performance

Proposals should be submitted by e-mail to Moyra Haslett ([email protected]) before Monday 29 April 2019. Proposals should include: name, institutional affiliation, paper title, and a 250-word abstract.

Prospective speakers will be notified of a decision by Monday 6 May 2019.

Cuirfear fáilte ar leith roimh pháipéir agus/nó roimh phainéil iomlána i nGaeilge ar ghné ar bith de shaol agus de shaíocht na Gaeilge san Ochtú Céad Déag. Iarrtar ar dhaoine ar mhaith leo páipéar 20 nóiméad a léamh, teideal an pháipéir mar aon le hachoimre ghairid (250 focal) a sheoladh chuig Moyra Haslett ([email protected]) roimh 29 Aibreán 2019. Cuirfear scéala chuig cainteoirí roimh an Luan an 6 Bealtaine 2019.

Download the call for papers

Public lecture: Rags, Riches & Recycling

RDS Library & Archives invites you to attend the RDS Library Speaker Series talk ‘Rags, Riches & Recycling; the Dublin Society’s encouragement of art & artefacts, 1731-1781’ by Dr Claudia Kinmouth on Wednesday 31 October at 6.30pm in the RDS Library, followed by a wine reception.

Dr Claudia Kinmouth, author and design historian, is the recipient of the RDS Library & Archives Research Bursary 2018. She is Moore Institute Visiting Research Fellow, NUI Galway and was elected a member of the RIA in March 2018. Her previous publications include Irish Rural Interiors in Art (2006) and Irish Country Furniture 1770-1950 (1993)

Please RSVP via email
library [email protected]
or call +353 (0)1 2407254

Bookings can also be made online: http://www.rds.ie/Whats-On/Event/37038

Book Launch: Swift’s Irish Political Writings after 1725

Irish Political Writings after 1725: A Modest Proposal and Other Works edited by David Hayton and Adam Rounce is the latest volume of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jonathan Swift and the first fully annotated edition of Swift’s Irish prose writings from 1726 to 1737.

The book will be launched at 7.30pm on Wednesday, 26 September 2018 at Armagh Robinson Library. Professor Andrew Carpenter will be guest speaker at the event and there will be an opportunity to purchase copies of the book, signed by Professor David Hayton.

Refreshments will be kindly provided by Ulster University.

RSVP by 21 September 2018 via e-mail: [email protected] or telephone: 028 37523142

Postgrad Bursary Winner Profiles: Matthew Ward

Matthew Ward is an Oxford DPhil History Candidate, Vincent Packford and Geoffrey Smart Scholar, Kellogg College. His research looks at Anglo-Irish political thought in the seventeenth  and eighteenth centuries. He is particularly interested in the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes and his reception in Ireland.  He will be speaking about his work at the ECIS Annual Conference on 8-9 June 2018

Favourite archive:
I recently enjoyed a visit to Armagh Robinson Library to consult the Dopping Papers. The De Vesci Collection at the NLI is also amazingly rich.

Favourite museum, gallery or heritage site:
I really love the Kafka Museum in Prague. The newly refurbished Abbeyleix Heritage House is also very charming.

Most exciting place or time in the eighteenth-century:
The 1794 Treason Trials in London.

Best online resource:
Though it might be a rather obvious answer, I couldn’t do without the pamphlet and sermon material available on ECCO (Eighteenth Century Collections Online).

Best book of 18th century interest:
John Robertson, The Case for The Enlightenment.

What eighteenth century figure would you most like to have a drink with?
John Abernethy Sr. Though his might be an orange juice.

What will you be talking about at the ECIS Annual Conference 2016?
My paper will offer an interpretation of Edward Synge’s The case of toleration (1725) and the debate it sparked in Dublin’s public prints. Synge was Prebendary of St Patrick’s, chaplain to the Lord Lieutenant, and was later promoted to the episcopal bench. Though he sprung from the heart of Ireland’s clerical establishment, he was a critic of the penal laws and enjoyed a close relationship with the Presbyterian philosopher Francis Hutcheson. In The case, Synge objected to the use of force to discipline religious disobedience and alleged that the Irish penal laws embodied the coercive politics and religion of Thomas Hobbes in De Cive. Synge’s characterisation touched a nerve in his Anglican critics who responded by identifying the Hobbesian aspects of his own argument. Showing how Hobbes set the terms of discussion of the penal laws in the 1720s, will allow me to draw broader conclusions about his Anglo-Irish reception and the intellectual culture in which he was received.

Postgrad Bursary Winner Profiles: Dónal Gill

Dónal Gill is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Concordia University and Political Science lecturer at Dawson College. Both institutions are located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. His research looks Irish and British political thought in the eighteenth century, particularly Swift and Burke. He will be speaking about his research at the ECIS Annual Conference on 8-9 June 2016

Most exciting place or time in the eighteenth-century:
The imagination of Jonathan Swift

Best book of 18th century interest:
Political ideas in eighteenth-century Ireland, edited by S J Connolly

What eighteenth century figure would you most like to have a drink with?
I wouldn’t mind picking the brain of Francis Hutcheson over a glass of warm milk.

What will you be talking about at the ECIS Annual Conference?
I will be presenting on the topic of the pitfalls of travel engaged in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. The paper places Swift in dialogue with Locke and Shaftesbury on advising travellers how to obtain the benefits of travels whilst avoiding the myriad possibilities for corruption and degeneration unleashed by voyaging into the unknown. The Travels commentary on such issues is an interesting push back against the modern liberal assumptions regarding the universal benefit of travel to all people in all circumstances. Instead, I read Swift as suggesting that there is a slim likelihood of the emergence of individuals who are sufficiently and properly educated so as to render the benefit of travel to be available to them, and are corrupted by their experiences as a result.

Postgrad Bursary Winner Profiles: Ciara Conway

Ciara Conway is a second year PhD candidate in music at Queen’s University Belfast. Her research focuses on the Irish playwright John O’Keeffe and his career in music-theatre in London at the end of the eighteenth century. She will be speaking about her work at the ECIS Annual Conference on 8-9 June 2018

Favourite archive:
The British Library, London

Favourite museum, gallery or heritage site:
The Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Most exciting place or time in the eighteenth-century:
The London and Dublin theatres, assisting on new plays and rehearsing new music. Nothing would excite me more than being part of the production team alongside directors Thomas Sheridan, John Rich, or Thomas Harris.

Best online resource:
ECCO or British Newspapers 1600-1900. Archive.org also has some hidden musical gems.

Best book of 18th century interest:
Roger Fiske’s English Theatre Music in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984)

What eighteenth century figure would you most like to have a drink with?
This is subject to change, but at the moment I would like to chat with the Italian soprano Giovanna Sestini (1750-1814). Having a career that encompassed theatres in Florence, Lisbon, London, Dublin, and Edinburgh, she no doubt has some insider information that would ruffle some feathers.

What will you be talking about at the ECIS Annual Conference 2016?
My ECIS paper will focus on the dramatic role music plays in O’Keeffe and Shield’s Irish based comic operas The Poor Soldier (1783) and The Wicklow Mountains (1796). Passing comments tend to reason that the music was incidental, contributing little or nothing to the work’s dramatic action. My paper will argue quite the contrary.

Events: Collective action, popular politics and policing 1700-1850

A symposium entitled ‘Collective action, popular politics and policing in Ireland and Great Britain, 1700-1850’ will take place at the Humanities Institute, University College Dublin on Friday, 1 September 2017.

The event is being chaired by David Hayton and Ivar McGrath and speakers will include Ewen Cameron, Iain Channing, James Kelly, Richard McMahon, Ruth Paley, Martyn Powell, and Timothy Watt.

For further information download the programme here, or contact the organiser, Timothy Watt, at [email protected].

Registration for ECIS Annual Conference closing 4 June

Online registration for the 2017 Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society Annual Conference will close at 5pm on Sunday, 4 June 2017.

The conference will take place in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin on 8-9 June 2017.

It is being held this year alongside the major international conference, Swift350, which is taking place to mark the 350th anniversary of the birth of Jonathan Swift across two venues: Trinity College Dublin and Marsh’s Library.

Delegates registered for the ECIS conference may attend all of the Swift350 sessions.

To register now, please visit our Annual Conference page.

Postgrad Bursary Winner Profiles: Kristina Decker

Kristina Decker is a PhD student at University College Cork. Her research looks at Mary Delany and the female experience in eighteenth-century Ireland and she will be speaking about her work at the ECIS Annual Conference on 8-9 June 2017. You can find out more about Kristina by following her on twitter.

Favourite archive:
My favourite archive would have to be the British Library. I spent a lot of time there while I was completing a MA in Eighteenth Century Studies at King’s College London. It is a fantastic place to work and the sheer expanse of their collection is amazing. Whenever I’m in London I always plan a visit.

Favourite museum, gallery or heritage site:
It’s so hard to choose! I’ve spent so many hours wandering through the British Museum. I love the Enlightenment Gallery – they even have some of Mary Delany’s original ‘paper mosaiks’ on display there! But another favourite would be the John Soane museum. I first visited it when I was a young teenager and his rather eccentric house and collection really captivated my imagination!

Most exciting place or time in the eighteenth-century:
These questions are so hard! Even though my current research focuses on Ireland, I would have to say London throughout the eighteenth-century – it was buzzing! I’d give anything to walk down the Strand during the eighteenth century.

Best online resource:
It would have to be ECCO. It’s an incredible resource. I can spend hours on there – I have to be careful not to get lost in it!

Best book of 18th century interest:
It’s a tie. I first encountered Amanda Vickery’s The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England and Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England during my master’s degree and they massively influenced the direction of my own research.

What eighteenth century figure would you most like to have a drink with?
I have to say Mary Delany! Is it possible to have a drink with her at different times of her life? I want to meet the young vivacious widow Mary Pendarves, the Mary Delany of Delville, and Mrs Delany the widowed artist. After reading her letters, I feel like I know her already. I hope that I’d measure up to her ideas of decorum and propriety and wouldn’t feature as a negative postscript in one of her letters!

What’s so great about the eighteenth century?
I don’t know where to begin! The eighteenth century was so vibrant! There’s the amazing architecture and literature. There’s the enlightenment, the birth of the novel as a literary genre, the industrial revolution, the American and French Revolutions… there was so much going on! What’s not great!? Ok… apart from poverty and disease.

What will you be talking about at the ECIS Annual Conference?
I am currently in the first year of my PhD at University College Cork. My research focuses on Mary Delany’s letters from the period that she spent in Ireland. I am particularly interested in elements relating to decorum, propriety, the home (especially gendered space), and sociability.

The paper that I will be presenting at the 2017 ECIS focuses on Mary Delany’s first trip to Ireland in 1731. Mary Delany (then Mary Pendarves) liked Ireland so much that she extended her visit from six months to eighteen months. In her letters, Mary Pendarves describes Ireland with a fresh and very detailed eye. Using these letters as a window into her experience, my paper investigates Mary’s first encounters with Ireland. Her first impressions of the country, which, apart from the odd bad dancer, were generally very positive! My paper will discuss her experience of Ireland as a female member of the elite and how she perceived Ascendancy Ireland – as a place she could easily negotiate.

 

CFP: ‘Swift Today’ conference in Sofia University

A conference entitled ‘Swift Today: His Legacy from the Enlightenment to Modern-Day Politics’ will take place in Sofia University on 30 November – 1 December 2017.

The conference will be conducted in English. Abstracts of proposed papers (300 words) are now invited and can be submitted to the organisers at [email protected] by 1 August 2017.

For further details, follow this link to download the full CFP.

 

CFP: Natures and Spaces of Enlightenment

The Australian and New Zealand Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies is pleased to announce that the sixteenth David Nichol Smith Seminar, Natures and Spaces of Enlightenment, will be held in Brisbane, Australia, at Griffith University and the University of Queensland on the 13th to 15th December 2017.

The following keynote speakers will be presenting at the conference:

  • Deidre Lynch (Harvard University)
  • Jan Golinski (University of New Hampshire)
  • Georgia Cowart (Case Western Reserve University)
  • Sujit Sivasundaram (University of Cambridge)

The Call for Papers is available to view on the ANZSECS website at the following link:

https://anzsecs.com/conference/natures-and-spaces-of-enlightenmentcall-for-papers/

Proposals on any aspect of the long eighteenth century related to the conference theme are welcome.  The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1st August.

If you have any questions about the conference, please contact one of the organisers:

Peter Denney ([email protected]) or Lisa O’Connell ([email protected]).

Postgrad Bursary Winner Profiles: Yuhki Takebayashi

Yuhki Takebayashi is a PhD student at Trinity College Dublin. His research looks at historical compilations of Oliver Goldsmith and he will be speaking about his work at the ECIS Annual Conference on 8-9 June 2017

Favourite archive:
It is always a pleasure to visit and study materials in the British Library.

Favourite museum, gallery or heritage site:
I recently visited the Georgian House Museum in Bristol, which was a wonderful place to exercise one’s imagination and consider what life may have been like in the eighteenth century for an affluent merchant.

Most exciting place or time in the eighteenth-century:
I would love to have joined the company of hack writers dining with Tobias Smollett.

Best online resource:
ECCO: The range of English language materials available, and the usability of the interface is outstanding.

Best book of 18th century interest:
James Prior’s study on the life of Oliver Goldsmith has been an important source in deepening my interest in Goldsmith.

What eighteenth century figure would you most like to have a drink with?
Without a doubt, Oliver Goldsmith. Easy going, good natured, and ready to entertain, it is difficult to imagine how one could be displeased with his company.

What will you be talking about at the ECIS Annual Conference?

My research is concerned with the re-assessment and utilisation of the historical compilations of Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774). In contrast to his canonical texts, these works have fallen into a state of neglect. By fitting them into the context of eighteenth-century history writing, I am re-examining them as valuable sources that may provide an additional layer to the conceptualisation of the author and his literary endeavours.

My paper for the 2017 ECIS conference will engage with the issue of Goldsmith’s Irishness, which has been the subject of continuing scholarly interest. Specifically, I will be doing so by examining his English histories. To this extent, contemporary Irish historians and antiquarians, including Charles O’Conor, Sylvester O’Halloran, and John Curry, will be surveyed to provide a point of reference. It will be shown that Goldsmith’s histories reveal disparate thoughts and attitudes toward Ireland and the Irish that were left in interpretive abeyance. I will propose that occupying such an ambivalent position was necessary to Goldsmith’s particular situation as an Irish writer in London.

ECIS Annual Conference 2017

The 2017 ECIS Annual Conference will take place in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin on 8-9 June 2017.

It is being held this year alongside the major international conference, Swift350, which is taking place to mark the 350th anniversary of the birth of Jonathan Swift across two venues: Trinity College Dublin and Marsh’s Library.

Four plenaries will be delivered across the two conferences by Prof. Moyra Haslett (Queen’s University Belfast), Prof. Mary-Ann Constantine (University of Wales), Prof. James Woolley (Lafayette College) and Prof. Ian McBride (University of Oxford).

Delegates registered for the ECIS conference may attend all of the Swift350 sessions.

To view the full programme or to register online, please visit our Annual Conference page.

Please note that online registration will close on 4 June.

Exhibition and public talk on eighteenth-century women’s writing

Armagh Public Library is currently hosting an exhibition of eighteenth-century women’s writing, featuring a number of the printed books held in the library’s collection. The exhibition runs until the end of March.

In association with the exhibition, the Armagh Public Library is also hosting the following public talk to celebrate International Women’s Day:

  • ‘”The Age of Female Authors”: eighteenth-century women’s writing in the Armagh Public Library’
  • Professor Moyra Haslett (Queen’s University Belfast)
  • 7.30pm, Wednesday 8th March
  • Armagh Public Library

All are welcome!

CFP: Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society Annual Conference

The 2017 Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society Annual Conference will take place at the Royal Irish Academy and Trinity College Dublin on 7-9 June 2017, running in parallel with Swift350.

Proposals are now invited for twenty-minute papers (in English or Irish) on any aspect of eighteenth-century Ireland, including its history, literature, language, and culture.

Proposals from postgraduate students are particularly welcome and there are a limited number of bursaries available for attendance.

For further information, please visit our Annual Conference page.

CFP: Women, Money and Markets (1750-1850)

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In 2017, Jane Austen will feature on the £10 note as the sole female representative on British currency.  To mark this occasion, and explore its problematic significance, the English department at King’s College London is running a one-day conference on 11 May 2017 entitled ‘Women, Money and Markets (1750-1850)’.

The aim of the conference is to consider debates about women in relation to ideas of value, market, marketability, as well as debates about different forms of currency and exchange amongst women, and the place of the female writer in the literary marketplace past and presentThe conference will address themes including consumerism, shopping, global trade, domestic trade, markets (literary and otherwise), currency, and varying practices of exchange. The conference is interdisciplinary in nature, bridging literature, material culture, gender studies and economic history, and aims to relate the debates of the period to modern day issues about the presence and position of women in the economy and media.

Keynote speakers will include Professor Hannah Barker (University of Manchester), and Caroline Criado-Perez, OBE, one of the leading voices in the campaign for female representation on the banknote and an active promoter and supporter of women in the media.

Submissions are now invited, in the form of individual papers, panels and roundtable discussions, on the following themes:

  • The varying practices of women associated with currency, global and/or domestic markets and marketability
  • Material practices associated with value, exchange and/or female creativity
  • Women as producers and/or consumers in the literary or other marketplaces (including, but not limited to, food, clothing, agriculture and raw materials)
  • Representations of women at work or women’s involvement in:
  • Trade and industry
  • Professional services (such as law, finance, hospitality and the media)
  • Domestic service
  • The rural economy
  • The place of women in the literary marketplace (past and present)

We particularly welcome cross-cultural considerations of the above issues.

Please send 300 word abstracts to the conference email address ([email protected]) with an indication of your proposed format (individual paper, panel, roundtable, etc.).  If you are submitting a proposal for a panel, please include an abstract for each paper (up to 300 words each). Please indicate if you would like your paper to be considered for the edited volume that will be published after the conference.

Deadline for submissions: January 31st 2017

Conference Organisers: Dr Emma Newport (University of Sussex) and Amy Murat (King’s College London)

For enquiries regarding the programme, please contact: [email protected]
For all general enquiries, please contact: [email protected]

Follow this link to download the call for papers.

New Book: Irish Fine Art in the Early Modern Period

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Irish Fine Art in the Early Modern Period edited by Jane Fenlon, Ruth Kenny, Caroline Pegum, and Brendan Rooney presents the finest contemporary research on Irish fine art from the 17th and 18th centuries. The contributors, both established and emergent Irish art historians, approach the production and reception of fine art in this period with substantial new work on a wide range of fascinating themes.

Table of Contents:

  1. ‘Parliament as Theatre: Francis Wheatley’s The Irish House of Commons Revisited’, Fintan Cullen.
  2. ‘Theft, Concealment and Exposure: Nathaniel Hone’s The Spartan Boy’, William Laffan.
  3. ‘Commerce, Conquest and Change: Thomas Hickey’s John Mowbray, Calcutta Merchant,attended by a Banian and a Messenger’, Siobhan McDermott.
  4. ‘Artistic connections between Dublin and London in the early-Georgian period: James Latham and Joseph Highmore’, Jacqueline Riding.
  5. ‘The “Strange and Unaccountable” John Van Nost: The Making of a Sculptural Career in Eighteenth-Century Ireland’, M.G. Sullivan.
  6. ‘An Irish Teniers? The Development of Paintings of Everyday Life in Ireland,c.1780–c.1810’, Mary Jane Boland.
  7. ‘The Portrait Collection in the Great Hall of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin’, Jane Fenlon.
  8. ‘The Contribution of Foreign Artists to Cultural Life in Eighteenth-Century Dublin’, Nicola Figgis.
  9. ‘Visualising the Privileged Status of Motherhood: The Commemoration of Women in Irish Funerary Monuments, c.1600-c.1650’, Elaine Hoysted.

For further information, follow this link to visit the Irish Academic Press website.

 

Events: Newbridge House Study Day, 8 Nov. 2016.

Newbridge House by Janet Finlay Cobbe, née Grahame (1826-1884), c.1860, watercolour on paper, Cobbe collection no.205
Newbridge House by Janet Finlay Cobbe, née Grahame (1826-1884), c.1860, watercolour on paper, Cobbe collection no.205

The Irish Georgian Society and Fingal County Council, in collaboration with the Cobbe family, are partnering to deliver a study day which will examine the history and conservation of Newbridge’s architecture, designed landscape, decorative interiors and collection.

Speakers will include: Alec Cobbe, Cathal Dowd Smith, Dr Arthur MacGregor, Dr Anthony Malcomson, Fionnuala May, Una Ni Mhearain, Professor Finola O’ Kane Crimmins, David Skinner, Dr Adriaan Waiboer and Professor David Watkin.

Attendance fee is €90 to include lunch.  Bookings can be made through the Irish Georgian Society, 58 South William Street, Dublin 2.

T: 01 6798675.
E: [email protected] W:http://www.igs.ie/uploads/Final_Newbridge_Programme_for_web_HR.pdf

CFP Reminder: The Irish and the London Stage

Please note the Call for Papers for the conference on ‘The Irish and the London Stage: Identity, Culture, and Politics, 1680-1830’ to be held at Trinity College Dublin, 17-18 February 2017 is closing on 30 September.

Keynote speakers: Professor Helen Burke (Florida State) and Professor Felicity Nussbaum (UCLA)

Further details here: https://londonirishtheatreblog.wordpress.com/

CFP: Papers for the 2017 ASECS conference

The 2017 American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies conference will be held in Minneapolis (MN), from March 30 – April 2; for more information, please see https://asecs.press.jhu.edu/general%20site/Final%202017%20Call%20for%20Papers%20edited.pdf.

The Irish Caucus will be organizing two panels at the annual ASECS meeting and an additional panel jointly with the Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society.  Please see the descriptions of these panels below and consider proposing a paper for one of them.  Graduate students and junior scholars are especially encouraged to submit proposals.

 

Irish Caucus Panel 1: “The Irish Enlightenment IX”

(Irish Caucus; Scott Breuninger; University of South Dakota; Email: [email protected])

Over the past decade, scholars of the Enlightenment have increasingly recognized the contributions of Ireland to broader strands of eighteenth-century thought and the place of Irish thinkers’ work within the context of European and Atlantic intellectual movements.  This research has spawned an increasing number of essays, books, and conference panels, illustrating the vitality of debate concerning the Irish dimension of the Enlightenment and collectively helping to define the nature of the Irish Enlightenment.  This panel welcomes participants whose work focuses on Irish thought and/or its relationship to the Enlightenment world, especially papers that utilize new methodological approaches to the study of intellectual history; including (but not limited to) models drawn from the digital humanities, global history, and/or gender studies.  If interested, please send an abstract of your paper (approximately 300 words) to Scott Breuninger ([email protected]) by September 15, 2016.

 

Irish Caucus Panel 2: “Aesthetics and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Ireland”

(Irish Caucus; Scott Breuninger; University of South Dakota; Email: [email protected])

During the eighteenth century, questions of aesthetics in Ireland were often linked to notions of political or social authority.  Working in a society divided by religion, gender, and race, Irish artists were faced with the uncomfortably stark nature of political power and the (mis-)attribution of meaning(s) to their work.  In this context, many of the themes explored by Irish poets, playwrights, and musicians (among others) were necessarily grounded in discourses that tried to walk a fine line between personal expression and social expectations.  Some of these creative works explicitly drew from Ireland’s past to inform their meaning, others looked toward the future with varying degrees of optimism and pessimism.  In this nexus of aesthetic creativity, artists were forced to negotiate with a wide range of pressures that were unique to Hibernia.

 

This panel welcomes proposals that address how issues of artistic representation related to questions of political and social power within eighteenth-century Ireland.  Of particular interest are proposals that investigate how politically disenfranchised groups in Ireland addressed the connection between artistic representation, political power, and/or historical memory along lines associated with religion, gender, and race  If interested, please send an abstract of your paper (approximately 300 words) to Scott Breuninger ([email protected]) by September 15, 2016.

 

Joint Irish Studies/Scottish Studies Panel: “New Directions in Irish and Scottish Studies”
(Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society and Irish Studies Caucus) Leith Davis, Simon Fraser University; E-mail: [email protected]

The nations which we now know as Ireland and Scotland have a long history of connection and conflict dating back to prehistoric times when, as Tom Devine puts it, the two formed a “single cultural, religious, linguistic and economic zone” (3). It was only in the late 1990’s, however, in the context of the growing political strength of the Scottish devolution movement and the gains of the peace process in Northern Ireland, that academics working in Irish Studies and Scottish Studies began to look at connections between their fields of inquiry. Putting Irish Studies and Scottish Studies in dialogue with one another has had important implications, although it has also revealed some limitations. This panel invites scholars to reflect on the scholarly dialogue between Irish and Scottish studies either in the past or present. Submissions may consider new theoretical perspectives and/or examine specific textual or historical examples of connections between Ireland and Scotland. If interested, please send an abstract of your paper (approximately 300 words) to Leith Davis ([email protected]) by September 15, 2016.

 

Additional Irish-Themed Panel for ASECS

“The Ulster Scots in Ireland and North America”

David Clare, National University of Ireland, Galway

Email: [email protected]

The Ulster Scots are an ethnic group descended from the Scottish people who settled in the North of Ireland during the reign of King James I. Today, they play an important role in Northern Irish political life and possess a vibrant, unique culture which is currently experiencing a revival. In the eighteenth century, the Ulster Scots emigrated in great numbers to North America, and, in the United States (where they became known as the “Scotch-Irish”), they contributed greatly to the development of American music, handicrafts, and political values. Despite their considerable impact on Irish and North American life, the Ulster Scots remain an under-regarded Irish subculture. For example, the excellent, eighteenth-century Rhyming Weaver poets are routinely omitted from “definitive” anthologies of Irish literature. Likewise, the Ulster Scots role in the 1798 Rebellion and their post-Rebellion transition to diehard British loyalty warrants further study. And there are still gaps in our understanding of the deep imprint that the Ulster Scots made on American politics and culture in the decades following their arrival. As such, this panel solicits papers which explore the impact of the Ulster Scots on Irish and/or North American political and cultural life in the long eighteenth-century.

If interested in this panel, please send an abstract of your paper (approximately 300 words) to David Clare ([email protected]) by 15 September 2016.

 

 

CFP: The Irish and the London Stage

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Proposals for papers are now being invited for a conference entitled ‘The Irish and the London Stage: Identity, Culture, and Politics, 1680-1830’ which will take place in the Long Room Hub, Trinity College Dublin on 17-18 February 2017.

The conference will consider the varied Irish contribution to the development of London’s theatrical world over the course of the eighteenth century.  This event is generously supported by the Marie-Curie programme.

Please visit the conference website for further information.