A conference entitled ‘Ireland and Ecocriticism’ will take place in University College Cork on 19-21 June 2014. The conference hopes to attract contributions from a variety of disciplines, not just across the arts, but, ideally, breaching the divide between the arts and sciences. Proposals for both English- and Irish-language contributions, papers and panels, are welcome from all interested scholars.
Suggested topics might include, but are not limited to:
- Wigs on the green: Queer Irish ecologies
- Black comedy and dark ecology
- Contemporary soundscapes
- ‘Sermons’ in stones’ in post-religious society
- Horsemeat dressed as beef: Food panics and animal rights
- The centenary decade: “Placing” commemoration
- “Tidy Towns”, tourism, and the aesthetics of trash
- The diaspora’s preservation of the “Auld Sod”
- Mother Ireland / Mother Nature
- The Hill of Tara and Terminal Two: The new nostalgia
- ‘Hauntology’: Possession, dispossession, and ghost estates
- Irish water (and power) from the Shannon Scheme to cryptosporidium
- Sustainable farming: Saving the floury spud
- The history of Irish hunger, the future of the Irish body
- Colonialism and the countryside: From plantation to fracking
- High viz jackets and the endangered crane: Irish labour and the environment
Proposals of no more than 500 words can be sent to Dr Maureen O’Connor (maure[email protected]) by 31 January 2014. For more information see http://irelandecocriticism.wordpress.com or follow the conference on Twitter @IrishEcocritic and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/irelandecocriticism.