International Ph.D Seminar, Prague, 2009

THE POLITICS OF IRISH WRITING

Postgraduate Conference

Centre for Irish Studies, Faculty of Arts – Charles University Prague

18 – 19 September 2009

Location: Faculty of Arts (Filosofická fakulta) – main building, Palachovo náměstí 2, Prague 1, first floor, room 111 and 116

PROGRAMME

Friday 18th September

9.00 Opening address (Room 111)

Ondřej Pilný (Head of the Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures and Director of the Centre for Irish Studies, Charles University, Prague)

Maciej Ruczaj (Chair of the Organising Committee, Charles University, Prague)

GUESTS OF HONOUR:

Brian McElduff (First Secretary, Embassy of Ireland to the Czech Republic) James S. Rogers (President, American Conference for Irish Studies)

9.30 – 11.30 Colonised Island, Decolonised Minds? (Room 111)

Katrina Morgan (University of Portsmouth) “English in taste, in words and intellect”: An Investigation into the Politics of the Irish National School Books

Ciaran O’Neill (University of Liverpool) Pearse, Parnell or the Priests? The Politics of Identity in the Irish Schoolboy Novel

Giulia Bruna (University College Dublin) “I like not lifting the rags from my mother country for to tickle the sentiments of Manchester”: Synge’s Subversive Practice in “In the Congested Districts”

Christopher Collins (Trinity College, Dublin) J.M. Synge and the Politics of Pre-Christian Ireland

11:30 – 12:00 Coffee break

12:00 - 13:30 Crossing the Divide - Northern Irish Prose before the Troubles (Room 111)

Guy Woodward (Trinity College Dublin) History, Nationalism, and The Emperor of Ice Cream

David Jameson (Trinity College Dublin) “Exogamous Bride” An Analysis of ‘RomanceAcross-the-Divide’ in the Novels of Three Northern Ireland Writers

Michaela Marková (Charles University, Prague /Trinity College, Dublin) Topography of Urban Space in Janet McNeill’s Adult Fiction and Drama

13:30 – 14:30 Lunch break

14:30 – 16:00 Trans-Cultural Translations (Room 111)

Kateřina Jenčová (Charles University, Prague) Irish-Canadian Experience

Caitríona Ní Chléirchín (University College Dublin) Translation and the Voices of Contemporary Irish-language Poets in Irish Writing Today

Debora Biancheri (National University of Ireland, Galway) Irish Writing in Italy: Issues of Identity in Translation

16:00 – 16:30 Coffee break

16:30 – 18:30 (two parallel sessions)

a) Faces of Irish Nationalism (Room 111)

Anna Pilz (University of Liverpool) ‘Egypt for the Egyptians’, ‘Ireland for the Irish’: Lady Gregory, George Bernard Shaw and Anti-Colonialism

Kati Nurmi (University of Liverpool) Folklore, Nationalism and the Politics of National Identity in Ireland and Finland, 1880-1930

Maciej Ruczaj (Charles University, Prague) Liturgy and Revolution: Two Plays by Padraic Pearse and Translatio Sacrii

Barry Sheils (University of Warwick) From Dignity to Beauty: The Aesthetics of Irish Independence

b) The Search for New Spaces - Contemporary Irish Prose (Room 116)

Sonia Howell (National University of Ireland, Maynooth) From a Seamless Garment to Quilt

of Many Patches: Irish History and Identity in the Novels of Sebastian Barry

Gergely Kovács (University of Debrecen) Space, Place, and Subjectivity in John Banville’s Ghosts and John McGahern’s That They May Face the Rising Sun

Tea Raše (University of Zagreb) C/Kynicism as a Way of Exploring Third Space in Philip Ó Ceallaigh’s Notes form a Turkish Whorehouse

Saturday 19th September

9:30 – 11:30 (two parallel sessions)

a) Nightmarish Visions on Stage- Contemporary Irish Drama (Room 111)

Lilla Kolos (University of Pésc) Inside-Out, Upside-Down: Reversals in John Bull’s Other Island by George Bernard Shaw and The Gigli Concert by Tom Murphy

Ester Žantovská (Charles University, Prague) Shock, Gloom and Laughter: Contemporary Irish Black Comedy

Hana Pavelková (Charles University, Prague) Unreliable Storytellers on Stage: Faith Healer, Not I and Baglady

Aoife Dempsey (National University of Ireland, Galway) Is the Catalyst for Destruction Foreign or Female? An Exploration of Irish Adaptations of Euripides’ Medea

b) Dissecting Irish Classics (Yeats, Joyce, Beckett) (Room 116)

Adam Putz (University of Warwick) Continental Thinking, Continental Living: W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, and the Cultural Politics of Appropriating Shakespeare

David Vichnar (Charles University) “Corrupt Paris, Virgin Dublin”: Joyce’s Tale of Two Cities

Jared Lesser (University of Otagu) The Aesthetics of Impoverishment: Reading Body and Place in Joyce’s Dublin

Eoghan Smith (NUI Maynooth) Art, Identity and Politics in Beckett and Banville

11:30 - 12:00 Coffee break

12:00 – 13:30 Between Home and Beyond the Sea - Contemporary Irish Poetry (Room 111)

Daniela Theinová (Charles University, Prague) “Letting In the Light of Laughter”: Traditional Iconic Images of the Feminized Land in the Hands of Contemporary Poets Eleanor Chatburn (Durham University) “Echo-prolonging Poet”: The Politics of Intertextuality in the Poetry of Derek Mahon

Maren Kratz (University of Heidelberg) “The Canto of Ulysses”: Dante and Contemporary Irish Poetry

13:30 – 14:30 Lunch break

14:30 - 16:00 Women Fiction: Revival and After (Room 111)

Whitney Standlee (University of Liverpool) From Poetic Irishness to Prosaic Migrancy: Kathrine Tynan’s Novels and the Politics of Ireland’s “Long Gestation”, 1890-1916

Margaret O’Neill (National University of Ireland, Maynooth) “If I am Henrietta, then what is Henrietta?”: Desire, Femininity and Social Form in Elizabeth Bowen’s The House in Paris

Theresa Wray (Cardiff University) The Quest for Flora: Who Is She? Establishing One

Woman’s Place in Mary Lavin’s The Becker Wives

16:00-16:30 Coffee break

16:30-18:00 Muses amidst Arms – Writers' Responses to the Northern Conflict (Room 111)

Niall Carson (University of Liverpool) Seán O’Faolain, The Bell and Northern Ireland

Radvan Markus (Charles University, Prague) “The half-built, half-derelict house”: Interpretation of the 1798 Rebellion in Stewart Parker’s Northern Star

Naomi Banks (Durham University) “Adequate to our predicament”?: In Search of a Northern Irish Political Elegy

18:00 Closing remarks