Vom 08. – 10. September 2022 veranstalteten das Institut für Anglistik der Universität Leipzig und das Anglistische Seminar der Universität Mannheim gemeinsam einen internationalen Workshop zu zeitgenössischer irischer Literatur: "New Voices – New Directions".
(Die nachfolgenden Informationen sind in englischer Sprache verfasst.)
New Voices – New Directions: International Workshop on Contemporary Irish Literature
Up until the 1990s, the concept of Irish literature appeared to be fairly unanimous. Literary texts considered to be ‘typically’ Irish were predominantly concerned with the Irish socio-political context, critically reflecting the history and conditions of Irish identity formation: the struggle for independence and its aftermath, the family, the church, and the nation. The social and political changes from the 1990s and early 2000s onwards, which fundamentally transformed Irish culture and politics, can also be witnessed in contemporary Irish literature. In the 21st century, the “national obsessiveness, which in Ireland has predominantly found expression in realist and naturalist modes of writing”, as Eoghan Smith puts it, has gradually made way for a new and decidedly more open literary scene. This workshop therefore aims at exploring contemporary Irish writing beyond the well-trodden paths, proposing to explore and showcase the scope and variety of the contemporary Irish literary scene by addressing new or newly popular voices, genres, trends or directions perceived in 21st-century Irish literature.
8 – 10 September 2022
Venue: Vortragssaal in der Bibliotheca Albertina, Beethovenstr. 6, 04107 Leipzig
Programme
20:00 Conference Warming (Irish Pub)
9:00 Registration
9:15 – 9:30 Welcome & Opening Remarks: Ralf Haekel & Caroline Lusin
9:30 – 10:30 Keynote: Sylvie Mikowski, “Home, Place and Space in Contemporary Irish Fiction: or What Happens to the ‘Sense of place’ in 21st-Century Irish Writing”
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 – 12:00 Panel I: VOICES ON FEMALE EXPERIENCE
- Carolin Steinke, “Goodbye Mother Ireland: The Shameful Female Body in Mike McCormack's Solar Bones”
- Nathalie Lamprecht, “‘The sky’s not the only thing that’s cracked:’ The Young Woman in Catherine Prasifka’s None of This is Serious”
12:00 – 14:00 Lunch Break
14:00 – 15:30 Panel II: NEW VOICES IN POETRY
- Kerstin Fest, “This is a female text: Literary, Historical and Female Voices in Doireann Ní Ghríofa's A Ghost in the Throat (2020)”
- Jessica Bundschuh, “Queering Materiality in Northern Ireland: A Tactile Encounter with Padraig Regan”
- David Nisters, “The Figure of the Fox in Leanne O'Sullivan's A Quarter of an Hour”
15:30 – 16:00 Coffee Break
16:00 Reading by Adrian Duncan
19:00 Conference Dinner
9:30 – 10:30 Panel III: OLD ISSUES – NEW VOICES
- Joachim Schwend, “‘No Ordinary Woman’ – Life in the Pandemic in Dublin Late in 1918”
- Kübra Özermis, “Between Humour and Violence – the Northern Irish Conflict in Michelle Gallen's Writing”
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 – 12:00 Panel IV: OLD ISSUES – NEW VOICES II
- Taylor Follett, “Falling apart and getting lost: Re-evaluating family network systems in The Green Road and An Unravelling”
- Sabine Asmus, “Selected Trends in Modern Irish-language Literature”
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch
13:00 – 14:30 Panel V: NEW IDENTITIES
- Sina Schuhmaier, “Decentring Irish Nationalist Discourse: Immigrant Experience in Melatu Uche Okorie’s This Hostel Life (2018)”
- Deborah Nyangulu, “Skeleton Subjectivity: Reading Derek Landy with Amos Tutuola”
- Franka Leitner, “Poor Little Rich Kids: Privilege, Murder, and the End of the Celtic Tiger in Kevin Power’s Bad Day in Blackrock (2008) and Tana French’s The Secret Place (2014)”
14:30 – 15:00 Concluding remarks