Thursday, March 18th
Opening Session — 5:00pm
Welcome from the Conference Organizer, RAND BRANDES, PhD, Martin Luther Stevens Professor of English, Lenoir-Rhyne University.
Greetings to Conference Participants from CIARA O’FLOINN, Consul General of Ireland for the Southeastern United States.
An Address by ROY FOSTER, PhD, Carroll Professor of Irish History Emeritus, University of Oxford.
Terror and Transcendence in Yeats and Heaney
Followed by a Question-and-Answer Session with Roy Foster, Moderated by Rand Brandes
Lenoir-Rhyne Visiting Writers Series
Moderated by Michael Deckard, PhD, Lenoir-Rhyne University
Friday, March 19th
Session #1: Friday, 8:00am - 9:20am
Introduction by Panel Chair: Eve Patten, Trinity College Dublin
Meditations in Time of War: Heaney and His Precursors
Prerecorded Papers from
• Chris Morash, Trinity College Dublin
• Rosie Lavan, Trinity College Dublin
• Tom Walker, Trinity College Dublin
Three scholars of Seamus Heaney assess the trajectory of his poetry, from mapping a negotiated engagement with the conflict in Northern Ireland to, in his later work, positing a form of poetic transcendence.
By examining Heaney’s body of criticism, the contributors reveal how much of his late work reflected a dialogue with his contemporaries and near-contemporaries concerning a poet’s efforts to “walk on air” during times of conflict.
Followed by a Live Q&A with Panelists, Moderated by Chair
Session #2: Friday, 9:30am - 10:50am
Introduction by Panel Chair Ed Madden, University of South Carolina
Love, Death, and Queer Time in Irish Literature
Ed Madden, University of South Carolina: Under the Sign of the Clock: Queer Time, AIDS Time, Cleary’s Clock
Colleen Etman, University of South Carolina: “To die as lovers do”: Spatial Death in Sheridan Le Fanu’s Camilla
William Parker Stoker, University of South Carolina: Queer Grief, Queer Time in Emma Donoghue’s Hood
Alexandra Oberempt, University of South Carolina: Aromantic Fairy Tales: The Rejection of the Heteronormative Happy Ending in Deirdre Sullivan’s Tangleweed and Brine
Followed by Live Q&A with Panelists, Moderated by Chair
He Bid His Soul Fly Upwards: Yeats and Transcendence in the Suburbs
Cahal Dallat, Poet, Musician, Critic, Broadcaster
Throughout his adult life, Cahal Dallat has lived within a few blocks of the Yeats family’s two homes in Bedford Park, an Arts and Crafts suburb of London. William Butler Yeats spent much of his boyhood and twenties in that district.
This presentation explores an ongoing project to create a major contemporary artwork in Bedford Park. The piece is designed to celebrate Yeats and the uniquely questing spirit of the locale.
Session #3: Friday, 11:00am - 12:20pm
Introduction by Panel Chair: Geraldine Higgins, Emory University
Defend, Deflect, Resurrect:
From Bog Bodies to Ascendant Landscapes
Live Papers from:
• Francis Ittenbach, Emory University — Ascendant Landscapes in Seamus Heaney’s Later Poetry
• Makenzie Fitzgerald, Emory University — Tollund on the Tube: Draft Developments of Seamus Heaney’s “The Tollund Man in Springtime”
• Brendan Corcoran, Indiana State University — Seamus Heaney’s Shield of Perseus
Followed by a Live Q&A with Panelists, Moderated by Chair
Introduction by Panel Chair: Richard Rankin Russell, Baylor University
Unfamiliar Places: Comings and Goings
Prerecorded Papers from
• Richard Rankin-Russell, Baylor University — Learning from Walcott: Heaney’s Black and Green Atlantic
• Caelan Elliott, Baylor University — He Turned Aside: Community and the Capacity to Connect in George Moore’s “Homesickness”
• Harrison Otis, Baylor University — Ireland’s Disposable Foreigners: Hospitality and Hypocrisy in Joyce’s “Gas from a Burner”
• Kelly Chittenden, Baylor University — “All that’s hollow”: Modern Wastelands in Beckett’s Endgame and Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”
Followed by a Live Q&A with Panelists, Moderated by Chair
Session #4: Friday, 12:30pm - 2:00pm
Introduction by the composer, Todd Mueller, Georgia Gwinnett College
Prerecorded Presentation:
Somewhere In Between: A Musical Performance Based on “The Gravel Walks” by Seamus Heaney
Todd Mueller and Members of Grizzly Percussion, Georgia Gwinnett College
This work has been specially composed for the 2021 Southern Regional Conference. Its inspiration came, in part, from the fact that Seamus Heaney participated in the 1992 iteration of our conference, hosted by Lenoir-Rhyne University. On that occasion, “The Gravel Walks” was published in a limited-edition keepsake. Heaney quoted from the poem in his 1995 Nobel Prize lecture, Crediting Poetry.
“The Gravel Walks” includes the line, “So walk on air against your better judgement,” which now graces Heaney’s tombstone in Bellaghy, County Derry.
Prerecorded Presentation:
Discovering, Preserving, and Documenting Savannah’s Irish History: A Case Study in Municipal Archives
Luciana Spracher, Director of the Municipal Archives, City of Savannah, Georgia
Luciana Spracher illuminates the use by researchers of local government archives. To do so, she presents an illustrated introduction to some historical documents pertaining to Savannah’s Irish community. These include: alien declarations; naturalization records; tax digests; voter registration logs; business-permit and building-permit applications; property improvement books; Health Department death registers; and more.
Session #5 — Friday, 2:00pm - 3:20pm
Introduction by Panel Chair: Kate Costello-Sullivan, Le Moyne College
Transcending Traditional Borders
Prerecorded Papers from:
• Lisa LeBlond, Stony Brook University — Cartography, Borders, and “a Fount of Broken Type”: Colonial Space and Subject in Troubles-Era Poetry
• Kelly Matthews, Framingham State University — Transcending Influence: Tyrone Guthrie and Brian Friel
• Bryan McGovern, Kennesaw State University — Richard O’Gorman and the Political Culture of Liberal Transnationalism
Followed by a Live Q&A with Panelists, Moderated by Chair
Prerecorded Presentation:
Listen Now Again: A Tour of the Seamus Heaney Exhibition from the National Library of Ireland
Curator: Geraldine Higgins, PhD, Director, Center for Irish Studies, Emory University
Geraldine Higgins offers a virtual tour of Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again, the landmark exhibition that she developed and curates. Located in the Cultural and Heritage Centre at the Bank of Ireland, College Green, Dublin, the exhibition was opened in July 2018 by Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland. Presented across four areas (Excavations, Creativity, Conscience, and Marvels), its core content comes from the literary archive that the Heaney family donated to the National Library of Ireland.
Followed by a Live Q&A with Exhibition Curator, Geraldine Higgins, PhD
Session #6: Friday, 3:30pm - 4:50pm
Introduction by Panel Chair: Nicholas Allen, University of Georgia
Ireland Offshore: Recent Literature and Criticism
• Christin Mulligan, Caldwell University
• Peter O’Neill, University of Georgia
• Cóilín Parsons, Georgetown University
A conversation among three scholars who work on water, literature, history, race, and gender. The participants seek some common points of contact and departure for study. In addition, they contemplate connections between offshore dimensions of Irish and other literatures.
Followed by a Live Q&A with the Panelists Moderated by the Chair
Introduction by Panel Chair: Meaghan Dwyer-Ryan, Georgia Southern University
Contemplating the Sublime: Poetry and Philosophy
Prerecorded Papers from:
• Thomas O’Grady, University of Massachusetts, Boston — From Drumcliff to Bellaghy: The Graves of Irish Poets
• Daniel Raines, University of St. Thomas, Houston — The “Lonely Impulse of Delight”: Parallelism in Yeats’s “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death”
• Michael Deckard, Lenoir-Rhyne University — Between the German, the Greek, and the Irish: William Desmond on the Origin of the Sublime
Followed by a Live Q&A with Panelists, Moderated by Chair
Evening Session: Friday, 7:00pm
Lenoir-Rhyne Visiting Writers Series Presentation
Moderated by Meaghan Dwyer-Ryan, PhD, Georgia Southern University
Sponsored by the Center for Irish Research and Teaching, Georgia Southern University
JOANIE MADDEN & CHERISH THE LADIES
Recorded near the Flaggy Shore, County Clare, Ireland
Saturday, March 20th
Session #7: Saturday, 8:00am - 9:20am
Introduction by Panel Chair: Ellen Scheible, Bridgewater State University
Graduate Students Read Joyce on the Eve of the Ulysses Centenary
Live Papers from:
• Carl Olson, Bridgewater State University — Odyssey of the Mind: Exploring Memory, Gender, and Sexuality in “Penelope”
• Jasmine Revels, Bridgewater State University — Personal Journeys by Way of Joyce’s Ulysses: The Contrast of Heroism
• Saide Harb-Ranero, Bridgewater State University — Joyce’s Nationalism in “Cyclops”: Friend or Foe?
Followed by a Live Q&A with Panelists, Moderated by Chair
Prerecorded Presentation:
An Introduction to the Seamus Heaney HomePlace, Bellaghy
• Brian McCormick, HomePlace Manager
• Cathy Brown, HomePlace Arts Programmer
Brian and Cathy reflect on the genesis of the Seamus Heaney HomePlace in Bellaghy, County Derry. They demonstrate how the venue keeps Heaney’s verse rooted in the poet’s home ground. And they also discuss outreach by the HomePlace across the wider community.
• Alison Garden, Queen’s University Belfast — Politics, Poetics, and Ireland’s Star-Crossed Lovers
• Ian McElhinney, Renowned Northern Irish Actor — Selected Poems by Seamus Heaney: A Reading
Session #8: Saturday, 9:30am - 10:50am
Introduction by Panel Chair: Alexis Grainger, Seton Hall University
Gender and Class in Irish Writing
Live Roundtable Discussion
• Elizabeth Redwine, Montclair State University — Gender and Class: Authorship and Performance at the Abbey Theatre
• Seamus O’Malley, Yeshiva University — Gender and Class in the Life and Texts of Lady Gregory
• Mary McGlynn, Baruch College & the Graduate Center, CUNY — The Marginalization of Working-Class Women in Irish Literature
Followed by a Live Q&A with Panelists, Moderated by Chair
Session #9: Saturday, 11:00am - 12:20pm
Introduction by Panel Chair: Howard Keeley, Georgia Southern University
Women in the World: Seen and Not Seen
Prerecorded Papers from:
• Samantha Haddad, New York University — “Women’s Troubles”: Republican Women’s Abortion Experiences and Activism
• Bridget Keown, University of Pittsburg — “Leave all the dirty work to the women”: Gender, Trauma, and History in Aislinn Clarke’s The Devil’s Doorway
• Jeanne Lakotas, Western Connecticut State University — Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan): A Nineteenth-Century Advocate for Positive Change through Creative Vision
Followed by a Live Q&A with Panelists, Moderated by Chair
Introduction by Panel Chair: Michael Deckard, Lenoir-Rhyne University
Revealing Public and Private Narratives
Prerecorded Papers from:
• Mary Cregan, Barnard College — A Hundred Years On: Recovering an Irish/American Family Story
• Michael Silvestri, Clemson University — “A Country that Has Served the World Well with Police”: The Irish Policeman in the Nineteenth-Century British Caribbean
• Kate Costello-Sullivan, Le Moyne College — Disability and Embodiment in Caitriona Lally’s Eggshells
Followed by a Live Q&A with Panelists, Moderated by Chair
Annual Business Lunch: Saturday, 12:30pm - 1:30pm
The Southern Regional Chapter of the American Conference for Irish Studies (“ACIS South”) Annual Business Lunch
To include the election of officers for the two-year term beginning on April 1, 2021, and ending on March 31, 2023.
Meeting Chaired by: Nathalie Anderson, PhD, President, Southern Regional Chapter, American Conference for Irish Studies
Alexander Griswold Cummins, Professor of English Literature and Director of the Creative Writing Program, Swarthmore College
"Seamus Heaney and the Music of What Happens" — Saturday, 1:30pm
Director: Adam Low
Producer: Martin Rosenbaum
Executive Producer: Michael Hewitt
At 3:00 pm, Low, Rosenbaum, and Hewitt will join Catherine Heaney, director of the Estate of Seamus Heaney, for a live discussion about the film, moderated by the conference organizer, Rand Brandes.
“Open-Eyed, Full-Throated: A Celebration of ACIS Poets”: Saturday, 4:10pm - 5:30pm
An ACIS South Tradition
Introduced by Nathalie Anderson
Live readings of their work by:
- Nathalie Anderson
- Renny Golden
- Kathryn Kirkpatrick
- David Lloyd
- Ed Madden
- Thomas McGuire
- Ray McManus
- Ann Neelon
- Thomas O’Grady
- Adrian Rice
- Eamonn Wall
- Lawrence Welsh