Ireland at Risk
Submit Abstracts Here
Risk is pervasive in contemporary Irish culture, from environmental hazards like water contamination to dangers for migrants crossing into Ireland, from conditions of economic precarity to the actual access to reproductive healthcare. Ulrich Beck reads modernity through the lens of “risk society”, characterized by both the distribution of goods like wealth and the distribution of “bads” like pollution and precarity. This conference offers an interdisciplinary space to test the durability of Beck’s idea of risk society, questioning, for one thing, his temporal boundaries as well as how the framing of risk affects individuals of diverse backgrounds and statuses. How does risk help us to see the way that Irish cultures have been shaped by technologization and the environment? And how does it obscure Ireland’s responsibilities and culpabilities both within its geographical boundaries and more globally? While risk is a prevalent term within the contemporary geopolitical context, from the economic spiralings of the Celtic Tiger period up to the present, can we also engage the concept when thinking about earlier Irish historical periods? How do discourses of risk shape Irish Studies scholarship in geography, history, the arts, literary studies, and the social sciences?
The conference will be held at Baruch College, CUNY and will feature readings and a conversation with Emily Bloom and Clair Wills, as well as a special session screening the documentary Tomorrow is Saturday about Hillen’s life and work, where Sarah Churchill will speak.
We welcome individual paper proposals, as well as panel and roundtable proposals; alternate formats are welcomed, as are papers that address any aspect of Irish Studies. We are especially interested in proposals that engage the following topics:
Migration, including historic emigration and the immigration of recent asylum seekers
Economic risks such as financial speculation; the housing bubble, housing shortages, and homelessness; financial precarity; gig economy
Biopower and environmental hazards such as water contamination, pandemics, climate change, and factory farming
Technological risks such as cybercrimes, social media, power grids
Risk in legal contexts, including in contexts like mother and baby homes; Magdalene laundries, political actions; reproductive justice; referenda; public protests and activism
Risks to vulnerable communities including LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, Travellers, those in Direct Provision
Public health and risk, including the vaginal mesh, cancer screening, and other medical scandals
Alternatives to risk society such as clachans, rundales, mutual aid societies
Academic risks, such as labor precarity, interdisciplinarity, culture of critique
Aesthetic risks and experimentation with artistic and creative forms
Reading-as-risk and histories/legacies of censorship
Risk of political violence (e.g. Brexit border; anti-immigration discourses)
Risks associated with testimony, witness, and advocacy
Representations of risk and precarity in the arts
Please encourage graduate and undergraduate students to submit proposals--we plan a poster session for undergraduates as well as a session dedicated to their papers. Please submit a 200-400 word abstract, along with CV and bio by September 6, 2024 here.
UPDATE: late submissions are welcome--please email neandmidatlanticacis@gmail.com to propose an abstract.