Since its foundation, the Irish Memory Studies Network has run an annual seminar series, as well as a number of workshops and conferences. Podcasts from many Network events are available via our Memory Cloud

Conference Programme
After the War: Patterns of Commemorating the Great War
University College Dublin, 7-8 July 2016
Venue: 43 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2

Plenary Speakers: Fran Brearton (QUB), Tea Sindbæk Andersen (University of Copenhagen),

& Frank McGuinness (UCD)

Thursday 7 July

1-2pm Panel: Canada Remembers the First World War,
Donna Coates (University of Calgary), ‘Vimy and Beyond: The “No Man’s Land” of Canadian Literature of the First World War’
Monique Dumontet (University of Manitoba), ‘The Continuities of History in Will Bird’s And We Go On’
2-3.30pm Northern Ireland Roundtable:
Living Legacies, Kurt Taroff and Sophie Long
&
East Belfast & the Great War, Jonathan Evershed and Jason Burke
3.30-4pm Tea & Coffee
4-5pm Keynote: Professor Fran Brearton (Queens University Belfast) ‘Numbering Memory, Remembering Poetry’

Friday 8 July

10-11am Keynote: Professor Tea Sindbæk Andersen (University of Copenhagen), ‘Shatter zone memory – Croatia, Yugoslavia and the First World War’
11-11.30am Tea & Coffee
11.30-1 Panel: Memory Arts and War,
Terry Phillips (Liverpool Hope University), ‘Lest We Forget: Personal and Collective Memory in Post-war Irish Poetry’
Marta Gorgula (University of Silesia), ‘Forgotten Faces of the Great War: The Wounded Servicemen in Henry Tonks’ Surgical Portraits’
Jeremy Jenkins (British Library), ‘Europeana 1914-18’
1-2pm Lunch
2-3.30pm Panel: The Politics of Memory,
Maeve Casserly (University College Dublin), ‘Relics of War: Commodification of WWI and Easter Rising memorials in the Decade of Centenaries’
Ismar Dedovic (University of Copenhagen), ‘Montenegrin Memories of the Great War’
Sarah Harsh (Emory University), ‘Contested Nationalism: Irish Influences in Flemish Monuments to the Great War’
3.30-4pm Tea & Coffee
4-5pm Conversation with Professor Frank McGuinness & Professor Anthony Roche

This Symposium is funded by the UCD Decade of Centenaries Programme, the UCD Humanities Institute and run by the Irish Memory Studies Network (www.irishmemorystudies.com).
Registration is via EventBrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/after-the-war-tickets-26093140285
The cost of registration is €20 and is payable on the day at the venue. Student/Unwaged registration is free (but it is still necessary to register).
The conference organisers are:
Emilie Pine (UCD School of English, Drama and Film)
Maeve Casserly (UCD School of History and Archives & School of English, Drama and Film)

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Locating and Dislocating Memory
COST NETWORK: In Search of Transcultural Memory in Europe
University College Dublin
Graduate Training School: 29 Aug-2 Sept, 2016
Conference: 1-3 September, 2016

The ISTME network (2012-2016) aims to investigate the transcultural dynamics of memory in Europe today. Studying how memories of the troubled twentieth century are transmitted and received across Europe, the Action explores the tension between attempts to create a common European memory, or a unitary memory ethics, on the one hand and numerous memory conflicts stemming from Europe’s fragmentation into countless memory communities on the other.

The final ISTME conference will focus on the ways in which memory is located and dislocated through processes of production, transmission and reception. Given the dynamism of memory at local, regional and transnational levels, how, when and where is memory located and defined? What are the ethical challenges in these acts of location and definition? What are the ways in which memory is continuously dislocated, via mediation, remediation, consensus-making and conflict? In an age of mass migration, how are memories produced by communities that are themselves dislocated? Is memory the object that is being located or dislocated, or is it a signifier of the location and dislocation of particular memory communities? Is the tension between location and dislocation central to the practice of memory? What new methodological approaches to memory studies can usefully be brought to bear on these questions?

Keynote speakers:
Professor Astrid Erll, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt
Professor Michael Rothberg, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Professor Francoise Vergès, Collège D’études Mondiales, Paris

Proposals
Please submit your proposals for papers of 20 minutes to istme2016@gmail.com by 15 April 2016. Proposals should be no longer than 300 words and should be accompanied by a brief biography (100 words). Proposals for panels (3 x 20min) are also welcome, as are proposals for papers that draw attention to recently published work which relates directly to the areas of inquiry outlined above.

Working Groups: This Network consists of three working groups: 1. Politics 2. Media 3. Migration. Please indicate on your proposal with which thematic area your paper is associated.

Postgraduate Training School
UCD and the COST ISTME Network will host a postgraduate training school in transcultural memory studies (29 August-2 September) that will overlap with our final Conference.

About the School
The training school is for PhD candidates who wish to participate in the Network’s research
activities. The aim is to introduce PhD candidates to the Network’s theoretical and methodological
approaches to transcultural memory, and to prepare PhD researchers for professional engagement
in these fields.

The Research Network In Search of Transcultural Memory in Europe is a COST funded Action that
aims to go beyond the nationally oriented memory studies that tend to reify the bond between
culture, nation and memory. Instead we investigate the transcultural dynamics of memory in Europe
today. Studying how memories of the troubled twentieth century are transmitted and received
across Europe, the Action explores the tension between attempts to create a common European
memory, or a unitary memory ethics, on the one hand and numerous memory conflicts stemming
from Europe’s fragmentation into countless memory communities on the other.

Drawing on recent theoretical insights that point to the importance of memory migration, mediation
and new media the Action seeks to develop new methods for studying and comparing effects of
memory transmission over cultural borders. The Action aims to develop European memory studies
theoretically and methodologically by focusing on transculturality, agency and reception – and to
contribute to finding ways of accommodating memory conflicts.

The training school will consist of a two-day workshop during which PhD candidates will have the
opportunity to present their work and receive personalised feedback from workshop moderators.
Participants will also attend lectures by leading scholars in the field, including Professor Astrid Erll,
Professor Susannah Radstone, Professor Michael Rothberg and Professor Francoise Vergès.

The focus of the training school at UCD will be in line with the Network’s concentration on
transcultural memory in Europe, with particular attention paid to issues of mediation, migration and
conflict in the context of the theme of locating and dislocating memory.
Participants will be selected by a steering committee. Applicants should send:

• a cover letter explaining your reasons for applying to the School
• a CV
• an abstract of doctoral research (max 500 words)
• and a 10-page paper or research chapter

to istme2016@gmail.com by June 1st. The Network is able to offer a number of grants to cover
travel and accommodation expenses. Please indicate in your application if you will need a grant.

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2015

Memory Events (Autumn/Winter 2015)

Talking about Perpetrators

Funded by IRC New Foundations

29 October, Dublin Castle

Talking about Perpetrators is a seminar of cross-disciplinary presentations and discussion looking at representations and narratives of perpetrators and perpetration. The event will include participants from the arts, law, media and social sciences. Talking about Perpetrators will take place in the Presidents’ room, Dublin Castle (the former Children’s Court of Dublin, where children were sentenced to industrial schools) on 29th October. This event, supported by the Irish Memory Studies Network and Irish Research Council, is a collaboration between Dominic Thorpe (UCD Artist in Residence) and Dr Emilie Pine (UCD school of English, Drama and Film).

Email Emilie.Pine@ucd.ie to sign up for the seminar.

Trauma Fiction: Lecture by Anne Whitehead

Funded by UCD Arts & Celtic Studies Distinguished Lecture Fund

16 November, C108, 4pm

This lecture, by internationally recognised expert Anne Whitehead, will discuss the representation of trauma in modern fiction.

Email Emilie.Pine@ucd.ie to sign up for the lecture.

Researching Revolutionaries During the Decade of Centenaries

An All Island Commemoration Network Event

Funded by IRC New Foundations

Speakers: Dr Eve Morrisson (IRC funded) & Dr Maureen O’Connor

25 November, NUI Maynooth

Contact: Dr Oona Frawley (Oona.Frawley@nuim.ie)

‘Memory, Space and New Technologies’ Symposium.

Michael O’Rourke at the Memory, Space, and New Technologies Symposium (© Real Smart Media)

Methodologies of Memory: Distinguished Lecture Series, Spring 2015.

2014

Ways of Representing the Past: Documentary Theatre in Ireland and Brazil.

Ways of Representing the Past: Documentary Theatre in Ireland and Brazil (L-R, Colin Murphy, Aideen Howard, Jimmy Murphy, Shaun Richards, Beatriz Kopshitz Bastos and Alinne Fernades)

Attilio Favorini opens the Introduction to Voicings: Ten Plays from the Documentary Theatre (1995) with Herodotus’ comments on The Capture of Miletus, a play on the recent Persian Wars by Phrynichus, performed in Athens in 492 BC, only some two years after the events it depicted. According to Herodotus, ‘the whole audience at the theatre burst into tears and fined Phrynichus a thousand drachmas for reminding them of a calamity that was their very own; they also forbade any future production of the play.’ The origins of documentary drama are then as old as that of western theatre itself and the form has lost none of its power to shock. This panel considers the ‘calamities’ that are our own.

Panellists:

Aideen Howard is Literary Director of the Abbey Theatre, commissioned No Escape and devised Down off his Stilts, a play about Yeats and the Abbey.

Colin Murphy is a journalist and author of Guaranteed!, a play about the government’s underwriting of the banking collapse, which is now also a film.

Jimmy Murphy is author of Brothers of the Brush and Kings of the Kilburn High Road is currently developing Of this Brave Time, a documentary about the Easter Rising for production by the Abbey in 2016.

Beatriz Kopshitz Bastos is literary advisor and produce of Cia Ludens, the Sao Paulo based company currently developing Amazon Diaries, a documentary play on Roger Casement’s time in the Amazon.

Alinne Fernandes has a PhD in Theatre and Translation from QUB and is currently working on the translation of Irish documentary plays (including No Escape) for a series of rehearsed readings by Cia Ludens.

2nd Lecture Series of the Irish Memory Studies Network – Memory and Community.

2013

Memory and Trauma: The Body in Pain in Irish Culture

First Lecture Series of the Memory Studies Network – Gender and Commemoration