Writing Home: Irish Culture and
Wartime Europe, 1938-48
Trinity College Dublin, 13-14 June
2013
Call for papers
If Europe, as Dan Diner has written, ‘seems
more and more to be finding a common unifying memory in the events of World War
II’, then what are the cultural consequences of this dynamic process for
Ireland?
The decade between 1938 and 1948 was a time
of immense revolutionary upheaval across Europe, but tends to have been
characterised as a time of stagnation and isolation for Ireland. During these
years, however, many Irish writers and artists travelled extensively across the
continent, whilst several of their European counterparts arrived in Ireland.
Taking these migrations as a starting point, this symposium will examine afresh
the history of this decade and its impact on Irish cultural memory. Writers
under consideration may include, but are by no means limited to: Samuel
Beckett, John Betjeman, Christabel Bielenberg, Hubert Butler, John Hewitt,
Denis Johnston, Thomas McGreevy, Brian Moore, Francis Stuart, and Rebecca West.
As cultural memory is mediated through a wide
variety of discourses and artefacts, from literature to visual art,
architecture, film, music and journalism, we welcome interdisciplinary
participation from the fields of modern languages and literature, media studies,
history and history of art. Possible topics include but are not limited to:
Memory, migration and identity
Art as a memory trigger
War reportage
Cultural communities
Emigrés and refugees
Life writing
The visual arts and architecture
Allegiances and affiliations
Censorship
Secret histories
Diaspora
Collaboration
Forgotten writers and artists
Documents and archives
We invite abstracts for papers of twenty
minutes duration, and also invite proposals for panels that provide a platform
for innovative or challenging approaches to these issues. We particularly
welcome proposals from early career academics and graduate students.
Please send a 250-word abstract with a brief biographical
note to Dorothea Depner and Guy Woodward at writinghome2013@gmail.com by 10 March 2013.
