We are pleased to announce the 2022 Mid-Atlantic and New England regional meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies hosted by Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA.

Yet another year in the Decade of Centenaries, 2022 invites us to consider thresholds that have been crossed in the past whilst contemporaneously reminding us of our own place on the threshold of something new in this third year of a worldwide pandemic. A hundred years ago, the publication of Ulysses and the formation of the Free State were starting points and catalysts for cultural and political change, but also for boundless creative and scholarly energy. As such we welcome proposals that address temporal, literary, ecological, cultural and political thresholds in Irish literature, history and culture, as well as ones that consider the field of Irish Studies in its current contexts, poised at new thresholds and unexplored avenues.

We are especially interested in proposals that consider the following topics:

• New thresholds and interdisciplinary approaches in Irish Studies
• Intersectionality and Irish culture: race, gender, class, sexuality
• Social Justice and activist politics
• Thresholds of change in feminism and reproductive justice
• Thresholds of public and private life: religion, the state and institutionalization
• Revolutionary Ireland
• Memory, History, and thresholds of the past
• Ecocritical and environmental humanities in the context of Irish Studies
• Disability Studies and Irish Studies
• Crossing the thresholds of contemporary: The Irish Tiger and the Irish Phoenix
• LGBTQIA+ activisms in Ireland

Our confirmed keynote speaker is Dr. Clare Hutton, Loughborough University, UK.

Dr. Clare Hutton is Reader in English and Digital Humanities at Loughborough University. Her monograph, Serial Encounters: Ulysses and the Little Review (OUP, 2019) has just been reissued in paperback. Her other research includes editing The Irish Book in English, 1891-2000 (OUP, 2011), and many essays on Yeats, Joyce, and the Irish Literary Revival. Most recently, she curated the exhibit Women and the Making of Ulysses at the Harry Ransom Center.

The deadline for submissions is August 15, 2022. The conference committee welcomes paper, panel and roundtable proposals that address any aspect of Irish Studies, including literary, historical, political, socio-economic, cultural, and visual arts. Abstracts for individual presentations should be 250-300 words in length and should include a brief (100-word) bio of the presenter; panel proposals should be 300-500 words and need to include short bios for all members of the panel. All conference presenters and attendees must be current paid members of ACIS by the conference date. 

Please submit individual paper and roundtables/panel proposals directly to the conference website

Located in Philadelphia, PA, Saint Joseph’s University is accessible by car, bus or train – Amtrak, SEPTA, PATCO – and is conveniently close to the Philadelphia International Airport.

For questions, please contact Kersti Tarien Powell at kpowell@sju.edu.