In 2020, as one border nears its centenary and others — mediated by oceans, political forces, or literary modes — loom, the Irish Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (LLC) Forum seeks participants to share research at the upcoming 2021 MLA meeting in Toronto, Canada, on the topic of “Ireland’s Borders, Old and New.”

Twenty-first-century Ireland, like many other locations around the world, has inherited borders established in another time and place. Whether arising out of natural landscapes, early modern and modern colonial legacies, or contentious twentieth-century settlements as in the case of Northern Ireland, these borders must be continually addressed, reimagined, and renegotiated even as the political and cultural circumstances that gave rise to their existence have now changed. Other borders have been set (or challenged) through cultural practice, literary production, migration flows, and other forms of movement across space. In this context, developments like Brexit are just one of many inflection points around which multiple Irish borders have been either strengthened or made porous.

The MLA Irish LLC Forum invites proposals of 250 words for 15-minute papers, accompanied by a summary CV, by participants who would like to present literary or cultural analysis touching on this theme as part of the forum’s guaranteed panel at MLA. Please send proposals to forum chair Nicholas Wolf, nicholas.wolf@nyu.edu. Deadline for submission is 24 March, 2020.