ACIS Logo CFP (PhD candidates): Inaugural Meeting of the International Network of Irish Famine Studies, 23-24 April 2015

Call for Papers from PhD Candidates
Extended Deadline: February 15, 2015
Famine migration and diaspora:
inaugural meeting of the
International Network of Irish Famine Studies (INIFS)
Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, 23-24 April 2015

Confirmed keynote speakers:
Piaras MacÉinrí (University College Cork)
Jason King (NUI Galway)
Mark McGowan (University of Toronto)
William Smyth (University College Cork)
Laura Izarra (University of São Paolo)
Marguérite Corporaal (Radboud University Nijmegen)

The Great Irish Famine (1845–52) was one of the most influential periods in the history of Ireland and its diaspora. While emigration had already been a common feature in Irish life before the 1840s, the Famine catalysed the process, causing far greater numbers to leave the island and changing the nature of Irish emigration and Irish communities overseas, while also greatly influencing Irish society at home.
On 23–24 April 2015, Radboud University Nijmegen in collaboration with The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) will host the first meeting of the International Network of Irish Famine Studies (INIFS). This network brings together scholars conducting groundbreaking, ongoing research on the Great Irish Famine. As such, it intends to stimulate the development of interdisciplinary dialogues and methodologies necessary to face future challenges of the field of Irish Famine Studies.
Specifically, this inaugural meeting will have Famine migration and diaspora as its theme, focusing on not just the Irish-North-American diaspora, but also Irish migration across the globe, to Latin America and across the Pacific for example. Moreover, it will investigate both the immediate and long-term effects of Famine migration, and will view these processes of migration, settlement and the establishment of transnational overseas communities through an interdisciplinary and comparative lens.
The expert meeting will consist of keynote lectures and presentations by senior scholars from various disciplines. However, INIFS also attaches great importance to emerging scholarship in the field, and therefore we would like to encourage PhD candidates doing research in the fields of Famine studies and/or Irish migration and diaspora studies to contribute to the meeting, in the form of a paper. Topics may include but are not limited to:

  • The history and historiography of Irish Famine migration;
  • Politics and (trans)nationalism in diaspora;
  • Geographical aspects of Famine migration and diaspora;
  • New methods and methodologies to research Irish migration and diaspora;
  • Cultural memories and identities in diaspora;
  • The process of emigration as seen ‘from back home’;
  • Issues of integration, belonging, exclusion in receiving societies;
  • Literary and artistic representations of the processes of migration and of being in diaspora;
  • The various cultural encounters between the Irish diaspora and other ethnic communities in their new homelands;
  • The Irish diaspora in comparison to other diasporic communities;
  • The immediate and long-term effects of Famine migration for the Irish and the receiving countries.

If you are a PhD candidate and would like to participate in the form of a paper presentation (in English, not exceeding 20 minutes), please send a 250-300 abstract and short bio to l.janssen@let.ru.nl, before 15 February 2015. We will select a maximum of 8 PhD candidates, who will be invited to present their papers and will receive feedback from a senior respondent from the field. Accommodation for 2 nights and conference participation will be arranged and paid for by the INIFS network. We will not cover travel expenses.
For further enquiries, please contact Lindsay Janssen at l.janssen@let.ru.nl. Additional information will be published on the INIFS website: www.ru.nl/irishfaminenetwork.
Best wishes,
The directors of INIFS:
Marguérite Corporaal (Radboud University Nijmegen)
Oona Frawley (NUI Maynooth)
Luke Gibbons (NUI Maynooth)
Peter Gray (Queen’s University Belfast)
Andrew Newby (University of Helsinki)
The management assistants of INIFS:
Christopher Cusack (Radboud University Nijmegen)
Lindsay Janssen (Radboud University Nijmegen)