Deadline Extended – Due Feb. 16

Right All Along:  Irish Truthtellers

In her widely-shared 2023 elegy for the late Sinéad O’Connor, Erika Meitner writes that “you called out misogyny, excessive commercialism, sex abuse / in the Catholic church … your voice is / an emergency.” Only since O’Connor’s death in 2023 have we seen the full acknowledgement of her truthtelling, which derailed (or redirected) her career rather than fueling public outrage. This roundtable panel invites papers that consider Irish truthtellers, including but not limited to O’Connor, who have been silenced, mocked, or unheeded because others were not ready to listen. From James Joyce’s Dubliners (which like O’Connor’s work exposed the endemic abuse of children) and Ulysses (deemed obscene even by some fellow modernists), to philosopher John Moriarty’s 1970’s warnings about human devastation to the environment, to Melatu Uche Okorie’s salient portrayals of Direct Provision, truthtellers may be retrospectively read as prophets or oracles, or considered as measures of a culture’s (in)capacity for self-reflection. We encourage discussion across time periods, genres, and media, about writers, artists, scholars, and activists: those whom we failed to hear in moments of past urgency, as well as contemporary Irish truthtellers to whom we should be listening today.

We invite proposals of 150 words on any topic pertaining to Irish truthtellers for this roundtable discussion at MLA 2025. Submit proposals by January 15, 2024 to ACIS Literature Representative Dr. Abby Bender, bendera5@sacredheart.edu.