The 35th annual meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies-Western Regional (ACIS-West) will be held October 10-12, 2019 at the Embassy Suites Portland Downtown in Portland, Oregon. Located on the Columbia and Willamette Rivers in the shadow of beautiful Mt. Hood in the Pacific Northwest, Portland is known for its hip and eco-friendly culture. This growing city has tons of parks, miles of walking trails and bike paths, and a noteworthy food and drink scene. Portland is also widely known as “The City of Roses.” In recognition of that, the conference committee has selected themes evocative of roses: beauty, blossoming, and transition. Irish history is replete with references to roses. Ireland had an important role in the Wars of the Roses in the 15th Century. The 16th Century saw the development of a political myth of the Róisín Dubh (the little black rose) with the writing of a song with that title. “Wild Irish Rose” is another popular Irish song, as well as the title of a movie. William Butler Yeats published The Rose, his second collection that contained his renowned poem “To the Rose upon the Rood of Time,” in 1893. Yeats’s poem “The Rose Tree” would follow later. The Rose of Tralee International Festival celebrates its 60th year in 2019, and of course there is a song with that title.
ACIS-West is an interdisciplinary conference that welcomes papers from all disciplines, including anthropology, art, comparative studies, cultural studies, dance, diaspora studies, economics, ethnic studies, film, history, language, law, literature, music, peace and conflict studies, politics, religion, sociology, theater, visual arts, and more. We invite papers on any topic, and are especially interested this year in those related to the conference themes of beauty, blossoming, and transition.
Conference events begin with a reception the evening of October 10th and conclude with a dinner on the 12th. The meeting will also feature the Donald E. Jordan, Jr.–Willard C. Potts, Jr. Award, which recognizes exceptional work by emerging scholars in Irish Studies. It is awarded annually to the ACIS-West member judged the most meritorious emerging scholar (current graduate students and scholars within three years of having received a PhD). The recipient is chosen by a committee of ACIS-West members appointed by the organization’s president, and the award will be presented at the conference’s closing banquet. The award is accompanied by a $500 honorarium. For more information about the award and the generous donors who have made it possible, see https://aciswest.wordpress.com/awards/.
ACIS-West is happy to announce that the Keynote address at the 2019 Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon, will be given by Northwest native and University College Cork Lecturer in History, Dr. John Borgonovo. His address is titled “Revolutionary Ireland and the Cork Vanguard: Considerations and Consequences.”
We look forward to seeing you all in Portland this October!
Please direct queries to Aaron Thornburg, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Eastern Oregon University, at athornburg@eou.edu, NK Harrington, Instructor of History, Washington State University Vancouver, at nHarrington@wsu.edu, or Douglas Byrd, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Portland Community College, at douglas.byrd@pcc.edu.