14th International Conference of the Spanish Association for Irish Studies (AEDEI): 28-30 May 2015

14th International Conference of the Spanish Association for Irish Studies (AEDEI): 28-30 May 2015

AEDEI 2015

The 14th International Conference of the Spanish Association for Irish Studies (AEDEI) will take place from 28th to 30th of May 2015 at the University of Granada. The conference series will focus of the topic “Discourses of Inclusion and Marginalisation: Minority, Dissident and Mainstream Irish Identities”.

AEDEI, which has been holding these conference series since 2001, has been consolidated over the last 14 years, during which time an interest in Irish Studies has surged in Spain and encompasses many different fields, ranging from literary and cultural studies, to media and film studies, critical theory, history, linguistics and sociology, among others.

The conference series will offer researchers and academics the opportunity to interact with prestigious Irish writers, musicians, artists and academics, and to exchange ideas in an enriching cross-cultural context.

An overview

Ireland has entered what Bryan Fanning (2009: 179) calls an “uncertain phase of cultural-economic nation building”. Many social scientists and cultural commentators argue that key aspects of Irish national identity – the National Question (national reunification), Catholicism and anti-Britishness – have been eroded since the 1970s. Assumptions about politics based on the Civil War have been undermined by the rise of new parties with no roots in this period. Assumptions about a homogeneous nation have been eroded by the rapid growth of immigration. And assumptions about the unassailable position of the Catholic Church have been undermined by declining levels of piety, public scandals and the moral claims made by minorities or survivor groups previously silenced (e.g. Justice for Magdalenes, Adoption Alliance Group). The visit in May 2011 of Queen Elizabeth II and President Barack Obama has had a significant impact on the Irish national psyche. President Michael D. Higgins’s follow-up state visit to Buckingham Palace earlier this year (along with Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness) has also been relevant in normalizing Anglo-Irish relations. At the same time that some old certainties have been displaced, others have resurrected. The scourge of mass emigration, which many thought had been consigned to history books, has returned. Yeats’s declaration in The Second Coming that “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold” seems, once more, prescient.

This year’s AEDEI Conference aims to meet the challenges faced by Ireland now, by including the theme of “Discourses of Inclusion and Marginalisation: Minority, Dissident and Mainstream Irish Identities”. In the present context of social and economic turbulence, definitions must be broadened and scholarly boundaries pushed. The way in which we define notions such as “Irishness”, “native” vs. “foreigner”, “centre” vs. “periphery”, “marginal” vs. “mainstream”, and “normative” vs. “nonstandard” needs to be thoroughly re-examined so as to better accommodate the current polymorphous setting. Strategies of inclusion and marginalisation are inherent to all forms of cultural expression, which leads one to question the following: to what extent are deviant narratives informed by mainstream notions? And alternatively, how are canonicity and the mainstream informed by otherness? Is Irish identity being reformulated through the endless play of difference? Or is flux the new normal? All these re-categorisations also reveal the need to reflect on the present state of research in Irish studies. Has the diverse nature of Irish society affected the ways we look at history and cultural productions? How are the structures of power and subordination expressed in social, political, literary and artistic discourses?

The conference theme is not limited to a contemporary framework, as it aims to explore the presence of minorities, dissident voices and mainstream identities historically as well. Indeed, there is a growing interest in past-present relationships, as evident in the recent combination between Memory Studies and Migration Studies. Remembering the past can exert a (positive, healing) effect when establishing a (healthful) relationship with current forms of Otherness in present-day Ireland. As recently expressed by Fintan O’Toole, “If we’re to grow up, we need to cure our delusions of grandeur that produce lies and exclusion” (The Irish Times, 17 June 2014). Indeed, revisiting the canon might reveal new insights into how tradition interacts with questions of power, voice and representations of dissident identities.

This theme of inclusion and marginalisation ties in with a variety of disciplines ranging from literary and cultural studies, to media and film studies, critical theory, history, linguistics, anthropology, political science and sociology, among others.

Over 100 participants from Canada, the United States, and all across Europe will take part in the conference series.

You can view the full events programme here:

Organized by:

The Department of English and German Philology, The Faculty of Humanities, The Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, The Irish Embassy, el Vicerrectorado de Extensión Universitaria y Deporte.



The AEDEI conferences series have been celebrated periodically since 2001 (Burgos), with past meetings held in Barcelona (2002), Almería (2003), Málaga (2004), Tarragona (2005), Valladolid (2006), A Coruña (2008), Alcalá de Henares (2009), Tenerif (2010), Oviedo (2011), Huelva (2012), Cáceres (2013) and Deusto (2014).