Organiser Jack Phelan introduces Haunted Hibernia, a forthcoming conference event at Carlow College that seeks to 'explore the myriad ways that the Gothic has been deployed to interrogate the social, economic, and political transformations that have occurred in Ireland since the end of the Celtic Tiger'.
Ireland's history is soaked in change, revolution and upheaval. Recent decades have witnessed the shifting and reshaping of our social, political and economic landscapes by voices of evolution and rebellion. The Haunted Hibernia conference aims to explore the myriad ways that the Gothic has been deployed to interrogate these developments and to exhume the historical trauma engendered by them.
We are proud to present papers on a variety of topics, including those related to the suburban Irish space, the intersection of Gothicism and feminism, housing-Horror and the post-Celtic tiger economic downturn, citizenship, identity and nationhood, religious decolonisation and other associated traumas.
Haunted Hibernia will be keynoted by Dr. Linnie Blake and Dr. Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, founding members of the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies, which seeks to promote the research and study of the Gothic tradition across a variety of academic and professional levels. Drs. Blake and Ní Fhlainn have extensive experience with the reach and sweep of Gothic studies, each having a catalogue of publications to their name.
Other plenaries include Sophie White, author of the brilliantly touching bestseller Corpsing: My Body and Other Horror Shows, writer-director Noelle Brown, who will perform a segment of her play Postscript, inspired by her own experience as the child of a mother-and-baby home, as well as Vukasin Nedeljkovic, visual artist and founder of the multidisciplinary experience Asylum Archive, which explores and responds to ideas of exile, displacement and migration memory - conceived during Nedelkovic’s own stay in a direct provision centre.
The Haunted Hibernia conference takes place at Carlow College on Friday 28th and Saturday 29th October 2022, 9.30am – 5.30pm. Admission is free, however booking is encouraged as limited places are available - book your tickets here.
