Program for the Canadian Association for Irish Studies 2019 Conference now available

Download the program here

Canadian Association for Irish Studies
Irish Bodies and Irish Worlds

29 May to 1 June 2019

Bodies – the human body, textual bodies, bodies of knowledge, bodies of water – are central to the numerous disciplines that form Irish Studies.  Knowledge about Irish identities has been embodied through physical performance, articulated through literary and cultural bodies of work, and imagined as watery avenues of migration, exile, and diaspora.  In turn, these bodies operate in, are influenced by, and also influence in their own right the world around them.  The built environment, the natural world, fictional literary worlds, the transatlantic diaspora – all become ways to deconstruct and add nuance to multiple meanings of Irishness in a globalized society.

Through the theme of ‘Irish Bodies and Irish Worlds’, the Canadian Association for Irish Studies 2019 CAIS Conference will be held at Concordia University in Montreal.  

Confirmed keynote speakers for CAIS 2019 are Professor Joanna Bourke (Birkbeck, University of London), Professor Rhona Richman Kenneally (Concordia), award-winning author Kevin Barry, and Olivia Smith, co-editor of Winter Papers.  The conference programme features a guided walking tour of Irish Montreal, musical performances, public readings, and a gala banquet in Old Montreal.