DkIT Researcher presents Irish Studies Seminar at Queen's University Belfast
Dr Daithí Kearney, Director of the Creative Arts Research Centre at DkIT, presented an Irish Studies Seminar at the Institute for Irish Studies at Queen’s University Belfast alongside Dr Emma Radley of the School of English, Drama and Film in University College Dublin. Their presentation Irish Studies: Beyond the Text followed the publication of a special issue of the Irish University Review earlier this year that challenged how we conceive of the boundaries of Irish Studies, seeking new work and perspectives that go ‘beyond the text.’
While Radley, a lecturer and leading scholar on Irish film, literature and culture, with a particular interest in the development and critical reception of Irish horror film, presented an overview of the journal issue and the editorial decisions behind it, Kearney performed his presentation in a manner that responded to the desire for interdisciplinarity and multi-modal methodologies. Drawing on autoethnographic reflections, he danced, recited his own poetry and pointed to archival sources, embodying the challenge presented by the editors and demonstrating the value in considering how observations of the human body in motion can itself be a path to understanding culture and cultural change.
Introduced by historian Professor Peter Gray, Director of the Centre for Irish Studies at QUB, who made reference to the recent announcement of the new relationship between DkIT and QUB, the seminar was presented to both a live and online audience and a lively conversation developed. These conversations will continue as both institutions prepare to work more closely together and plan for major international research events in the Arts and Humanities in the coming years.
