THE IRISH ASSOCIATION FOR AMERICAN STUDIES

ANNUAL CONFERENCE, 2022

DCU All Hallows Campus, Gracepark Road, Drumcondra, Dublin.

April 29-30, 2022

We are pleased to announce details of the 2022 Conference of The Irish Association for American Studies. The meeting is scheduled to take place on April 29-30 2022, and will be hosted by Dublin City University at its All Hallows Campus.

As ever, the Association invites participation from scholars across all disciplines and career stages whose work relates to North America, the United States or the Americas. The theme of the conference is “America Gone Wild”, and contributions are encouraged that will explore the interpretative scope of American wildness and wilderness to its fullest extent. Proposals for papers (of 20 minutes) and panels (of no more than three contributors) are both welcome. Please send abstracts of approximately 300 words (panel proposals should contain individual paper abstracts as well as a panel overview), by Friday, 10th December 2021.

Environmental concerns, climate change and rewilding should emerge as themes, but so too might the spectacle of Americans running amok or running away, whether taking to the streets or chasing Bigfoot. We will think about wilderness as a sacred space, wilderness as a shrinking space, an imagined wilderness, simulated wilderness, a fracked wilderness, wilderness in politics and law, the fate of national parks in the US, the wilderness economy, both petrochemical and touristic. We might discuss Wallace Stevens’ “wilderness . . . no longer wild”, Talking Heads’ “Wild Wild Life”, De La Soul’s “Long Island is Wildin’” Curtis Mayfield’s “Little Child Running Wild”, and perhaps inevitably, “Born to Be Wild”.