UCD Clinton Institute for American Studies
UCD, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland | Director: Professor Liam Kennedy
Seminars Spring 2007
Monday 29th January - Tales of Plagiarism and Pastiche: The Godfather and The Leopard
Speaker: Professor Richard Dyer, Kings College, London
Venue: Irish Film Institute, Eustuce St. Temple Bar
Time: 5.30pm
Tickets can be booked in advance (they are free) from the IFI box office 01 6793477
Professor Richard Dyer is a world-renowned writer and speaker, with a particular interest in popular culture. He is the author of Stars (first published 1979; second edition 1998) published by the British Film Institute. Stars was the first, and remains the seminal, textbook on the study of film stars. This was followed by Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society (1987; reprinted 2003) and Now You See It: Historical Studies in Lesbian and Gay Film (1990; revised and expanded 2003). In 1992 Richard Dyer published Only Entertainment , in which he critically examined the ‘guilty pleasures’ of film viewing. In 1993, the British Film Institute commissioned him to write the monograph on Brief Encounter for the BFI Classics series and in 1999, he wrote the monograph on Se7en for their Modern Classics series.
Also in 1993, Dyer published The Matter of Images (2nd ed, 2002) a series of essays challenging modes of representation, with a particular emphasis on queer theory. In 1997, Dyer published White, in which he took examples from film, literature and visual arts to argue that whiteness ought not to be regarded as an unchallenged norm but as an ideologically constructed identity. He developed his writings on gay culture in The Culture of Queers (2001). His most recent publication is entitled Pastiche. Professor Dyer recently moved from the University of Warwick to King’s College, London
Monday 12 February - The Cold War in the 1950s
College of Arts & Celtic Studies Transatlantic Research Seminar Series
Speakers: Geoffrey Roberts (UCC) and Neville Wylier (Nottingham)
Venue: Seminar Room, Clinton Institute
Time: 11am
Tuesday 20 February - The Atlantic Alliance
(Transatlantic Research Seminar Series)
Speaker: John Dumbrell, Durham
Venue: Seminar Room, Global Irish Institute (formally known as the UIC)
Time: 11am
Monday 26th February - Terrorism, the City & the State
One day symposium
Pleanry speakers: Professor Mike Davis (University of California Irvine), Eyal Weizman (Architect & Goldsmith College, London), Brian Feeney (St. Mary's University College, Belfast), Scott Lucas (University of Birmingham)
Professor Mike Davis
University of California Irvine
'The History of Car Bombing' - 6.30pm William Jefferson Clinton Auditorium, in association with the UCD Humanities Institute of Ireland.
Eyal Weizman (Architect & Goldsmith College, London)
'Lethal Theory'
Brian Feeney (St. Mary's University College, Belfast)
'Belfast: From Protestant Town to Catholic City: Violence, Demographic Impact and Socio-Economic Change'
Scott Lucas (University of Birmingham)
'Terrorism, Political Warfare and the State'
Wednesday 28th February - "An American Desert Pilgrimage: The O'odham walk to
Magdalena, Mexico"
Speakers: Professor Lawrence Taylor & Maeve Hickey (artist) NUI Maynooth
Venue: Seminar Room, Clinton Institute
Time: 5.30pm
An anthropologist (Taylor) and an artist
(Hickey)follow a Native American pilgrimage from
southern Arizona to a shrine of San Francisco Xavier
in Magdalena, Mexico.
Tuesday 6th March - White Heat: Britain and America in the 1960s
Transatlantic Reserach Seminar Series
Speakers: Dominic Sandbrook (Oxford) and Mark Lytle (Bard)
Venue: Seminar Room, Clinton Institute
Time: 11am
Friday & Saturday 30 - 31 March - Ireland's America
IAAS Conference
Speakers: Professor Denis Donoghue ( New York University), Professor John Montague (former Ireland Professor of Poetry), Professor Peggy O'Brien (University of Massachussetts)
Further details to follow
Tuesday 3rd April - The Monroe Doctrine
Transatlantic Research Seminar Series
Speaker: Jay Sexton, Oxford
Venue: Seminar Room, Global Irish Institute
Time: 11am
13th - 15th April - Screening Irish America Conference
(School of Languages Literature and Film)
Keynote Panellists:
- Prof. Des Bell
- Professor Luke Gibbons
- Prof. Martin McLoone
- Prof. Charles Barr
- Prof Jim Kitses
- Dr. Diane Negar
- Dr. Lance Petittt
- Prof. Kevin Rocektt
- Gary Rhodes
Further details to follow
Monday 16th April - The image of America abroad
Speaker: Andrew Bacevich (Boston)
Venue: Seminar Room, Clinton Institute
Time: pm
Wednesday 25th April - "Toe-to-Toe: The Bodily Labor of Boxing"
Speaker: Dr. Benita Heiskanen,
UCD Clinton Institute
Venue: Seminar Room, Clinton Institute
Time: 5.30pm
Wednesday 2nd May - 'Woody Guthrie: Hard Times and Hard Travellin
Speaker: Dr. William Kaufman, University of Central Lancashire
Venue: Seminar Room, Clinton Institute
Time: 6.30pm
'Woody Guthrie: Hard Times and Hard Travellin' is an hour-long musical programme that sets the songs of Woody Guthrie in the context of the American 1930s-the Dust Bowl, the Depression, the New Deal and the state of popular music itself. Will Kaufman brings such hard-hitting Guthrie songs as 'Vigilante Man', 'Pretty Boy Floyd' and 'I Ain't Got No Home' into conversation with other songs of the Depression Era-from Joe Hill's 'The Preacher and the Slave' to 'Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?'. These renditions, buttressed by detailed historical commentary, exemplify the blending of music and radical politics that marks Guthrie's most powerful and evocative work.
Dr. Will Kaufman is from New Jersey and is a Reader in English and American Studies at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, England. He has published widely on many aspects of American culture and has been a semi-professional folksinger and musician for over thirty years. He comes from a musical family (his brother Steve is one of America’s most celebrated bluegrass guitarists) and he is equally at home on the guitar, fiddle, banjo and piano
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