In a Global Irish Network event, several panelists will explore the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on Irish studies.
While we all hope to return to our classrooms in the near future, we cannot deny that COVID has transformed the educational landscape and our professional practices as instructors and researchers in the field of Irish studies. All has changed, changed utterly, but what has been born?
Our experiences with remote teaching and learning have forced us to embrace technology to a degree unimagined in the past. In the process, we have become aware of, and proficient in, screen sharing, chat rooms, virtual meetings, and shared documents. These technology-enabled pedagogies have the potential to transform our classroom practices in numerous ways—some positive, some negative. Inviting in guest speakers, linking up classes, and guided tours of physical locations are all positive; yet, the inability of graduate students to network, visit archives, and experience various objects has been a negative.
Some believe that there is a change in perception. Ireland is no longer as far away from our classroom as it once was; the small world of Irish Studies has become closer.
How will new technologies given widespread use during the pandemic affect our teaching, research, and pedagogy once we return to the classroom? "Post Zoom: A New Irish Studies?" is an opportunity for us in the field of Irish Studies to explore these and related questions. The goal of this seminar is to create a space for Irish Studies instructors/administrators/researchers to process their remote teaching experiences during the pandemic, identify those technology-enabled practices having the most transformative potential, and discuss what instruction/conferences/research might look like in the near future.
Confirmed Participants (in order of short presentations)
Prof Michael Brown (Director, Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen)
Prof Kate Costello Sullivan (President American Conference for Irish Studies / Le Moyne College)
Prof Eugene Wall (President, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick)
Prof Michael McAteer, (Center for Irish Studies, Pázmány Péter Catholic University Budapest)
Prof Clíona Ní Ríordáin (Center for Irish Studies, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3)
Prof. Ondřej Pilný, (Center for Irish Studies, Charles University Prague/Chairperson IASIL)
Dr Nessa Cronin (Associate Director, Moore Institute, National University of Ireland Galway)
Prof Rob Savage (Director, Irish Studies Program, Boston College)
Prof Chris Morash (Heaney Professor of Irish Writing, Trinity College Dublin)
Prof Bríona Nic Dhiarmada (Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, University Notre Dame)
Prof Enda Delaney (University of Edinburgh)
Dr Niall Carson (Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool)
Prof Malachy O'Neill (Provost, Magee Campus, University of Ulster)
Question and Answer session to follow.
Moderator: Brian Ó Conchubhair, Associate Professor of Irish Language and Literature, University of Notre Dame