The Irish & Rome Seminar 2017

June 16 - 30, 2017

This year’s Rome Seminar, Ireland & Italy, is presented by the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies together with Italian Studies at Notre Dame.

In the first chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus rejects a simple model of colonial rule in Ireland, declaring that he is “the servant of two masters … and English and an Italian.” Stephen means the British monarch and the Roman Pope, but, as always with Stephen, there is much else implicit in his statement. As the case of Joyce – who became in part an Italian writer himself – shows, the relationship with Italy has been crucial in the shaping of Irish culture, even if it has often been overlooked in favour of the more easily accessible connections with the English-speaking world. The slogan “Home Rule Means Rome Rule”, used by Unionists and Westminster MPs in the late nineteenth century, reflects a widespread idea that, for the overwhelmingly Catholic population of Ireland there was (as Stephen Dedalus suggests) always an alternative capital city to London – and it was not Dublin. The story of Ireland has in so many ways been a story inextricably connected to the Church and thus to Rome. In that sense alone a great deal of Irish history has taken place in Italy, but there is also an old, abiding and complex set of connections between Ireland and Italy, from medieval monasticism (and earlier) to the contemporary European Union.

Speakers

Antonio Bibbò (University of Manchester)
Matteo Binasco (University of Notre Dame)
Andrea Binelli (Università di Trento)
Joe Buttigieg (University of Notre Dame)
Mariavita Cambria (University of Messina)
Kathleen Cummings (University of Notre Dame)
Maria DiBattista (Princeton University)
Patrick Griffin (University of Notre Dame)
Declan Kiberd (University of Notre Dame)
Edna Longley (Queen’s University Belfast)
Michael Longley (poet)
Mícheál Mac Craith (NUI Galway)
Ian McBride (University of Oxford)
John McCourt (Università Roma Tre)
Barry McCrea (University of Notre Dame)
Margaret Meserve (University of Notre Dame)
Ilaria Natali (Università degli Studi di Firenze)
Bríona Nic Dhiarmada (University of Notre Dame)
Diarmuid Ó Giolláin (University of Notre Dame)
Enrico Terrinoni (Università per Stranieri di Perugia)
Kevin Whelan (University of Notre Dame)
Clair Wills (Princeton University)

Under the Executive Directorship of Barry McCrea Irish & Rome Seminar 2017 will be held in Rome, Italy. For more information about this year's seminar, please contact cwils don@nd.eduand visit the Irish Studies website.