Call for Papers
American Conference for Irish Studies
Mid-Atlantic Regional
Material Ireland / Virtual Ireland
24-25 October 2003
University of Maryland

The Mid-Atlantic Regional American Conference for Irish Studies invites paper (20 minute) and "poster session" (15 minute) proposals for its interdisciplinary conference at the University of Maryland, College Park on 24-25 October 2003. The conference organizers welcome any papers which address Ireland's rich material past and present, as well as its virtual present and future. Especially welcome are papers which address the following themes:

• the role of objects in Ireland in the production of knowledge;
• specific artifacts and their histories (physically and/or virtually);
• the relations between ideal and actual historical audiences, or between local, international, or virtual readers;
• the relationship between people's material world and the society around them;
• the use of multimedia and/or the WWW in Irish arts and education;
• how the study of objects enrich or problematise our understanding of Irish culture and art;
• how the study of objects reveal new perspectives on traditional fields of study, such as The Irish Renaissance or the Eighteenth Century;
• how certain objects became/have become engines of commodification of Irish culture, such as the Book of Kells or the shamrock;
• what manuscripts, books and other print culture reveal about the society that produced/and or rejected them;
• how the existence of the World Wide Web changes, alters, enriches knowledge production in Irish arts, politics, culture;
• how material artefacts and digital media reinforce perceptions of, for example, imperial culture or post-colonialism, the Celtic Tiger or The Troubles;
• what are the relations between literature and its material production (voice/text, embodied writing, theater props/dramatic space, changing modes of printing and distribution, etc);
• what the snapshot of the World Wide Web at the present moment reveals about Irish society, politics, culture, arts

We also welcome 15 minute "poster session" proposals in which conference participants can depart from the traditional conference format. Proposals for the poster session may involve, for example, creative work (readings from one's own creative writing, or playing music), a response to material culture (a reading from archival material, for example), or demonstrating a virtual/multimedia site/product.

All correspondence and enquiries should be sent to the address below. Proposals for papers should be submitted by 11 April 2003, preferably by email. Proposals should include the following information:

• indicate if proposal is for a paper or a poster session;
• speaker's name and affiliation;
• email address;
• 250 word abstract