Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium: Martin McLoone

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Wednesday, 11 March 2009

AHRC Ireland-Wales Research Network Symposium April 17-18

Posted below for your information are some highlights of the programme for the 3rd Symposium of the AHRC Ireland-Wales Research Network, to be held at Aberystwyth University on 17-18 April 2009.

The theme of the meeting is ‘Cultural Institutions and Creativity in Ireland and Wales’.

Please contact the organizers Paul O’Leary, Claire Connolly and Katie Gramich at irelandwales[at]aber[dot]ac[dot]uk

3rd Symposium of the AHRC Ireland-Wales Network:

Cultural Institutions and Creativity in Ireland and Wales
17-18 April 2009, Aberystwyth University

Room A12, Hugh Owen Building, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth University

Friday 17 April

9 am Coffee and registration

10 am
Shaun Richards (University of ), ‘Did that play of mine ...? Conflict, Conformity and Commerce in the National Theatre of Ireland.’

Anwen Jones (Aberystwyth University ), ‘Dramas of Devolution - A History of the Idea of National Theatre in Wales and Ireland.’

11 am Coffee

11.30 pm
Niamh Hourigan (Cork University), ‘Media Power and People Power: A Comparison of Campaigns for Welsh and Irish Language Television Services’

Steve Blandford (Glamorgan University), ‘Questions of Identity and the Creative Industries in Contemporary Wales’

12.30 am
Title: ‘Theatre, Media and the Creative Industries in Ireland and Wales’

Interviews / Readings with Ceri Sherlock (BBC Wales)
Lloyd Trott (RADA)

1.30 — 2.30 pm Lunch

2.30-3.30
Michael Houlihan (National Museum of Wales), ‘Can authoritative, cultural institutions be creative? Accountability and creativity in National Museums.’

Andrew Green (National Library of Wales), ‘Making the far near: the National Library of Wales and digitisation’

3.30 pm Tea

4 – 5 pm
Fintan Cullen (Nottingham University), ‘The National and the International: Donating Modern Art in Dublin and Cardiff in the Early Twentieth Century’

John Wilson (University of ), ‘Industrialism and Culture: The Civic and National Context of Art in South Wales, c.1800-1914’

5pm Drinks LOCATION TBC

6.00 pm

Prof. John Horgan (Irish Press Ombudsman) and Geraint Talfan Davies (Chairman of the Institute of Welsh Affairs and of the Welsh National Opera) [Public Lecture]
‘Y Drwm’, National Library of Wales

7.30 pm Dinner

Saturday 18 April

10 am
Brian O Conchubair (Notre Dame University), ‘The Welsh Influence on the Irish Language Revival’

M Wynn Thomas (Swansea University), ‘Creating a National Consciousness: Cymru Fydd, Young Ireland and the Pan-Celtic movement.’

11.00 am Coffee

11.30 am
Rob Savage (Boston College), ‘Finding a Voice? The Irish language and Telefís Éireann 1960-1972’

Jamie Medhurst (Aberystwyth University), ‘ITV in Wales: Broadcasting's Poor Relation?’

12.30-1.30 pm Lunch

4.30 p.m. Symposium Close

AHRC Ireland-Wales Research Network

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

Sunday, 11 May 2008

AHRC Ireland-Wales Research Network First Symposium May 16-17 2008

[Pictured above: Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis]

This week's not-to-be missed Cardiff event!

Don't miss the inaugural symposium of the AHRC Ireland-Wales Research Network, entitled Ireland and Wales: Comparisons and Contexts.

The symposium will take place on Friday 16th and Saturday 17th May in Room .31, Humanities Building, Cardiff University.

As well as academic papers, responses and panels, the event features a public lecture by Gwyneth Lewis on the topic of 'Criss-crossings: Literary adventures on Irish and Welsh shores’. (Friday evening, the 16th, at 6pm in the Optometry lecture theatre, Maindy Road).

Both symposium and lecture are free and open to all. Lunches, teas and coffees will be provided.

Registration is essential: irelandwales[at]cardiff[dot]ac[dot]uk

AHRC Ireland-Wales Research Network

Dr Claire Connolly, Dr Katie Gramich (Cardiff School of English, Communication and Philosophy) and Dr Paul O'Leary (Department of History and Welsh History, University of Wales, Aberystwyth) have been awarded funding by the Arts and Humanities Council of Great Britain to establish a two year international and interdisciplinary Ireland- Wales Research Network.

The Network was launched by Colm McGrady, Consul General of Ireland in Wales on November 22nd, 2007, at a reception held in the Consulate General of Ireland in Wales. For press coverage of the launch, see Cardiff University News, BBC News and the Western Mail.

[Pictured above: Dr Claire Connolly BA, MA (NUI), PhD (Wales)]

The first symposium, on the theme of Comparisons and Contexts, will be held on Friday and Saturday May 16th and 17th, 2008.

[Pictured above: Dr Katie Gramich BA (Wales) MA (London) PhD (Alberta)]

Ireland and Wales: Comparisons and Contexts

Friday 16 May

10.30 a.m. Coffee and registration

11.30 a.m. Rhys Jones (Aberystwyth) – ‘Where are Wales and Ireland?’
John Ellis (Michigan) – ‘Twentieth-century Welsh and Irish Political Identities’

12.45 p.m. Lunch

2.00 p.m. Conchúr Ó Giollagáin (Galway) - ‘Language Profiles of the Contemporary Gaeltacht: Addressing Issues of Sociolinguistic Fragility’
Colin Williams (Cardiff): Response.

3.00 p.m. Tea

4.00pm Richard Ireland (Aberystwyth) – ‘The Discourse of Ireland in Welsh Debates About Crime.’
Katie Gramich (Cardiff) – ‘Inventing and Garrotting 'The Man who does not Exist': Peasantry and Modernity in Welsh and Irish writing’

6.00 p.m. Public lecture: Gwyneth Lewis - ‘Criss-crossings: Literary adventures on Irish and Welsh shores.’

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS LECTURE WILL TAKE PLACE IN THE OPTOMETRY LECTURE THEATRE

Cardiff University Map

7.30 p.m. Dinner

Saturday 17 May

9.30 a.m. Andrew Holmes (Queens University Belfast). - ‘The transatlantic identity of Irish Presbyterians, c.1800 to 1914’
David Ceri Jones (Aberystwyth): Response

11.00 a.m. Coffee

11.30 a.m. Pol Ó Muirí (Irish Times) – ‘"I did my best": Seosamh Mac
Grianna, Wales and Ireland’
James Loughlin (Ulster) - ‘Royal agency and national integration: Ireland and Wales in the context of Monarchy, 1860s-1914’

12.45 p.m. Lunch

2.00 p.m. Interview/ Round Table Discussion with four Irish/Welsh writers: Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Robin Llywelyn, Catherine Fisher and Patrick McGuinness

3.00 p.m. Tea

3.30 p.m. Round Table Discussion led by Paul O’Leary (Aberystwyth) –
‘Cultures, Disciplines and the Modalities of Comparison’

4.30 p.m. End of conference

Welsh with English to follow:

Cymru ac Iwerddon: Cymhariaeth a Chyd-destun

Ystafell 0.31, Adeilad y Dyniaethau, Prifysgol Caerdydd

Cardiff University Map

Dydd Gwener 16 Mai

10.30 a.m. Coffi a chofrestru

11.30 a.m. Rhys Jones (Aberystwyth) – ‘Ble mae Cymru ac Iwerddon?’
John Ellis (Michigan) – ‘Hunaniaeth wleidyddol yng Nghymru ac Iwerddon yn yr ugeinfed ganrif’

12.45 p.m. Cinio

2.00 p.m. Conchúr Ó Giollagáin (Galway) - ‘Proffilau iaith y Gaeltacht gyfoes: ymdopi â breuder ieithyddol yn y gymuned’
Colin Williams (Caerdydd): Ymateb.

3.00 p.m. Tea

4.00pm Richard Ireland (Aberystwyth) – ‘Disgẃrs Iwerddon mewn dadleuon Cymreig am drosedd.’
Katie Gramich (Caerdydd) – ‘Dyfeisio a dinistrio ‘Y dyn nad yw yn bod': Y werin a Modernedd yn llên Cymru ac Iwerddon’

6.00 p.m. Darlith gyhoeddus (yn Saesneg): Gwyneth Lewis - ‘Igam-ogamu: anturiaethau llenyddol ar draethellau Gwyddelig a Chymreig.’
NODER OS GWELWCH YN DDA: BYDD Y DDARLITH HON YN CAEL EI TRADDODI YN YSTAFELL DARLITH OPTOMETREG

Cardiff University Map

7.30 p.m. Swper
Dydd Sadwrn 17 Mai

9.30 a.m. Andrew Holmes (Prifysgol Queens, Belffast). - ‘Hunaniaeth drawsiwerydd Henaduriaid Gwyddelig, c. 1800 tan 1914’
David Ceri Jones (Aberystwyth): Ymateb

11.00 a.m. Coffi

11.30 a.m. Pol Ó Muirí (Irish Times) – ‘"Gwnes i fy ngorau": Seosamh Mac
Grianna, Cymru ac Iwerddon’
James Loughlin (Ulster) - ‘Goruchwyliaeth frenhinol ac integreiddiad cenedlaethol: Iwerddon a Chymru yng nghyd-destun brenhiniaeth, 1860au-1914’

12.45 p.m. Cinio

2.00 p.m. Cyfweliad/Cylch trafod gyda phedwar awdur Gwyddelig/Cymreig: Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Robin Llywelyn, Catherine Fisher and Patrick McGuinness

3.00 p.m. Te

3.30 p.m. Trafodaeth gyffredinol i’w harwain gan Paul O’Leary (Aberystwyth) –
‘Diwylliannau, Disgyblaethau a Dulliau Cymharu’

4.30 p.m. Diwedd y gynhadledd

Cardiff University Map

The second symposium, on the theme of Romantic Nations, will be held on on Friday and Saturday October 24th and 25th, 2008 (More details available soon).

AHRC Ireland-Wales Research Network

Wales - Ireland Seminar Series 2007 - 8
Cyfres seminar Cymru - Iwerddon 2007 - 8

Seminars take place on Mondays at 5.15pm in room 2.47, Humanities Building, Cardiff University.

Spring

11 February, 2008
Dr John Goodby, (University of Wales, Swansea)
"' So why in this moment of well-being should we want to see England again”: Irish-Welsh thoughts on re-thinking the twentieth century poetic canon'

March 10, 2008
Dr Darryl Jones (Trinity College Dublin)
'The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire (and other horrid stories)'

April 21, 2008
Dr Claire Connolly (Cardiff School of English, Communication and Philosophy)
Celtic Criticism

Yng Nghymraeg hefyd:

11 Chwefror, 2008
Dr John Goodby, (Prifysgol Abertawe)
‘Doedd hi ddim fel 1916 ym 1916 ychwaith’: Iwerddon ym marddoniaeth Gymreig, Cymru ym marddoniaeth Wyddelig

10 Mawrth, 2008
Dr Darryl Jones (Coleg y Drindod, Dulyn)
‘Yr Iguana â thafod o dân (a storïau iasoer eraill)’

21 Ebrill, 2008
Dr Claire Connolly (Ysgol Saesneg, Cyfathrebu ac Athroniaeth, Caerdydd)
Beirniadaeth Geltaidd

Related news:

Dr. Mark Leslie Woods's recommended Irish and Celtic Studies reading for March 2008:

Film, Media and Popular Culture in Ireland
Cityscapes, Landscapes, Soundscapes
by Martin McLoone

This collection of essays from Martin McLoone takes a new look at
contemporary culture in Ireland through the filter of three main
developments – the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy in the South, the peace
process in the North and the general rise in Ireland of ‘diasporan
awareness’.

The book considers the impact of these three factors on
the film, television, and music produced in Ireland, mostly since the
1990s, and speculates on how this popular culture reflects both what
has been gained in the new Ireland but also what has been lost.

Specific concerns of the book are the secularisation of Ireland and
popular culture’s assault on the Church generally (and the priest in
particular); the changing cityscapes and landscapes of the new Ireland;

the ‘death’ of politics; sexual freedom and personal liberation; the problem of representing unionist culture in the North; Van Morrison’s Belfast and the rise of ‘possessive individualism’ in Ireland.

The book celebrates the new Ireland but also raises issues about the loss of aspects of Irish identity that were valuable and suggests the need for a new ‘collective imaginary’ that might reinvigorate Irish identity in the new millennium.

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

Saturday, 1 March 2008

AHRC Ireland-Wales Research Network First Symposium May 16-17 2008

[Pictured above: Dr Claire Connolly BA, MA (NUI), PhD (Wales)]

The first symposium, on the theme of Comparisons and Contexts, will be held on Friday and Saturday May 16th and 17th, 2008.

Cardiff University Map

The second symposium, on the theme of Romantic Nations, will be held on on Friday and Saturday October 24th and 25th, 2008 (More details available soon).

AHRC Ireland-Wales Research Network

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

Monday, 18 February 2008

Celtic Youth Film 'Hip Hedonism' and Justin Kerrigan According to Martin McLoone and Steve Blandford

Justin Kerrigan is shooting a new Welsh film in South Wales, and he's best known worldwide for his 'global youth party culture' film Human Traffic, set in Cardiff, Wales.

[Pictured above: Emmy nominee Robert Carlyle stars in Justin Kerrigan's newest film currently being shoot in South Wales.]

Emmy nominee Robert Carlyle, who found fame in 'The Full Monty' and 'Trainspotting' and whose credits have since included 'Carla's Song', 'The World is Not Enough' and '28 weeks later' is currently filming Cardiff born, Justin Kerrigan's new feature film 'I Know you Know' in Bridgend, and Port Talbot.

Kerrigan is often lumped together with similar directors who seem to be exploiting this transnational popular culture craze, making films that are loaded with codes and signifiers that 'only the kids' can understand.

Kerrigan is best known for his 1999 hit 'Human Traffic' for which, amidst several other awards, he won a BAFTA Cymru Award for Best Director and was nominated for a Carl Foreman Award for the Most Promising Newcomer at the BAFTA 2000 awards in London.

Human Traffic Trailer -- Miramax Films

How does Kerrigan fit into the pantheon of Welsh filmmakers who have overcome the odds to make a film and get it out of Wales?

How does Kerrigan fit into the array of recent 'Celtic Periphery' filmmakers, i.e., coming out of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales?

The Twang - Two Lovers -- Also directed by Justin Kerrigan

I've written about this elsewhere, and I include this excerpt of my new book on the National Cinema of Wales (not yet published) called, 'A Welsh New Wave?'

A Welsh ‘new wave’?

Blandford notes that the quartet he is describing created rumours of the beginnings of a new Welsh film ‘wave’ of production and freer expression, while they managed to offend the government, the tourist boards, the local communities where the films were shot, the Welsh religious establishment, and just about everyone else inclined to be offended.

Blandford alludes to a general weariness in Welsh society, surrounding the cultural controversy, and longs for a respite from the ‘dead-end arguments’

"During the next decade it will be interesting to see whether a film culture develops with the confidence to make films without even the ironic reference to traditional Welsh iconography that this latest wave has made" (Blandford 2000: 20)

Blandford seems to perceive that this ‘wave’ is related to a larger cultural malaise within a post-modern British and trans-national milieu, as he compares the quartet of Welsh films to similar films set in Scotland, Trainspotting (1996) and Wickerman (1973).

Martin McLoone identifies the same type of films becoming popular in the emerging economic and cultural ‘Celtic Tiger’ ascendancy of Ireland, and coins the name ‘hip hedonism’ to describe and explain the film waves’ meaning and impetus

"This might well explain the preponderance, in recent years, of another kind of urban-based film — what might be called a cinema of ‘hip hedonism’. This is a cinema that celebrates, even glorifies, an urban lifestyle dressed in the signifiers of contemporary global youth culture and populated by the beautiful people of Celtic Tiger Ireland" (McLoone 2006: 97)

Ruth Barton frames the films of post World War II Ireland in a chapter entitled ‘Negotiating Modernism’ (Barton 2004: 65), and one has to wonder if in some way, McLoone and Blandford are not describing Irish and Welsh cinemas, respectively, which are representing a new generation’s negotiation with the problems of trans-national post-modernism, including the paradox of rapidly rising incomes of younger professionals in Cardiff and Dublin paralleling the fatalism and political detachment implicit in the music and lifestyles of the nightclub, pub and ‘Rave Culture’, and its various cultural cousins.

Either way, the films of Scotland, Ireland and Wales in this period seem to be tapping the same vein of ‘I can’t be bothered’ attitudes endemic to the Celtic up-and-coming

"They are Irish, certainly, but they epitomize a kind of trans-global ‘cool’. Drugs and crime still form part of the background, but they are presented as lifestyle choices or get-rich schemes removed from any social consequences."

"Most importantly, these films are lighter in tone than the more political films, as well as being driven by a deliberately irreverent humour" (McLoone 2006: 97).

In the quartet of Welsh films that Blandford describes, which we will assert form the backbone of a Welsh version of McLoone’s designated Irish cinema of ‘hip hedonism,’ we need to ask what values are being challenged, and what social and cultural tensions are being transgressed or offended, and what possible meaning this might have.

Barton, R. (2004). Irish National Cinema. London, Routledge.

Berry, D. (1994). Wales and Cinema, The First Hundred Years. Cardiff, University of Wales Press.

Blandford, S., Ed. (2000). Wales on Screen. Bridgend, Wales, Seren, Poetry Wales Press Ltd.

Blandford, S. (2003). “Old Wales is Dead”, Film, Theatre and TV Drama in Contemporary Wales.” New Welsh Review, Theatre in Wales Supplement Autumn.

Blandford, S. (2003a). “Film, Theatre, and TV Drama in Contemporary Wales.” Culture+the State James Gifford & Gabrielle Zezulka-Mailloux, Editors (Culture+State Conference, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada).

Blandford, S. (2005). Film, Drama and the Break-Up of Britain. Inaugural Professorial Lecture, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, Wales, University of Glamorgan.

Blandford, S. (2005a). “Wales at the Oscars: ‘heritage’ cinema and Welshness in the 1990s.” Cyfrwng: Wales Media Journal 2.

Blandford, S. (2005b). Dramatic Fictions in a Postcolonial Wales. Postcolonial Wales. J. Aaron and C. Williams. Cardiff, University of Wales Press.

Blandford, S. (2007). Film, Drama and the Break Up of Britain. Bristol, England, Intellect Books.

Blandford, S., B. K. Grant, et al. (2001). The Film Studies Dictionary. London and New York, Arnold Publishers and Oxford University Press.

Hannan, P. (1999). The Welsh Illusion. Bridgend, Wales, Seren, Poetry Wales Press Ltd.

Hannan, P. (2002). 2001, A Year in Wales. Bridgend, Wales, Seren, Poetry Wales Press Ltd.

McLoone, M. (2001). ‘Internal Decolonisation? British Cinema in the Celtic Fringe.’ The British Cinema Book. R. Murphy.

McLoone, M. (2006). National Cinema in Ireland. Theorising National Cinema. V. Vitali and P. Willemen. London, British Film Institute: 88-99.

The Phrase Hip Hedonism was coined by Martin McLoone. Read more about his newest work here:

Film, Media and Popular Culture in Ireland
Cityscapes, Landscapes, Soundscapes
by Martin McLoone

This collection of essays from Martin McLoone takes a new look at
contemporary culture in Ireland through the filter of three main
developments – the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy in the South, the peace
process in the North and the general rise in Ireland of ‘diasporan
awareness’.

The book considers the impact of these three factors on
the film, television, and music produced in Ireland, mostly since the
1990s, and speculates on how this popular culture reflects both what
has been gained in the new Ireland but also what has been lost.

Specific concerns of the book are the secularisation of Ireland and
popular culture’s assault on the Church generally (and the priest in
particular); the changing cityscapes and landscapes of the new Ireland;

the ‘death’ of politics; sexual freedom and personal liberation; the problem of representing unionist culture in the North; Van Morrison’s Belfast and the rise of ‘possessive individualism’ in Ireland.

The book celebrates the new Ireland but also raises issues about the loss of aspects of Irish identity that were valuable and suggests the need for a new ‘collective imaginary’ that might reinvigorate Irish identity in the new millennium.

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.