International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures (IASIL) International Conference 2025

Crosson, S. (Conference Organising Committee Member)

Huston Film School

Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Organising a conference, workshop, ...

Description

2025 marks a hundred years since the Shannon Electricity Bill was passed in Dáil Eireann, a moment that would eventually lead to the electrification of Ireland, ushering an age of rapid technological advancement. In the contemporary digital age, technology is ubiquitous and has become central to Irish life and culture.

Ireland has of course been engaged with technology since long before electricity arrived, as Margaret Kelleher and James O’Sullivan in their recent collection on this subject observe: “Technological opportunity is a subject plumbed and probed in the earliest of Irish literary works, just as techno- logical inventions themselves have enabled Irish literature and its creative practitioners to adapt, diversify, experiment, and flourish, both in their choice of subject and in their public reach.’

Technological change has also become an important theme in contemporary Irish writing, whether through its use as a narrative device (as seen, for example, in the inclusion of emails in the novels of Sally Rooney), the integration of digital technologies into contemporary playwriting (in such recent examples as Marina Carr’s I-Girl and Enda Walsh’s Arlington), the impact of social media on interpersonal relationships (as seen in the short fiction of Yan Ge), or the poetic exploration of older technologies (as in Sinead Morrissey’s poems about photography or Caitríona O’Reilly on airships).

Technology is also having a profound impact upon academic research and teaching, whether through the impact of digital tools and databases, the influence of artificial intelligence, or in other ways. Ireland is also home to the European headquarters of multinational companies such as Google and Facebook, with the economic fortunes of the country closely tied to these operations.

The IASIL 2025 conference aims not only to explore discourse on technology in Irish literature and culture but also to consider how technology offers fresh modes in which literature is written, performed, received, and understood. It builds on the developing scholarship on technology and Irish culture in collections including Kelleher and O’Sullivan’s Technology in Irish Literature and Culture and Science, Technology, and Irish Modernism (2019) edited by Kathryn Conrad, ‎Cóilín Parsons, ‎Julie McCormick Weng, as well as in recent individual monographs and articles on Irish literature and digital culture.

Period	21 Jul 2025 → 25 Jul 2025
Event type	Conference
Location	Galway, IrelandShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International

Keywords

Ireland
Irish studies
conference
literature
film
culture

Documents & Links

2025 marks a hundred years since the Shannon Electricity Bill was passed in Dáil Eireann, a moment that would eventually lead to the electrification of Ireland, ushering an age of rapid technological advancement. In the contemporary digital age, technology is ubiquitous and has become central to Irish life and culture. Ireland has of course been engaged with technology since long before electricity arrived, as Margaret Kelleher and James O’Sullivan in their recent collection on this subject observe: “Technological opportunity is a subject plumbed and probed in the earliest of Irish literary works, just as techno- logical inventions themselves have enabled Irish literature and its creative practitioners to adapt, diversify, experiment, and flourish, both in their choice of subject and in their public reach.’ Technological change has also become an important theme in contemporary Irish writing, whether through its use as a narrative device (as seen, for example, in the inclusion of emails in the novels of Sally Rooney), the integration of digital technologies into contemporary playwriting (in such recent examples as Marina Carr’s I-Girl and Enda Walsh’s Arlington), the impact of social media on interpersonal relationships (as seen in the short fiction of Yan Ge), or the poetic exploration of older technologies (as in Sinead Morrissey’s poems about photography or Caitríona O’Reilly on airships). Technology is also having a profound impact upon academic research and teaching, whether through the impact of digital tools and databases, the influence of artificial intelligence, or in other ways. Ireland is also home to the European headquarters of multinational companies such as Google and Facebook, with the economic fortunes of the country closely tied to these operations. The IASIL 2025 conference aims not only to explore discourse on technology in Irish literature and culture but also to consider how technology offers fresh modes in which literature is written, performed, received, and understood. It builds on the developing scholarship on technology and Irish culture in collections including Kelleher and O’Sullivan’s Technology in Irish Literature and Culture and Science, Technology, and Irish Modernism (2019) edited by Kathryn Conrad, ‎Cóilín Parsons, ‎Julie McCormick Weng, as well as in recent individual monographs and articles on Irish literature and digital culture.