ACIS

American Conference for Irish Studies

Northern Illinois University 

FÁILTE

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Welcome to the Midwest Regional ACIS Website! 

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The world has changed irrevocably since we first decided to host the Midwest Regional ACIS conference in the early months of 2020. And while we had to cancel last year’s event, we knew we very much wanted to re-schedule it for October 2021. In the immortal words of Beckett in The Unnameable “…you must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on.” And here we are.

 

What we are able to provide this year is a hybrid conference with both in person panels and virtual presentations.

 

As co-hosts of this year’s conference, we thank you for your participation and your willingness to appear either live or on screen. This year we are happy to have two accomplished keynote speakers: Jill C. Bender and David Cregan.

Dr. Bender, Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, will be speaking on Irish women and assisted emigration in the mid-nineteenth century British empire. Dr. Cregan, Associate Professor of Theatre at Villanova University, states that his paper will “transverse the limits of Irish identity politics by exploring temporality, fantasy, phenomenology, and ontology, in order to articulate the particular nature of the aesthetics of the Irish Theatre.” 

 

We would be remiss if we didn’t thank some of the many people who helped put this conference together: Byers Brewing Company, Cindy Meeks and the staff at the Hotel at the Holmes Student Center, Cork University Press,

Clifton Stiles and Conference Planning at NIU, the Department of History, the NIU School of Theatre and Dance, and Rachael Yoder.

 

Please explore the entire MWACIS website where you will find important information about accommodations,

places to eat, bios of all the presenters, and most important, the presentation schedule.

 

We hope you enjoy your NIU MWACIS experience!

And we look forward to seeing you soon.

 

Sincerely,

 

Sean Farrell, Co-Host

Kay Martinovich, Co-Host

Midwest Regional ACIS 2021