AARC Colloquium, 30 and 31 January 2015

The Institute of Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool hosted a Colloquium by the Atlantic Archipelagos Research Consortium (AARC) on 30 and 31 January 2015. The AARC is a collaboration between international academic partners, including Emory University, University of Georgia, University of Exeter, National University of Ireland Galway, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, the Universities of London, of Liverpool and of York. The conceptual aim of AARC is to analyse the tensions in coupling identity and nationhood with ecology and the environment, relationships usually underplayed or overlooked in similar projects. To this end,  Dr Frank Shovlin, (Colloquium organiser and Head of Department, The Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool), invited speakers with certain specialisms: the Atlantic and capitalism; early modern culture and transnational exchange; literary and cultural theory; literary environmentalism and nature writing; cartography and literary mapping; archipelagic, regional and national identities.

The Colloquium was attended by academics and postgraduate students from the University of Georgia in the United States of America, University of Limerick, University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, NUI Galway and University College Cork in the Republic of Ireland as well as several universities in the United Kingdom. During the colloquium Andrew McNeillie of Clutag Press launched the AARCs website http://web4.ovpr.uga.edu/aarc/, which will act as the portal for the AARC.