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Past Projects

Otherness and Evil

The Centre for Studies in Otherness hosted a Research Symposium at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Ireland on November 20th, 2013.  There were lectures by Dr. Dara Waldron, Dr. Ian Dillon, Michelle Kennedy and Marian Shaheen

The lectures were followed immediately by the launching of Dr. Maria Beville's new book The Unnameable Monster in Literature and Film (Routledge 2013).  

The Centre for Studies in Otherness Postgraduate Symposium

Maria Beville of the Department of English Language & Literature, Mary Immaculate College, who is co-director of the Centre for Studies in Otherness organised the event with Tracy Fahey, Head of Department of Art and Design, Limerick School of Art and Design with the aim of bringing together theoretical and practical approaches to the concept of alterity.  

The event, held at the Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland on November 23rd, 2012, included talks by Michelle Cooney, Breda Lynch, Kristy Butler, Dierdre Flynn, Una Spain and Deborah McDonagh

Otherness: A Multilateral Perspective

The Centre published an edited collection entitled Otherness: A Multilateral Perspective (Peter Lang 2011) Edited by Maria Beville, Susan Yi Sencindiver and Marie Lauritzen.

Student Seminar Session

The Centre for Studies in Otherness hosted a Student Seminar evening on the 7th of June, 2011 at Aarhus University.

This session was part of our ongoing seminar series on Otherness and included 30 minute presentations from our student speakers Laura Helene Hechmann and Ian Rynne. 

Know ye not SEEMS?

The Centre for Studies in Otherness, in collaboration with SEEMS (Scandinavian English Early Modern Seminars), welcomed Professor Andrew Hadfield, a leading Renaissance scholarof the University of Sussex.

Prof. Hadfield gave a lecture, entitled: "Changing Places in Early Modern England: Class, Gender and Literature"  Monday October 24th, 2011 @ 7pm

Inter-institutional seminar series

These series formed a part of a productive collaboration between lecturers and scholars who spoke in rotation at Mary Immaculate College and Aarhus University during the academic years 2009/2010.

Following through on our theme of otherness / alterity, the series involved the pairing of speakers from various academic institutions, who, together offered a two-part seminar on a common topic. Selected presentations have been developed into journal articles for the first issues of Otherness: Essays & Studies.

Peer reviewed Publication “Approaching Otherness” in Double Dialogues

The Centre for Studies in Otherness was delighted to announce the launch of the special edition journal issue, “Approaching Otherness”, Issue Ten, in the internationally recognized peer reviewed journal, Double Dialogues. This peer reviewed journal issue is available for open reading online at www.doubledialogues.com

The issue is introduced and edited by Maeve Tynan and was a research offshoot of the 2008 conference Otherness and the Arts. We would like to thank our contributors, the University of Aarhus for hosting our Otherness and the Arts Conference  and to Deakin University (and in particular Ann McCullough) for her work in publishing the journal.

Conference "Otherness and the Arts", 2008

Global Conference on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Otherness and Alterity in Literature, Film and Culture. Organized by the Department of English, University of Aarhus, and Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, in collaboration with the Centre for Studies in Otherness.

Otherness and fear are two concepts that offer an intriguing dynamic of cause and effect: the ‘otherness’ approached in the experience of fear almost acts as a mirror of both personal and public anxiety or terror of the other. In consequence, representations of ‘otherness’ are all too often dark and fearful, dominated by hesitation and repression. In much art and literature, shadows of the other abound, haunting the disillusioned subject with reminders of a dark and unrepresentable object (‘absolute otherness’ or ‘the real’) that is so intrinsic to subjectivity.

It is precisely this variety of formulations, the polysemy of alterity, which this conference examined from divergent disciplinary and theoretical perspectives. Its aim, therefore, was to convene on the notion of Otherness as a site for critical, socio-political, cultural, and literary exploration.

Keynote Speakers:

  • Luce Irigaray (video conference)
  • Thomas Hylland Eriksen, University of Oslo
  • Svend Erik Larsen, University of Aarhus
  • Eugene O'Brien, University of Limerick
  • Ann McCulloch, Deakin University

Novelist and Poet, Tabish Khair, read from work

With the support of:
Institute of Language, Literature and Culture, University of Aarhus
The Doctoral School in Arts and Aesthetics, University of Aarhus
Inter-Institutional Link, Ireland
Mary Immaculate College, Ireland
AUFF, The Aarhus University Research Foundation, Denmark
FKK, Research Council for Culture and Communication, Denmark
The Irish Embassy, Denmark