With film screenings, a discussion on the history of bad environmental ideas, a full day dedicated to different musical genres, talks on childhood and children’s literature, stories of werewolves, vampires and ghosts and all things weird and wonderful from the collections of Trinity College Dublin’s Library, this year’s festival programme has something for everybody.
Commenting on this year’s programme, Eve Patten, Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub said: “Launched in 2023, the annual Trinity Arts and Humanities Research Festival celebrates cutting-edge research and creativity. It provides a unique opportunity for scholars and artists to share their work with a wider audience, engage in meaningful conversations with their colleagues, and make new collaborations across disciplines.”
“Last year’s inaugural festival attracted more than 1,000 attendees, with over 70 events taking place across Trinity Long Room Hub and Trinity’s Arts Building. This year we will again showcase the great research being undertaken in Trinity which is uncovering new understandings of culture, history, and who we are as humans.”
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Want to learn how to stave off the black death? Join Dr Claire McNulty from Trinity’s Library for ‘a how-to on avoiding the plague'. Claire will be joined by Library archivists, academics, curators, and librarians as they take you through their favourite 'Quick Picks' including the ‘eye-popping’ medieval masterpiece of Matthew Paris’ in the Book of St Albans' (13th century) and the secrets of Trinity’s banned books room. (25 September at 4pm)
Does Heavy Metal lift your heart? On 27 September from 5.30pm, Heavy-metal fans will be treated to a fascinating discussion on why heavy metal matters, led by poetry expert Philip Coleman of Trinity’s School of English. ‘Going out with a Head-Bang’ will explore Heavy Metal music's influence in a range of personal and professional contexts. This event is open to seasoned metal fans and anyone curious about this oft-maligned sub-genre of contemporary music. (booking required)
What is a 21st Century Person? Novelist and screenwriter Eoin McNamee tackles this big question with drama expert Nick Johnson (Creative Arts) and contributions from Trinity colleagues Neville Cox (Law), Jane Ohlmeyer (History), Shane O’Meara (Neuroscience), Kata Zita (Human+ Fellow), Jennifer Edmond (Digital Humanities), Jake Erickson (Religion), Clodagh Brook (Former Associate Vice President for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Etain Tannam (Religion) and others. (booking required)
What should we do with bad ideas? Join Katja Bruisch, Tim Stott, Diogo de Carvalho Cabral and Francis Ludlow (from Trinity’s Centre for Environmental Humanities) as they delve into the history of brilliantly bad ideas about climate and nature including wetland reclamation, geoengineering and Spaceship Earth.
Why should lawyers read literature? From Henry James to Star Wars, David Kenny (law) explains how novels and other literary works can change legal mindsets and help us understand the law more deeply. In this talk on 24 September at 4pm, David will explore ideas from his new book Pragmatism, Law and Literature with Routledge.
Full Programme 2024
The festival will open on Monday, 23 September, with Trinity’s Dean of Research Sinead Ryan, before a launch later that day of Ireland’s Border Culture, a new research project which has developed a groundbreaking open access digital archive of the literature, visual art, memoir and film of Ireland’s ‘cultural borderscape’ from 1921 to the present day. Other research projects featuring in the festival programme include CHINACHILD (Slave-Girls and the Discovery of Female Childhood in Twentieth-Century China), and the ERC CRAFTVALUE Project (the contribution of craftsmanship to the architecture of Britain and Ireland in the long eighteenth century).
On Wednesday, 25 September, Trinity Provost Linda Doyle will join our daily ‘coffee morning’ for a conversation with Hub director Eve Patten on Arts, Humanities and the University. During the week long festival, PhD candidates will discuss their research in the ‘Thesis in 3’ lightning presentation talks and researchers will be on hand in the Arts Building booths to have a conversation about their research. Trinity’s new Dean of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Professor Carmel O’Sullivan will engage with early career researchers around the visual representations of their work in the last coffee morning of the week on 27 Friday (‘Every picture tells a (research) story’).
Partnerships this year for the festival include Wexford Opera Festival with a discussion on 'The Critic', Irish-born composer Charles Villiers Stanford’s comic opera; and Dublin City Council’s Culture Club whose members will be joining some of our discussions.
The Festival is also proud to present a number of new films including ‘Iarsmaí (Remnants)’, a new Irish language documentary following the return of historic human remains from Trinity to Inishbofin; ‘We Will Remain’ a documentary about the threatened Palestinian Bedouin communities; and ‘Acts of Memory’ a film by Mairead McClean (2022 Decade of Centenaries artist in residence) capturing the story of an Irish archive lost to war and its virtual reconstruction a century later. (booking required)
‘Key Changes’, the finale of the Trinity Arts and Humanities Research Festival, will see Trinity’s academics from Music, Law, English, and the Creative Arts coming together for a day-long celebration of music with panel discussions and individual lectures. Further to a discussion on why heavy metal matters, we will hear from Darryl Jones on why the Beatles changed us forever; Balazs Apor on the revival of punk in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary; Nicole Grimes on silence around women composers; Eoin O’Dell on copyright, music, and AI; and Jonathan Hodgers on Bob Dylan. Festivalgoers will also be treated to a special performance from Trinity’s Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Choir.
This is just a snapshot of what to expect from this year’s festival. For a full listing of all events, please see our programme here.
The Trinity Arts and Humanities Research Festival is taking place in association with Trinity’s START (Start Talking About Research Today) European Researcher’s Night which takes place on Friday 27 September.