Trinity Week Public Symposium in conjunction with Trinity EngAGE/U3A

The Science of Memory (9.00am–1.00pm)

A symposium focused on what we know of the science of memory.  There has been about 100 or so years of empirical and experimental exploration of memory from psychological and neuroscientific points of views. We will explore topics from the fundamental psychological science underpinning memory, to some of the processes that support memory in the brain. Presentations will be from some of Trinity's internationally-leading memory researchers.

9.00-9.15

Welcome from Professor Darryl Jones, Dean of the Faculty of AHSS.

9.15-9.45

Professor. Shane O'Mara, Professor of Experimental Brain Research, Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience (TCIN)
“Memory: How it works”

Biography:

• Shane O'Mara is Professor of Experimental Brain Research at Trinity College Dublin, Principal Investigator and Director of the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from NUI Galway and a DPhil from the University of Oxford. He is a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin (FTCD), and was the first Ireland-based elected Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (FAPS) and is an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA). 

9.45-10.15

Dr. Sabina Brennan, Research Assistant Professor, TCIN
“Memory Science and Social Impact”

• A case study demonstrating how Trinity attained social impact by translating the science of memory into practical materials to allay fears about memory loss, promote brain health and tackle stigma associated with dementia.

Biography:

• Prof Sabina Brennan is a research psychologist, film maker and educator
  Her research focuses on understanding risk and protective factors to establish how dementia might be prevented or delayed.

  Sabina is a co-director of the NEIL (NeuroEnhancement for Independent Lives) Dementia Research Programme at the Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin.

  In addition to conducting research Sabina actively promotes brain health, positive ageing and life long learning through public talks, film and online courses.

10.15-10.45

Professor Michael Rowan, Professor of Neuropharmacology, TCIN
“Antibodies for Alzheimer's Disease”

• The memory impairment of Alzheimer’s disease may be caused by certain proteins that selectively aggregate in patient brains. The ability of antibodies against these and other disease-related proteins to slow the course of disease is being evaluated worldwide. The jury is still out.

Biography:

• Michael is Professor of Neuropharmacology. His research focuses on how certain brain memory circuits are malleable. Over the years the Neuropharmacology group has clarified how proteins that become misshapen disrupt memory mechanisms in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

10.45-11.15 Tea/Coffee Break

11.15-11.45

Dr. Marian Tsanov Research Assistant Professor, TCIN

“How does the episodic memory work? Experience-dependent pattern separation”

• The formation of episodic memory is mediated by the neurons of hippocampal brain region. These cells are believed to passively map the spatial environment in Cartesian coordinate system. I will discuss an alternative hypothesis, proposing that the spatial representation is encoded by the hippocampal neurons in an experience-dependent flexible map.

Biography:

• Dr Tsanov’s work has led to over 20 prominent publications. He was awarded with Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellowship to investigate the signal processing in the episodic memory networks. He is a Principal Investigator in Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, and Research Assistant Professor at the School of Psychology.

11.45-12.15

Dr. Arun Bokde Assistant Professor, TCIN
"Functional anatomy of memory"

• The limbic system in the brain is a brain network that plays a key role in normal memory function. I will talk about the functional and structural components of this network, and the changes that occur with normal ageing and in Alzheimer’s disease.

Biography:

• Dr Arun Bokde is a member of the Discipline of Psychiatry and of the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience. His main area of research using functional & structural neuroimaging to investigate the mechanisms that support normal memory function and the changes associated with normal ageing and Alzheimer’s disease.

12.15-12.45

Dr. Aine Kelly Associate Professor, TCIN

"Memory: beyond the brain"

• The body is composed of 11 different physiological systems and the nervous system regulates the function of all the others. But this relationship works both ways. Physiological changes beyond the nervous system can affect learning and memory either positively or negatively. In this talk I will describe examples of this reciprocal relationship, including how physical exercise can enhance memory while other types of physiological stress can impair it.

Biography

• Áine Kelly is Associate Professor and Head of Physiology in the Schoool of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin. Her research expertise lies at the interface between neuroscience and exercise physiology. She investigates how lifestyle factors such as physical activity and cognitive stimulation enhance brain function and protect against age-related cognitive decline.

12.45 Closing Remarks

13.00 Lunch

Venue: Edmund Burke Theatre, Arts Building, TCD
Booking is required for this event, please click here to book.

Trinity Week Public Symposium

The Persistence of Memory (2.00-5.00pm)

A symposium examining Memory from the perspective of a number of the disciplines within the Faculty.
Chair: Dean of AHSS

2.00

Welcome from Professor Darryl Jones, Dean of the Faculty of AHSS.

2.05-2.35

Dr. Joseph Clarke, Assistant Professor, School of Histories and Humanities, TCD

“Historians, Memory and Commemoration”

Biography:

• As a historian of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era, Dr. Clarke's research primarily addresses the relationship between cultural change and political conflict in France over the long eighteenth century. His most recent research revolves around two themes, the study of popular religious culture in France from the Revolution through to the Restoration and the encounter between soldiers and civilians across Europe during the Revolutionary wars. In collaboration with colleagues from TCD, Freie Universität Berlin, York and Swansea, he is a member of an international research project funded by HERA: ‘Making War Mapping Europe: Militarized Cultural Encounters, 1792-1920’. For further details on this project, see http://www.mwme.eu.

2.35-3.15

“Language Homelands”

• Language, space and place- Dr. Jeff Kallen, Associate Professor in Linguistics and Phonetics

  We live in a world of voluntary and involuntary population movement. Displacement brings with it a proliferation of memories of place, which can be understood as socially-constructed space: the ‘old’ world and the ‘new’ world are remembered, forgotten, and reconfigured in the mind. Even without mobility, our sense of place relies on memory: how do we know that ‘this place’ is ‘our place’ if not for memory? Central to the concept of memory and place is language. Czesław Milosz stated that ‘Language is the only homeland’, while the Israeli writer Eleanor Fuchs has declared that ‘In exile, language becomes a substitute for place’. This theme, taken up by writers and artists and dealt with in various ways by the everyday world of street signs and census reports, forms the focus for this presentation.

• Irish Diaspora - Dr. Sarah O’Brien, Assistant Professor, Centre for Language and Communication Studies

  Based on a collection of bilingual interviews with Irish-Argentines recorded between 2010-2012 this paper reveals significant memories that have come to define the Irish-Argentine community, paying particular attention to the post-Perón political climate and to the consequent re-imagining of the Irish-Argentine community through collective memory. Aiming to stimulate discussion on the relationship between Memory, Diaspora and Home the paper questions the processes that we use to un-package and preserve memories of the Irish Diaspora and suggests a need for deeper engagement with performances of memory in order to access the nuances of identity contained within. 

   

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  Sign Language in Action: Remembering, Revitalizing and Documenting the Ephemeral - Prof. Lorraine Leeson, Professor and Director of the Centre for Deaf Studies

   

   

   

   

  Sign Languages are languages expressed in a visual gestural modality; they are languages without written form. They are ephemeral. Until the coming of the digital age, the documentation of sign languages was extremely difficult and research slow, given access to only tiny snapshots of how these languages are used, what they represent to their community of signers, and how identities are mapped to varieties of language. This talk will explore the incremental growth in our understanding of sign languages as the result of the development of multimodal corpora and will explore the significance of collating, annotating, documenting and curating languages that are changing rapidly. Focusing on Ireland, we consider what this means for the cultural identity and collective memory of the Irish Deaf Community and, more generally, for an equitable and accessible Irish society.

• Memory in Early Irish Literature - Dr. Sarah Kuenzler, School of Language, Literatures and Cultural Studies
  

3.15-3.30 Tea/Coffee Break

3.30-4.00

Prof. Siobhán Garrigan, Loyola Professor Of Catholic Theology, School of Religions, Peace Studies and Theology

“Christian Forgetfulness and Ritual Remembering”

• Every Sunday morning, throughout Ireland, Christians gather to "do this in memory of me". But what are they actually remembering? Theology describes this ritual as a "dangerous memory", turning worldly power on its head and transforming communities for justice and peace; why is that so rarely what is observably happening?

Biography:

• Siobhán does theology through the study of religious rituals, looking at the relationship between those rituals and matters of political and social concern -- in particular poverty, gender, homelessness, racism and colonization. Her last book was: The Real Peace Process: Worship, Politics and the end of Sectarianism.

4.00-4.30

Dr. Zuleika Rodgers, Assistant Professor, School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies

“'Memory and History in Judaism”

4.30-5.00

Dr. Ronan Lyons, Assistant Professor, School of Social Sciences and Philosophy

“Memory, Lack of it, and the Irish Housing Bubble”

• Expectations about future house prices drove Ireland's recent housing market bubble. While economics traditionally assumes 'rational expectations', there is strong evidence that in the Irish case, expectations about house prices were based too heavily on the recent past - and not enough on the longer time frame. A better memory about housing, therefore, might help prevent another bubble.

Biography:

• Ronan Lyons is an Assistant Professor of Economics. His research focuses on long-run housing markets and his doctorate at Oxford was on Ireland’s property market bubble. Previously, Ronan worked in IBM and for Ireland’s National Competitiveness Council. He is a frequent contributor to national and international media on the Irish economy.

Venue: Neill LectureTheatre, Trinity Long Room Hub
Booking is advised for this event, click here to book.

5.00-6.30pm Irish-American dimensions to the 1916 Rising and its aftermath

Dr Timothy Meagher, The Catholic University of America

This lecture will explore the position and place of Irish-American nationalism in the early twentieth century and, in particular, the impact the revived nationalist movement in Ireland may have had on Irish America.  It will also locate both the Irish and Irish-American experiences within the wider context of war and revolution at the time.

Dr. Timothy Meagher (Ph.D. Brown University, 1982), is an Associate Professor of History, and University Archivist, at The Catholic University of America. His foci of teaching and research are: American immigrant history, the Irish in America, and Catholic history.

Venue: Neill Lecture Theatre, Trinity Long Room Hub
This free event is open to the public, no booking required

6.00-7.30pm Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing Annual Lecture: An Evening with Michael Longley

Join Poet Michael Longley for an evening of poetry in Trinity College. Longley is renowned for the beauty of his compact, meditative lyrics which have been described as “masterpieces of lucidity.” He will read poems by other poets and poems from his own books, including The Stairwell, winner of the 2015 Griffin International Poetry Prize, as well as some new work.

Followed by a reception in the Atrium, TCD.

Venue: Edmund Burke Theatre, Arts Building, TCD
Booking is required for this event, please click here to book