Hi,

   Many of you will probably have received the following e-mail which was
sent out to the IASIL list, but if you haven't and you're interested, I
thought I'd send it on.

   Seems to address a bit of what we e-mailed each other about, doesn't
it, Alison?

Maureen Hawkins


Message sent on behalf of Paul Murphy. Please DO NOT reply to this
email,
but instead contact Paul directly at his own email address below.

Fellow Scholars,

If you are in interested in Irish Theatre studies then you are warmly
invited to a meeting to discuss the formation of an Irish Society for
Theatre Research [ISTR] on Wednesday 27th July in room 225, 1400-1530, as
indicated in the conference programme.

The growth in Irish Theatre studies is manifest in the sheer number of
papers at this year's IASIL conference which focus specifically on Irish
theatre/drama. When this growth is combined with the long held desire by
many scholars on the island of Ireland to have some kind of persistent
framework within which theatre research can be facilitated, then the
emergence of an ISTR seems to be both necessary and required.

The primary aim of ISTR is to foster research links between theatre
scholars on the island of Ireland and between scholars of Irish
theatre in
the international community. The way in which such research links
could be
manifested are: a yearly conference; a journal of Irish theatre
studies; a
webpage with links to related theatre research societies; a regular
newsletter; strategy meetings to research funding applications.

From a cursory glance at the full IASIL programme you can see that there
are two ISTR meetings on Wednesday 27th: the first meeting in room 225,
0900-1030, is solely for the steering group to meet up and discuss the
draft agenda; the second meeting in room 225, 1400-1530, is where the
notion of formation an ISTR will be discussed with all interested
delegates.

The steering group membership currently includes: Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick
[WIT], Dr Eamon Jordan [IES], Dr Tom Maguire [UU], Prof. Anna McMullan
[QUB], Dr. Paul Murphy [QUB], Prof. Shaun Richards [Staffordshire], Prof.
Brian Singleton [TCD], Dr Bernadette Sweeney [NUI Cork].

I look forward to meeting you on Wednesday 27th at 1400 in room 225.

Best wishes,

Dr Paul Murphy
Lecturer in Drama
School of Languages, Literatures & Performing Arts
Queen's University Belfast
Northern Ireland
BT7 1NN

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