February Women and Traditional Folk Music Research Symposium at NUI Galway

NUI Galway’s Centre for Irish Studies will host ‘Women and Traditional Folk Music’, a one-day research symposium, on Saturday, 9 February, in the Hardiman Building, NUI Galway.

Dr Tes Slominski of Beloit College, Wisconsin, a leading traditional Irish music and gender studies scholar, will deliver the keynote address. Her lecture ‘Shut Up and Play: Aesthetics and the Silencing of Social Critique in Irish Traditional Music’ addresses the connections between the aesthetics of silence and understatement in Irish traditional music, and the silencing of critiques about sexism, heterosexism, and racism in the Irish traditional music scene.

Hosted by the music research network Comhrá Ceoil at the Centre for Irish Studies, in partnership with and in response to FairPlé, the symposium will provide an opportunity to explore, challenge and react to the experiences of women in traditional and folk music. The symposium will host an international field of presenters, including academics, musicians and singers, researchers and those involved with the archiving of traditional and folk music.

Dr Méabh Ní Fhuartháin, Lecturer in Irish Studies at NUI Galway, said: “In the context of recent social action movements, in Ireland and elsewhere, the question of equality in areas of cultural production and the workplace loom large. Responding to these initiatives, and in particular the work of FairPlé, which seeks gender balance in Irish traditional and folk music, this one day research symposium provides an opportunity to explore, challenge and respond to the focused theme of ‘Women and traditional folk music’.”

Full programme details and registration available at https://www.facebook.com/events/455255418243576/ or email irishstudies@nuigalway.ie for further information. Admission is €20 or €10 student/unwaged.  

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