Recorded June 10, 2020.

Police murders of African Americans are deeply rooted in American history and society and token solutions will do little to prevent them.

Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/

Recorded December 5, 2019.

A panel discussion as part of the 'Trinity and the Changing City' Series.

Racist attacks in Dublin have been in the news recently, and for the first time for decades there is an organised far-right In Ireland. Yet racism is not a preserve of the far right but an everyday experience for a growing number of Dubliners. Considering the experiences of Dublin’s ethnic minorities and travellers both in the labour market and everyday life, and discussing the growth of the far right online in Ireland, this session features Dr Eugenia Siapera, Professor of Information and Communication Studies and head of the ICS School at UCD, Dr Ebun Joseph of the Sociology Department in TCD and chair of AfSAI (African Scholars Association Ireland), Bulelani Mfaco of MASI (Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland) who is campaigning for the right to work of asylum seekers,and David Joyce of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission

The session will be chaired by Dr David Landy, Director of the Masters in Race, Ethnicity, Conflict, Trinity College.

Trinity and the Changing City is organised by the Identities in Transformation research theme, led by Daniel Faas, Department of Sociology, and is supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute.

Trinity College Dublin has been a key witness, over many centuries, to Dublin’s development into the cosmopolitan city it is today. This multidisciplinary discussion series will look at the lived experience of Dublin’s citizens through the prism of Trinity’s Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences research. By drawing on historical, cultural, linguistic, sociological and economic perspectives, it will consider how we can understand a changing Dublin and influence plans for the city’s future.

Dublin has been transformed by the economic crash, the austerity measures that followed and recent improvements in aspects of the Irish economy, as well as wider issues such as displacement and migration. The city’s built environment and economic, demographic and linguistic mix have all developed apace.

But these changes, and their relationship to issues around religion, the environment, poverty, health, housing and governmental policy, have not generally been well represented in the media or in public discourse. There is a representative gap between the city in which Trinity resides, not least in terms of language, race and class, and the images and narratives of that city put forth in the broader culture.

Trinity and the Changing City will seek to address and interrogate this gap, bringing internationally recognised scholars in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, from Trinity and further afield, together with key stakeholders and practitioners from across the city.

Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/

Recorded May 27, 2020.

‘People need agency and voice in a crisis. This is a time when, more than ever, governments need to be open and transparent, responsive and accountable to the people they are seeking to protect ….’ – Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres, António Guterres

As large gatherings of people are prohibited under the measures introduced to prevent the spread of Covid-19, for many the established means of debate and protest have been constrained. At the same time, decision-making processes are increasingly opaque. For those historically marginalised, civic engagement is becoming even more difficult. The pandemic is creating new difficulties for democracies while exposing chronic, long-term challenges.

While Covid-19 has fuelled demands for 24-hour coverage and demonstrated the need for experts and reliable content, the media industry is likewise struggling. The loss of vital advertising revenue is placing unsustainable economic pressure on already-stretched traditional news outlets. Control of information and censorship is threatening the freedom of the press in some regions. The pandemic has also been accompanied by a fake news ‘infodemic’, spread primarily through social media platforms and promoted by a few prominent leaders.

With normal civic life disrupted and journalism facing a potential crisis, this final instalment in the five-part workshop series will ask if democracy can function without the public sphere.

Panelists

Melody Barnes is Co-Director for Policy and Public Affairs for the Democracy Initiative at the University of Virginia, Dorothy Danforth Compton Professor of Practice at the Miller Center of Public Affairs and a Distinguished Fellow at the School of Law. From 2009 until January 2012, she was Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. She also served as chief counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee

Bill Emmott is a writer and consultant best known for his 13 years as editor-in-chief of The Economist. He is the author of 14 books variously on Japan, Asia, the twentieth century and Italy, and narrated and co-writer of a documentary film about Italy, Girlfriend in a Coma. He is currently chair of the Trinity Long Room Hub board.

Fintan O’Toole is an Irish Times columnist and writer. He was the winner of the 2017 European Press Prize and Orwell Prize. His most recent works include Heroic Failure: Brexit and Politics of Pain (2018) and The Politics of Pain: Postwar England and the Rise of Nationalism (2019).

Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/

Recorded May 21, 2020.

An online symposium to celebrate the launch of the Cambridge University Press six-volume essay series Irish Literature in Transition (2020), a new and dynamic account of Ireland’s literary history over 300 years. The event is a collaboration between the Trinity Long Room Hub and the British Association for Irish Studies 2020 online conference.

The event featured introductory remarks from Professor Jane Ohlmeyer (TCD) and Professor Patricia Coughlan (UCC), followed by a panel discussion with the individual volume editors, chaired by Professor Chris Morash (TCD).

Also featuring:

Prof Moyra Haslett (QUB), vol 1, 1700-1780

Prof Claire Connolly (UCC), vol 2, 1780 – 1830

Prof Matthew Campbell (U of York), vol 3, 1830 -1880

Prof Marjorie Howes (Boston College), vol 4, 1880-1940

Prof Eve Patten (TCD), vol 5, 1940 -1980

Profs Eric Falci (UC Berkeley) and Prof Paige Reynolds (College of the Holy Cross), vol 6 (1980 – 2020)

Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/

Recorded May 20, 2020.

The Art + Science Reading Group is now a virtual gathering of thinkers, researchers and the incurably curious. Organised by PhD candidates Amelia McConville (School of English and Institute of Neuroscience) and Autumn Brown (School of Education and Science Gallery Dublin) and supported by Science Gallery Dublin and the Trinity Long Room Hub, the series will explore the evolutionary and revolutionary kinship between two approaches to understanding the universe and our place within it.

This week we turn from the botanical to the bacterial alongside artist, writer and researcher Anna Dumitriu. Anna’s work explores society’s relationships with infectious diseases, treatments, and the myths that surround them. Especially relevant to our current times, we will pick at the threads of history, microbiology, and textile arts, particularly silk and how this ancient textile material continues to shape medical and technological innovation.

Science often suffers from its own modernity and future focus. Its priorities tend towards the horizon, rarely to history and what lessons or solutions may be found there. Anna’s fascination with the infections, outbreaks and the folklore which grows around them underscores the importance of looking to the past, and to the myths. And that the stories we tell about disease may be of deadly consequence.

The recommended reading for this session begins on page 202 of Antennae, and explores Anna's work The Plague Dress.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/juezmhp7bvoamo5/ANTENNAE%20ISSUE%2048.pdf?dl=0

Alongside Anna Dumitriu's work, is the poetry of Jen Bervin, who wrote a piece to be inscribed on a silk biosensor in her project Silk Poems. This undertaking engages with silk's cultural, scientific and linguistic complexities. You can watch Charlotte Lagarde's short film about this process below.

https://vimeo.com/187955041

Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/

Recorded May 20, 2020.

'And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently …' - Kitty O'Meara

As health systems struggle to cope with the rapid spread of Covid-19, billions of people worldwide are currently living in some state of lockdown. Schools are closed. Movement is restricted. Physical interactions are limited to members of the same household. In the most extreme cases, permits are required to leave the house at all.

In a new world of social distancing and #stayathome, access to green spaces and time outdoors is increasingly valued. Online concerts and digital exhibitions are opening up new virtual worlds. The arts are not only providing much-needed sources of distraction, but also the tools to process the trauma of the crisis. Humans are adapting and creating new routines. The lasting psychological impacts of the pandemic and the associated isolation and economic downturn, however, are not yet known.

The fourth in a five-part series, this workshop will examine the implications of the Covid-19 on the everyday. Our speakers will discuss their daily lockdown routines, how their work has been shaped by the pandemic and why walking is a superpower. The floor will then be open for participants to respond: to ask questions and to widen the parameters of the conversation.

Panellists

Rita Duffy is currently Artist in Residence at the Trinity Long Room Hub. She is one of Northern Ireland's groundbreaking artists who began her work concentrating primarily on the figurative/narrative tradition. Her art is often autobiographical, including themes and images of Irish identity, history and politics. Read about Rita's Raft Project at the Trinity Long Room Hub here.

Rishi Goyal is Director of Medicine, Literature and Society at Columbia University, and an Emergency Medicine doctor. He is broadly interested in the intersection of medicine and culture and is more specifically interested in the areas of medical cognition and identity and representation after illness.

Shane O’Mara is a Professor of Experimental Brain Research and Director of the Institute of Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. His work explores brain systems supporting learning, memory, and cognition, and brain systems affected by stress and depression. He is the author of In Praise of Walking: The new science of how we walk and why it’s good for us (2019).

Resources

Crises of Democracy curriculum

Duffy, Rita. Art in a Time of Pandemic: Jogging in Lipstick.

Goyal, Rishi. A Letter from the Emergency Room. Synapsis. May 15, 2020.

About the series

This is a special five-part series organised by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute in partnership with the Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University in response to the Covid-19 crisis.

Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/

Recorded May 18, 2020.

A joint initiative between Queen's University Belfast (QUB) and the Trinity Long Room Hub chaired by Jane Ohlmeyer, Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub with a conversation facilitated by Richard English, Professor of Politics and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Internationalization and Engagement at QUB.

Jonathan Powell and Rory Montgomery have had distinguished careers which have seen them act as key negotiators in conflict resolution from Northern Ireland to the Basque Country and Colombia. In this conversation-style discussion, Professor Richard English will probe both Rory and Jonathan on their experience of working in environments of conflict, covering topics such as the importance of dialogue and the legacies of the peace process in jurisdictions such as Northern Ireland. They will also discuss the relationship between Ireland, the UK and the EU, reflecting on the new context Brexit poses; and finally, how states respond to crisis, challenges and change such as that posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rory Montgomery recently retired from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Prior to his retirement, he served as Second Secretary General with responsibility for EU issues, including Brexit. Before that he was EU adviser to Taoiseach Enda Kenny (2014-16), Ambassador to France (2013-14), Permanent Representative to the European Union (2009-13), and Political Director, dealing with foreign and security policy, (2005-9). He was a member of the Irish team which negotiated the Good Friday Agreement and the establishment of North/South institutions.He is currently a Public Policy Fellow at the Trinity Long Room Hub and an Honorary Professor of Practice at Queen’s, and is also a consultant on EU issues.

Jonathan Powell is CEO of Inter Mediate, the charity he founded in 2011 to work on conflict resolution around the world. Jonathan worked on the negotiations with ETA in the Basque country, on the negotiations in Colombia with the FARC and on the peace negotiations in Mozambique. Inter Mediate is working on 14 conflicts at the moment. Jonathan was Chief of Staff to Tony Blair from 1995 to 2007 and from 1997 to 2007 was also Chief British Negotiator on Northern Ireland. From 1978-79 he was a broadcast journalist with the BBC and Granada TV and from 1979 to 1994 a British Diplomat. He is the author of ‘Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland’, ‘The New Machiavelli, How to Wield Power in the Modern World’ and ‘Talking to Terrorists, How to End Armed Conflict’

Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/

Recorded May 14, 2020.

The SHAPE-ID project (Shaping Interdisciplinary Practices in Europe) is funded by the European Commission to develop recommendations and tools for policy makers, funders, researchers, Universities and others on improving interdisciplinary cooperation between the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS) and STEMM (Sciences, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) disciplines.

Interdisciplinarity in Times of Crisis: Why the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Matter

Immediate responses to the COVID-19 crisis have understandably tended to focus on funding research that can fight the virus. At the same time, our world and ways of living have changed suddenly and radically, and there is a widespread sense that we cannot return to the old “normal”. Panellists will discuss why it remains important to take seriously the perspectives coming from Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences research in times of crisis, and how we can work to ensure real collaboration between these and other scientific approaches in understanding the crisis and preparing for the post-crisis world.

Professor Jane Ohlmeyer, Principal Investigator of the SHAPE-ID project, Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub and Chair of the Irish Research Council, will chair the discussion.

Panellists

Gabi Lombardo is the Director of the European Alliance for Social Sciences and Humanities (www.eassh.eu), the largest advocacy and science policy organisation for social sciences and humanities in Europe. She is an expert in both higher education and global research policy and has extensive high-level experience operating at the interface of strategy, science policy, research support and funding. Gabi has senior-level experience in strategic and ‘foresight’ planning in elite higher

education institutions, international research funders and associations, having worked with the London School of Economics (LSE), the European Research Council (ERC) and Science Europe (SE).

David Budtz Pedersen is Professor of Science Communication and Director of the Humanomics Research Centre at Aalborg University, Denmark. His research focuses on science communication, impact assessment, and science and technology policy. He is the Principal Investigator of ‘Responsible Impact’ (2016-2020), ‘Open Research Analytics’ (2018-2021) and ‘Mapping the Public Value of Humanities’ (2017-2021). He is the Chair of the EU Commission COST Expert Group on Science Communication. Alongside his research, David is adviser to the Danish Government and European Commission, dealing with Open Science, research impact and science advice.

Daniel Carey, MRIA, is Director of the Moore Institute for the Humanities and Social Studies at NUI Galway and Professor of English in the School of English and Creative Arts. He is a Vice-President of the Royal Irish Academy and a board member of the Irish Research Council. He was Chair of the Irish Humanities Alliance 2014-16.

Overview of the discussions

Mission Covid-19: Global problems need a portfolio approach

Gabi Lombardo, European Alliance for Social Sciences and Humanities

Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/

Recorded May 13, 2020.

‘They tell us corona-virus is a great leveller. It’s not. It’s much much harder if you are poor. How do we stop it from making social inequality even greater.’ – Emily Maitlis, BBC Newsnight

Racial and ethnic minority communities are disproportionately affected by Covid-19. They are more likely to have the underlying health conditions that make the virus fatal. They are also more likely to live in poor accommodation and work in lower paid frontline jobs. Migrant workers as well as low income, homeless and refugee populations are likewise particularly vulnerable. The economic fallout from the pandemic will hit these groups the hardest. Far from being a ‘great leveller’, Covid-19 is exacerbating existing structural inequalities. Policies formulated to respond to the immediate pandemic and mitigate its lasting consequences could deepen existing divides. Or, they could be designed to bring about radical change, and produce fairer societies.

The third in a five-part series, this workshop will interrogate the role of inequality in the Covid-19 public health emergency. Our speakers will explore issues related to class, gender, race, sexuality and religion as well as attempts to assign blame and scapegoat. Looking to the future, they will also discuss the need for a broad project of and commitment to equality. The floor will then be open for participants to respond: to ask questions and to widen the parameters of the conversation.

Panellists

Shamus Khan is Chair and Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. He writes on culture, inequality, gender, and elites. In recent response to the school closures, he developed the Youth Remote Learning online platform to engage students who are on hiatus from traditional classrooms.

Sucheta Mahajan is a Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and a former Trinity Long Room Hub Visiting Research Fellow. She works on the history and politics of the twentieth century, movements for social change, connected histories of independence and partition and the practice of oral and public history.

Colm Tóibín is an award-winning Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and poet. His works include Brooklyn (2008), The Empty Family (2010) and The Master (2004). He is currently Mellon Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/

Recorded January 27, 2020.

A panel discussion as part of the Out of the Ashes Lecture Series, with Catriona Crowe MRIA, Former Senior Archivist, National Archives of Ireland; Zoe Reid, Senior Conservator, National Archives of Ireland; and Lar Joye, Port Heritage Director at Dublin Port and Chair of the Irish National Committee of the Blue Shield.

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About the Out of the Ashes Lecture Series

This three-year lecture series explores the theme of cultural loss and recovery across the centuries, from the destruction of the Library of Alexandria in antiquity to contemporary acts of cultural loss and destruction. A panel of world-leading experts reflects on how societies deal with cultural trauma through reconstruction and commemoration, and on how the international community should respond to cultural loss. The series is global in scope, pan-historical and multi-disciplinary in approach, and features international scholars and practitioners of the highest calibre.

Year II of the series (2019–20), "Destroying," considers a form of cultural atrocity now subject to international war crimes prosecution: the deliberate targeting of cultural heritage as a means to control social memory and to erase identities. This special panel event on the Four Courts Blaze of 1922 organized in association with the Irish National Committee of the Blue Shield. The basis for the Blue Shield is the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property and its additional first and second protocols, ratified by Ireland in 2018.

The Out of the Ashes lecture series is generously supported by Sean and Sarah Reynolds.

Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/