Recorded, June 22, 2019.

The world is being swept by tribal nationalism.

For the right wing, speech has no bounds. On

the left, it is impeded by self-regulation and

censorship. While populism is utilising free

speech for its own nefarious purposes, the

increasing policing of discourse on the left

has resulted in a deeply dispirited following.

These polarisations both limit our thought

and present a challenge to our thinking. We

recognise them and bump against them daily.

Where does this leave us? How should we

work and think in the Arts and Humanities?

How can we think of a radical solution in the

middle, taking elements of one and the other to

produce a centralist compromise?

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

Recorded June 22, 2019.

Actor Stephen Rea performed Seamus Heaney’s translation of Book VI of the Aeneid, Virgil’s epic poem written between 29 and 19 BC. The story follows Aeneas as he journeys into the underworld. Acknowledging the significance of Virgil’s poem to his writing, Heaney noted “there’s one Virgilian journey that has indeed been a constant presence, and that is Aeneas’s venture into the underworld. The motifs in Book VI have been in my head for years—the golden bough, Charon’s barge, the quest to meet the shade of the father.”

Accompanied by musician Neill Martin

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

Recorded June 22, 2019.

An ’In conversation’ with actor Stephen Rea and writer Clare Dwyer Hogg chaired by James Chandler on their short film "Hard Border"

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

Recorded June 22, 2019.

A panel discussion on the impact of the Field Day

Anthology. In terms of cultural interventions,

how has the Field Day Anthology sought to both

capture Ireland’s turbulent history and also

imagine a new future, providing possibilities

beyond civil war and sectarianism?

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

Recorded March 21, 2019.

A public lecture by Dr Peter Apor (Institute of History, Hungarian Academy of Sciences) as part of the '1918 and the New Europe' Lecture Series.

This talk explores the ways of imagining and planning of possible futures that emerged in the postwar period of Europe in 1918. Elites, intellectuals and large proportions of European societies believed that it was possible to anticipate the future and foresee decisive trends of socio-developments, therefore it was possible to plan for even large systematic changes. However, the multiplication of ideas about what form that future would take suggests much uncertainty about the “future” of Europe itself and brings to the fore the deep layers of individual identities present at the time.

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

Recorded April 15, 2019.

The Trinity Long Room Hub is delighted to present the latest talk in the series What does it Mean to be Human in the 21st century?, with cultural historian Dr. Lisa Godson who will explore the field of material culture and how our identity as humans is predicated on the artefacts we surround ourselves with.

It will explore the objects, spaces and systems that we use and inhabit, and will propose that being human in the 21st century involves understanding that we not only shape objects and environments but are in turn shaped by the material world to behave and act in certain ways. It will further explore how research into the design and use of seemingly ordinary or everyday objects can enlighten our understanding of the past, present and future and how the implied user of particular objects and technologies is designed into objects, leading to the disabling and even endangerment of others.

This podcast also includes a conversation between Christine Morris, Andrew A. David Associate Professor in Greek Archaeology and History at Trinity College Dublin.

The lecture series is organised by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute in partnership with The Dock, Accenture’s global research and incubation hub in Dublin.

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

Recorded April 9, 2019.

An in conversation with Trinity Long Room Hub Visiting Research Fellow Dr Simona Marchesini (Alteritas, Verona) chaired by Prof Anna Chahoud (TCD) organised in collaboration with Trinity’s Manuscript, Book and Print Cultures Research Theme

Dr Marchesini's current research investigates the function of the writing culture of Grotta Poesia, an ancient cave-sanctuary in southern Apulia, Italy, which has provided one of the richest set of rock inscriptions of the ancient world.

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

Recorded March 14, 2019.

A panel discussion with Dr Francesca La Morgia (TCD), Dr Rory McDaid (Marino Institute of Education) and Ola Majekodunmi as part of the 'Trinity and the Changing City' Lecture Series.

The growing linguistic diversity of the city presents residents and policy makers with challenges and opportunities. Aligning perspectives drawn from recent research with the lived experience of those moving between different languages in the city, this session will feature contributions from Francesca La Morgia, Assistant Professor in Clinical Speech and Language Studies at Trinity and director of the social enterprise Mother Tongues, Rory McDaid, Lecturer in the Sociology of Education at Marino Institute of Education, and the Nigerian/Irish gaeilgeoir and radio presenter Ola Majekodunmi

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

Recorded February 25, 2019.

A lecture by Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Fellow Dr Christopher Pastore as part of the Trinity Centre for Early Modern History seminar series.

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

Recorded March 8, 2019.

A lecture by Trinity Long Room Hub Marie Skłodowska-Curie Cofund Fellow Dr Anna Barcz organised by the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies.

The history of Bialowieza mirrors a long practice, beginning with Lithuanian kings from the Jagiellonian dynasty in the 14th century, of cutting the wood and clearing the forest for hunting. Described by the prophetic, romantic, Polish-Lithuanian poet Adam Mickiewicz in Pan Tadeusz [Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Lithuanian Foray: A Nobleman’s Tale from the Years of 1811 and 1812 in Twelve Books of Verse], an epic written in 1834, it is one of the greatest signs of environmental consciousness expressed in the national literature. It includes a fragment of description of the deepest heart of the forest that gathers and preserves all species and where humans cannot enter. This so-called “motherland of woods” resembles a strict nature reserve – however, in comparison with our times, Mickiewicz’s sanctuary exists only in the wild. Why even the most symbolic, entangled with the national history landscape as Bialowieza cannot help to foster the protection of nature? This question cannot be reasonably answered but we can try to retell the history from the perspective of the forest and its non-human inhabitants. Some would call it the environmental history and some - like me - would advocate for changing the national discourse of telling history in general.

In contrast to the existing problem of logging and other human practices disturbing vulnerable Bialowieza’s ecosystems and preventing the authorities from extending the borders of national parks mainly on the Polish side (despite the UNESCO heritage list that includes Bialowieza since 1979), I take the militant discourse that ascribes national identity to the trees as an example. In the patriotic, historical narratives, the forest is a soldiers’ ally, a partisans’ hideout, a hero of songs from the First and Second World Wars, and a witness to history (the forest guerrilla survived even the war, transforming into the so-called anti-communist – the last partisan hid in the forest until 1963). The cultural bond with the forest derives from the darkest history of the first settlers in Eastern Europe and environmental conditions that they found here. Thus, the traditions of nature conservation are inextricably linked to the history of the Polish statehood.

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