Call for abstracts - International Association for the Study of Irish Literature (IASIL) Conference 2027

By Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies | Posted: Tuesday Oct 20, 2026

Children of the Nation, 28 June–2 July 2027, University of Otago - First round of submissions closes 31 October.

The Easter 1916 Proclamation promised to ‘cherish all of the children of the nation equally’. With the Easter Rising now over a century old, we invite researchers and writers to Aotearoa New Zealand to consider all the varied resonances and implications of the phrase ‘children of the nation’. The wording calls to mind ancestors and legacies, tradition and change, youth activism and youthful rebellion. It evokes the rapidity of change associated with childhood, the liminality of positions between youth and adulthood, decolonial reflections on settler projects and anti-migrant sentiment, as well as feminist discourses of emancipation by not choosing birth or child-raising. The rousing language of the Proclamation urges engagement with the many valences of Irish writing, while the deliberate theatricality of the context in which it was read calls for attention to the performance of politics.

Find out more here: International Association for the Study of Irish Literature (IASIL) Conference 2027 | University of Otago