[Commlist] CFP: ‘Big Irish Energy’: Reconceptualising Irish Stardom in the 21st Century

Call for Papers: ‘Big Irish Energy’: Reconceptualising Irish Stardom in 
the 21st Century

Cillian Murphy’s success in gaining the Academy Award for Best Actor in 
2024 constitutes an opportune moment to gauge the status and trace the 
contours of contemporary Irish stardom. Murphy’s success, alongside that 
of Banshees of Inisherin the previous year and the recent emergence of a 
tranche of A-list Irish actors, has raised the currency of Irish popular 
culture to a level not seen since the 1990s, amassing what one prominent 
recent feature in the New York Times playfully dubbed ‘Big Irish 
Energy.’ Of course, the media landscape has undergone seismic changes 
since hits such as The Crying Game and My Left Foot drew international 
acclaim. In particular, the ascendence of long-form television as a 
locus of prestigious screen performance, one exploited by Irish artists 
in such notable screen successes as Normal People and Bad Sisters, has 
shaken up established hierarchical notions of screen stardom. Similarly, 
the rise of streaming services and social media platforms alike have 
radically altered what stardom means and how it is performed in a 
convergent media landscape. Meanwhile the Irish language has risen to a 
hitherto unprecedented level of cachet given the critical acclaim 
afforded to The Quiet Girl and Kneecap as well as Murphy and fellow 
actor Paul Mescal speaking as Gaeilge at awards ceremonies. While the 
dramatic shifts sketched above suggest a sea change of sorts, it would 
be remiss not to acknowledge the continuities that mark 2020s Irish 
stardom. One might argue that actresses Saoirse Ronan and Ruth Negga 
outshone their male compatriots in the 2010s. However, the 2020s has 
seen the pendulum swing back to the white male actor as the pre-eminent 
symbol of Irish screen stardom, albeit with some notable modulation in 
terms of sexuality and class. Similarly, as films such as Banshees and 
the Oscar-winning Belfast attest, Irish screen legibility is often 
predicated upon a recycling of well-worn tropes of dramatic landscapes, 
atavistic violence, and preference for looking backwards rather than 
examining the present.

It is this context that prompts a one-day symposium to be held examining 
the continuities and departures evident in contemporary Irish screen 
stardom. It has been 18 years since the publication of Ruth Barton’s 
ground-breaking study Acting Irish in Hollywood: From Fitzgerald to 
Farrell (Irish Academic Press, 2006).  As indicated above, the 
intervening years have seen significant shifts (and some continuities) 
in screen culture, but also in the scholarly conceptualisations used to 
examine the intricacies of a convergent and rapidly changing media 
landscape. This symposium will gather established and emerging experts 
in the realm of Irish film and media studies to consider the current 
state of Irish stardom. The symposium will also be outward looking 
beyond academia, with journalists and development agency representatives 
included, as interest in the current successes in the realm of Irish 
screen media resonates beyond academics and a general audience, 
increasingly shaping a national narrative that is drawn upon in a 
variety of contexts. We invite abstracts for papers, each limited to 20 
minutes in length, on topics related to contemporary Irish screen 
stardom. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

•       The child star in Irish screen culture (e.g., Saoirse Ronan, 
Catherine Clinch, Jude Hill)
•       Reconfigurations of stardom in post-Troubles Northern Ireland
•       Long-form television and Irish stardom
•       Irish language communication in film and publicity
•       Star-director relationships in the contemporary era
•       Irish stardom and class
•       Irish stardom and fashion
•       Screen Auteurism and Irish Stardom
•       Non-white Irish stardom and performance
•       Queer Stardom
•       Social media and Irish stardom
•       Non-Irish stars who affiliate with Irishness

Details: The one-day symposium to take place on Thursday December 5th, 
2024 in The Clinton Institute for American Studies at University College 
Dublin. Prof. Ruth Barton will provide a keynote address.
Abstracts, not exceeding 300 words and accompanied by a 150 word bio, 
should be  submitted via email to (anthony.mcintyre /at/ ucd.ie) by 5pm on 
Wednesday 31st July.

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