TRINITY HERSTORY SALON
FRIDAY 20TH JANUARY 2017
TIME: 7.30PM
VENUE: TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL
FREE EVENT, OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
"From the shadows into the light, we will share women's stories from our families and communities, tales of lost national heroines and women who we admire around the world."
In the wake of Illuminate Herstory, DU Gender Equality Society, Global Development Society and DU History present:
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Trinity Herstory Salon will celebrate the stories and achievements of women in Ireland and around the world.
On the day of Donald Trump's inauguration, we stand together in solidarity, attesting that women's voices will not be silenced in spite of current political affairs, we will not allow women's issues to be marginalised, and we will seek to celebrate these stories, lives and achievements of great women.
Speakers and performers include Senator Lynn Ruane, Jane Alden, Amanda Piesse, Dr. Ciaran O'Neill, Ellie Kisyombe, Rebecca T Kealy and Carina Fitzpatrick. See biographies below.
CARINA FITZPATRICK
Carina is a jazz musician and performance artist based in Dublin. As an advocate for body positivity, autonomy and feminism she has been outspoken on her views about sexual objectification of women, censorship, representation, rape culture and victim blaming.
After a topless protest in July 2016, she has been associated with the Free the Nipple movement which acts as a platform for broader conversations about issues affecting women and seeks to dismantle gender inequalities by highlighting the absurdities of certain double standards.
Her passion for promoting body positivity comes from her background as a holistic therapist and yoga instructor. In her ten years working in the spa industry she learned a lot about her clients' feelings of vulnerability and their need for confidence and validation.
Fitzpatrick believes that there is a very real need to revolutionise the way that Irish people think about their bodies, sex, consent and gender. She wants to shift the focus from shame, stigma and consequences to a more inclusive and nuanced approach that addresses practicalities as well as pleasures.
REBECCA T KEALY
Kealy describes herself as a multimedia artist and poet who lives and loves and loves living in an attic studio; near a river; somewhere in Dublin.
She is a proud host of the showcase Every Second Wednesday.
And she enjoys subversion, anarchy and long walks on the beach.
She'll be performing a spoken word piece about the Free the Nipple campaign and her experiences.
DR. CIARAN O' NEILL
Dr O'Neill's research has mostly focused on elites and elite education, something very much at the core of both of his books, Irish Elites (2013) and Catholics of Consequence (2014). He also occasionally publishes on Irish literature 1890-1940, and has also become more and more interested in Public History since his time at TCD. He has mentioned that his next project will be about power; taken from what angle? We will have to wait and see.
Since 2014 Dr O'Neill has been the President of the SSNCI - an interdisciplinary society dedicated to the study of nineteenth-century Ireland. In addition to this he has also been involved with a group of likeminded historians working together in the Transnational Ireland Network, and in a global research network called SPECTRESS, funded by the European Commission.
Some of Dr O'Neill's publications can be found at https://tcd.academia.edu/CiaranONeill
SENATOR LYNN RUANE
Lynn Ruane is a newly elected independent senator, serving in Seanad Éireann and is a former president of Trinity College Dublin's Students' Union. An early school leaver & single mother of two from Tallaght, she gained access to Trinity College in 2011 through the Trinity Access Programme as a mature student. Prior to her return to education, she worked for fifteen years as an addiction programme developer and community worker in west Dublin. As a senator, Lynn plans to be a passionate and vocal defender of education, a voice for the underrepresented in Irish politics and a challenger of inequality in all it's forms.
ELLIE KISYOMBE
Ellie is an activist against the direct provision system in Ireland. As conversations on refugees are being heightened globally due to the continued humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Mediterranean via Syria, the plight of the refugee remains the plight of our time. Ellie has been standing up and shouting out for the men, women and children of the direct provision system and is ready to tell us about what we can do to help.
While there was plenty of talk about direct provision in the past two years, there was very little action. The Malawian native has been in direct provision for over five years, and volunteers with the Irish Refugee Council on the End Direct Provision campaign. As a direct provision resident, she is barred from paid employment. Kisyombe’s message to government last April was, “Stop the suffering. Stop the damage. Hopes have been raised, please do not let us down again.”
JANE ALDEN
Jane has worked at Trinity College Dublin, Stanford University, and is currently Associate Professor of Music at Wesleyan University. Her research addresses musical notation and visual culture in the medieval and modern eras, language and translation, and experimental musical practices. Her publications include the monograph Songs, Scribes, and Society: The History and Reception of the Loire Valley Chansonniers (Oxford University Press, 2010) and a number of articles on medieval and contemporary topics. She is currently writing a book on the Scratch Orchestra, participatory music-making, and the function of experimental notation. With degrees from Manchester University, King’s College, London, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Alden is active as a singer and conductor, seeing performance as the most effective way to reach out beyond academia to communicate with the wider public. In 2011, she formed the Vocal Constructivists, a London-based group of singers who specialize in performing graphic and text scores. Their album, Walking Still, is available on the Innova label.
AMANDA PIESSE
Amanda Piesse works on early modern drama in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin where she has been employed since 1994. She wrote her doctoral thesis on the characterisation of women in late medieval and early modern drama and has published articles on women’s voices in English mystery and morality plays and Tudor moral interludes, on revenge tragedy and on individuality and identity in the sixteenth century. She also has research interests in children’s literature, and the two areas converge in the work she’s currently doing concerning children’s voices in early modern literature, and on the relationships between the very old and the very young in children’s books.