11th Biennial ALCS Conference
29 June to 1 July 2016, University College Dublin
The conference organisers, under the inspiring leadership of Dr John Loughman (UCD), could not have picked a more topical theme: Narrating change, changing narratives acquired that special ring only a week after the EU referendum.
This 11th edition was our most ‘international’ conference to date, attracting speakers from a dozen countries spread over four continents: Ireland, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Netherlands, South-Africa, South-Korea, United States, and United Kingdom.
During three days in Dublin, around forty delegates explored how change is represented and narrated in a Low Countries or comparative context and along and across broad cultural, linguistic and historical lines.
Dr John Loughman (UCD), host of the 11th ALCS Conference.
The 24 papers and three keynote addresses took the conference theme in many directions:
Narrating the postcolonial and the multicultural
Narrating meaning in early modern art
Narrating gender and nationalism
Narrating society and humanity
Narrating space and race
Changing narratives in language and linguistics
Our keynote speakers were:
Pamela Pattynama of the University of Amsterdam who is an expert in changing colonial narratives. Her book on the representation of Indonesia and Dutch colonial rule, Bitterzoet Indië, was the starting point of her paper.
Adriaan Waiboer, Curator of Northern European Art at the National Gallery of Ireland. Dr Waiboer discussed his current project ‘Vermeer and the masters of genre painting: Inspiration and rivalry’, shown at the National Gallery of Ireland and in Paris and Washington in 2017-2018.
David van der Linden, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, who introduced, discussed and reflected on the ‘Signed, Sealed and Undelivered’ project, exploring the letters of the Brienne trunk.
Full conference programme (PDF, 338KB)
Selected papers will be included in an edited book in the Low Countries Series of UCLPress or in the ALCS Journal: Dutch Crossing: Journal of Low Countries Studies
This event was kindly sponsored by the Nederlandse Taalunie.
