Royal Irish Academy

I thought this sounds readlly interesting:

Where: 19 Dawson Street, Dublin 2

When: Thursday, 6 May 2010, 6 – 8.30pm

Places are free but registration is essential

This seminar will explore the state of writing and reading in Ireland in 2010 and will consider the role for the literary artist at a time of economic and social upheaval and crisis.

The event will consist of two panel discussions on writing and reading with a break between panels. Panelists to include Rosita Boland, Mary Cloake, Kit Fryatt, Mia Gallagher, Julian Gough, Jack Harte Declan Kiberd, Kevin Power, Ian Sansom and David Torrans.

The first panel, chaired by Caroline Walsh, Literary Editor, Irish Times, will examine writing in 2010 and discuss the role of the public intellectual and the writer. Should the writer have a polemic role in Irish society? Is it their responsibility to reflect the current state of the nation or are there other aesthetic and political options for response? In what ways can the contemporary writer work to the moment and reflect the zeitgeist? Has the writer a political responsibility to reflect the possible in art at a time of economic crisis and political turmoil? This will be a conversation between the panel members and the audience for this public discussion.

The second panel, chaired by Eibhear Walshe, Chair Academy Committee for Literatures in English, will focus on reading and the ways in which we read literary texts in Ireland in 2010. The panel will consider the modes of reading - book clubs, online and virtual reading and the role of the writer within community arts. There will also be some time given to how we buy and access writing and a look at how our reading patterns have been changed in light of economic recession.