20-21 March 2009
Keynote: Professor
George E. Lewis (Columbia)
Music is not just a creation of mind or hand, or something only for the ears, contrary to what many have thought and imagined. All who partake in music are doing so within socially constructed situations expectations, and are embodied through it in many different ways. How do these situations work? How precisely are they constructed? Is constructivism a presumption to challenge? Can music disembody, re-embody, re-body? How might music produce raced, gendered and/or queer bodies? What are the listening situations of the 21st century? Where are they? Who is in them and how did they get there? How does this differ from the musicked bodies of earlier history, between traditions? What does a performing or listening body do? Can we not listen (or not hear) when in contact with music? Can the body understand music, or would it want to? Can we (as theorists did for some time) talk of ‘the’ body? Of listening as something shared, or performing as something translatable (for example)?
This conference seeks to address these and other questions from across the range of theoretical perspectives, musical genres, musicological approaches, but we expect a predominance of approaches and practices inflected by 20th and 21st century philosophies and critical theories.
Registration
Registration details coming soon. There will be an online registration facility.
Accommodation
Discounted rates are available for the first two establishments listed below; please ask for the UCC rate.
Jurys Cork Hotel is the closest hotel,
and has everything you’d expect of a four-star hotel (leisure centre, complimentary broadband).
Several conference delegates in the past have told me how much they enjoyed the little luxuries like
underfloor heating in the bathrooms. The UCC rate is 125 euro per night for a single room. Booking form to follow.
Garnish House B&B is opposite the pedestrian gates to UCC. It comes highly recommended
by recent visitors to the UCC Department of Music for its warm welcome. With 30-odd items on the breakfast menu, you should find something
to suit your tastes. The UCC rate is 65 euro per night for a single.
According to their website,
Cafe Paradiso (an acclaimed vegetarian restaurant) also has three rooms available for overnight stay above the restaurant.
More suggestions available from
UCC Conference Office.
Travelling to and within Cork
From outside Ireland, flying is probably easiest. There are direct flights to Cork from several European cities
(including London, Edinburgh, Rome, Paris), but visitors from the U.S. will need to change. The most common routes
are via Dublin and London. It’s possible to fly direct to Shannon and then catch a train or bus to Cork. If
you’re planning to travel around Ireland, you’ll probably want to hire a car and it might be more
convenient to do that than to use public transport (although it pains me to say it).
There’s a
bus between Dublin Airport and Dublin Heuston (for trains to Cork).
Cork Airport destinations including links to airline websites.
UCC travel info including links to bus and train websites.
Local and national bus services provided by Bus Eireann (including buses to the airport).
To get from Cork Airport to your hotel, you might choose the bright yellow buses which pick up and drop off at Jurys Cork.
Train services
What else can I do?
The website of
Fáilte Ireland (the Irish tourist board) has plenty of
suggestions for general tourists, keen golfers and walkers. If you want to come for a good few days, you might be interested in staying for St
Patrick’s Day (17 March; a bank holiday).
In and around Cork, you might like to shop at the English Market (yes, I know, but that’s what it’s called),
ring the
Shandon Bells,
tour the Beamish brewery, or visit
the
Glucksman Gallery (on campus),
St Fin Barre’s Cathedral,
Cork City Gaol,
Cork Butter Museum,
Blarney Castle (kiss the Blarney Stone and you need never be stuck for words in a lecture again),
Fota House and Gardens,
Fota Wildlife Park, the
Jameson Heritage Centre at Old Midleton Distillery,
Cobh Heritage Centre (Cobh was the departure point for almost half of Ireland’s emigrants from 1848-1950),
and
Kinsale.
You might also find the
Cork-Kerry tourist website of interest.
In summer 2006, The Guardian newspaper published a
short piece on Cork with some good suggestions.
Most evenings, there’s a live trad music session at An Spailpín Fánach (opposite the Beamish brewery); it generally starts around 9pm. It’s not always as lively
as these photos suggest, but nonetheless the shots give a good
idea of this Cork institution. For further info on live music, theatre and other entertainment, see
Cork Gigs and
WhazOn.
Organisers
Dr Paul Hegarty (French, UCC), Dr Christopher Morris (Music, UCC) and Dr Melanie Marshall (Music, UCC).