August 2010 NUI Galway to Host Inaugural Geography and Archaeology Event

The School of Geography and Archaeology at NUI Galway will next week (Tuesday, 24 August) host the University's first Annual Symposium on Environment, Society, and Development. The theme of the one-day inaugural Symposium is "Geographing the Future" and will focus on thinking critically through and developing alternatives to the various geo-political, social, economic and environmental processes that shape the world we live in. The Symposium coincides with the close of the inaugural year of the MA in Environment, Society and Development at NUI Galway. Proceedings will consist of panel discussions, keynote addresses, and themed panel sessions on topics in the field. Professor Neil Smith, City University New York, will deliver the keynote address entitled "For (Political) Climate Change". Other distinguished participants include Professor George Michael Dillon, Professor of Politics and International Relations at Lancaster, UK, and Professor Gerry Kearns, Cambridge University, London. Dr Anna Stanley, Lecturer in Human Geography and Symposium organiser, says: "Geography at NUI Galway is fast becoming a centre for excellence in the study of Environment, Society and Development; a centre operating at the forefront of scholarly research, teaching and civic engagement with the ability to attract world class students and scholars. The symposium will provide a unique and truly interdisciplinary forum within which participants can engage the most pressing issues of our day and challenge themselves to propose sustainable and just alternatives". Another event to be hosted by the School of Geography and Archaeology next week (Friday, 27 August), will be a conference surrounding early modern Ireland entitled, "People, Places and Memory", supported by the Irish Post-Medieval Archaeology Group (IPMAG). This is the first time cutting-edge research by postgraduate students on early modern Ireland, c. 1550 – 1800 will be showcased at NUI Galway. The speakers represent young researchers from a number of different subjects such as history, archaeology, place-name studies and architecture. The meeting will offer participants the chance to lectures on themes ranging from the Munster and Ulster plantations through to the Cromwellian land settlement in Co. Clare and the mass-rocks of the penal period. The keynote speaker for the Early Modern Ireland Conference will be Dr Audrey Horning, University of Leicester, who has written and lectured widely on the archaeology of Ulster in the 16th and 17th centuries as well as on historical memories and how they impact on popular perceptions of the past in Ireland, Britain and the United States. -ENDS-