42nd Annual UC Celtic Studies Conference

Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Celtic Colloquium, the Department of English, Dean David Schaberg and the Humanities Division, the Program in Indo-European Studies, and the Campus Programs Committee of the Program Activities Board.

THURSDAY, MARCH 5 | UCLA ROYCE 314
2:00 Welcoming Remarks

SESSION I – Chair: Joseph Nagy (Harvard/UCLA)

2:15 – Abigail Burnyeat (Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, University of the Highlands and Islands)
“Ban-shenchus gu seanchas nam ban: Metatext, Audience, and the Co-creation of Women’s Stories in Gaelic Narrative Tradition”
3:15 – Kit Kapphahn (Tacoma Community College)
“The Transgressive Bard in Medieval Welsh Literature”
3:45 – Break

SESSION II – Chair: Annalee Rejhon (UC Berkeley)

4:00 – Micaela Rodgers (USC)
“Not Quite a Woman: Raspberry Symbolism in Elizabeth Bowen’s The Last September”
4:30 – Anthony Vitt (Independent Scholar)
“Re-writing Medieval Wales: Towards a Manuscript Context for Counter- Colonial Discourse”
5:00 – Thomas Walsh (UC Berkeley)
“Theorizing Early Irish Lyric”
5:30 – Break

SESSION III – Chair: Doris Voronca (UCLA)
5:45 – Marie-Luise Theuerkauf (Trinity College Dublin)
“Virgil’s Dragon Slayers—Classical Influences on Medieval Irish Saga”

FRIDAY, MARCH 6 | UCLA ROYCE 314
8:30 – Continental Breakfast

SESSION IV – Chair: Malcolm Harris (UCLA)
9:00 – Kristen Over (Northeastern Illinois University)
“Romance Tropes, Arthurian Allusion, and English Heroes in Fouke le Fitz Waryn”
10:00 – Break

SESSION V
10:15 – Roundtable: “Was Medieval Wales ‘Colonial,’ ‘Post-Colonial,’ or Neither?”
Participants: Malcolm Harris (UCLA), Stefanie Matabang (UCLA), Kristen Over (Northeastern Illinois University), Annalee Rejhon (UC Berkeley), and Anthony Vitt (Independent Scholar).
11:15 – Break

SESSION VI – Chair: Rebecca Blustein (UCLA)
11:30 – Elizabeth Boyle (Maynooth University
“The Matter of Babylon in Medieval Ireland”
12:30 – Lunch Break

SESSION VII – Chairs: Jerico Atienza and Calvin Quick (UC Berkeley)
2:00 – Phillip A. Bernhardt-House (Skagit Valley College)
“Homo Homini Lupus: The Theme of Canid Fratricide in Roman, Norse, Indian, and Irish Mythological Narrative”
2:30 – Kathryn Brock (UC Berkeley)
“A Narrative Thread: Violence Against the Women of Ireland”
3:00 – Jasmim Drigo (Cornell University)
“Old Irish i-stem Adjectives”
3:30 – Break

SESSION VIII – Chair: Karen Burgess (UCLA)
3:45 – Ailbhe Nic Giolla Chomhaill (University of Limerick)
“The Gaelic Storyteller Revisited: Reflections on Tale Types, Gender, and Creativity in the National Folklore Collection of Ireland”
4:45 – Break

SESSION IX – Chair: Valentina Lunardi (UCLA)
5:00 – Michael Weiss (Cornell University)
“Too Many dam Meanings”

6:30 – Movie Night

SATURDAY, MARCH 7 | UCLA ROYCE 314
8:30 – Continental Breakfast

SESSION X – Chair: Demetria Markus (UCLA)
9:00 – Joseph Eska (Virginia Tech)
“Grounding Celtic Historical Phonology: First Steps”
9:30 – Kate Mathis (University of Glasgow)
“‘Shrink not appalled from my great sorrow’: Mourning the maic Uislenn in the Celtic Revival”
10:30 – Break

SESSION XI – Chair: Stefanie Matabang (UCLA)
10:45 – Annalee Rejhon (UC Berkeley)
“Llywelyn Fawr, Reginald of the Isles, and King John: A Medieval Trifecta”
11:45 – Lunch Break

SESSION XII – Chair: Eve Sweetser (UC Berkeley)
1:15 – Rhys Kaminski-Jones (Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies)
“Idrison’s Dreams: William Owen Pughe’s Celtic Romanticism”
2:15 – Break

SESSION XIII – Chair: Sarah Dean (UCLA)
2:30 – John McDonald (University of Missouri, Columbia)
“Trans-Eurasian Perspectives on the Mórrígan’s Triple Wounds”
3:00 – Charles W. MacQuarrie (CSU Bakersfield)
“Celticity and Celtic Tattoos in Video Role-Playing Adventure Games”
3:30 – Peter McQuillan (University of Notre Dame)
“Nationhood and ‘Deep Semantics’: An Irish Example”
4:00 – Break

SESSION XIV – Chair: Micaela Rodgers (USC)
4:15 – Michael Murphy (University College Cork)
“Feeding the Irish Famine”
5:15 – Concluding Remarks

Special thanks to members of the Celtic Colloquium—Rebecca Blustein, Sarah Dean, Malcolm Harris, Demetria Markus, Stefanie Matabang—and Joseph Nagy (UCLA Professor Emeritus of English) for theirassistance in the preparation of this conference.

This edition of the University of California Celtic Studies Conference is dedicated to the memory of the late Professor Robert Tracy of the Department of English at the University of California, Berkeley.  Professor Tracy was a loyal supporter of the Conference—he attended the inaugural meeting held in Berkeley in 1979–and a staunch proponent of Celtic Studies at the University of California over the many years of his service.  His learned and jovial presence will be greatly missed.