Upcoming Symposium: That's Class! Exploring class dynamics in Ireland's creative industries

Published: 13 Feb, 2024

The School of Media and Conservatoire at TU Dublin are delighted to present

THAT'S CLASS!

Exploring class dynamics in Ireland's creative industries

– Room EQ 002 East Quad TU Dublin Grangegorman 17th May 2024

The Creative industries are a key employment sector for Ireland, accounting for 8.9% of national employment, placing our creative industries employment quotient as the second highest in the EU (Creative Ireland 2024). However, issues of inequity in the creative industries have been evident, measurable and emergent in discourse in recent years.

While there has rightly been much attention on the wider issues of EDI, the issues of class, class inequality and access to the Creative industries in Ireland has been somewhat understudied.

This symposium will seek to critically examine the deep-rooted impact of class inequality across all sections of the Creative industries in Ireland and its impact on the art and media we make.

Registration is free, and a light lunch will be provided but please register in advance by completing the linked form

Programme:

9am registration

9.15 opening remarks

9.30-11.00

Session 1 Policy and Methods

Michael Pierce: Working-class writing in Ireland today: personal testimonies, research gaps, and mapping the road ahead

Sorca McDonnell: Researching class from within- reflections on a cooperative inquiry of working-class women exploring class and education in Ireland.

Connell Vaughan: The Middle-Class Rip-Off”? Subsiding Culture in Contemporary Ireland

11.00-11.30 coffee break

11.30-12.30 Keynote address Sen Lynn Ruane - The importance of working-class voices in art and media.

12.30 -1.30 Lunch

1.30 Spotlight on Undergraduate research:

Jake McLaughlin Runner-loving looters: An analysis of media representations of class in the 2023 Dublin riots.

1.40 - 3.15 Session 2: Representations of Class.

Clara Mallon and Salomé Paul: Emerging From The Silence: Working-class Women in Irish Theatre

Andrea Cleary: "Women Supporting Women": discussions of collective feminist music activism in Irish media.

Angela Mehegan: Class, Taste, and Identity in Mid-Twentieth Century Irish Domestic Interiors

Ciara Murphy – Class and Irishness: Performing and Problematising Stereotypes of Contemporary Irish Nationalism

3.15-3.30 break

3.30 - 4.30 Session 3 Structural barriers in the Creative and media industries – the impact of class.

Stephanie Costello: "The Garda are hated, so are the newspapers" - Understanding the socio-cultural context of low media trust and Dublin's working class.

Yvonne Kiely: “It’s the best person for the job”: Class, gender, race, and the practices of music organisations in Ireland

Caroline O’Sullivan and Mary Ann Bolger: Class and the Screen Industries: The Unspoken barriers to entry into the sector.

 4.30 Screening of short film The Cleaner

4.45 Closing remarks and future plans.

For further information contact the symposium conveners Dr Caroline O’Sullivan (School of Media) caroline.osullivan@tudublin.ie and Dr Ciara Murphy ciara.murphy@tudublin.ie (Conservatoire)