History

Dublintellectual was started in January 2011 by Dr. Marisa Ronan, a passionate Humanities advocate. With the integral help of Paul Edwards the duo set about creating a project strand that would conect the university and the city.

They started Dublintellectual as a grassroots organisation to champion Arts and Humanities in the public sphere through a mix of small boutique events and larger collaborations with established and up-and-coming cultural projects across the city and nation. The project steadily grew over the course of the year garnering great support from the academy and public alike.

Background

We are committed to participating in the academic and political debates currently on-going around the future of the Humanities in this country. She has an active and long-standing interest in the role of the intellectual within broader society and the nation state, having worked with these concerns in her doctoral research. Her postdoctoral experience gave her an immediate experience of the implosion of the university sector in Ireland. Dublintellectual was born of this predicament, and it is our intention to use the insights it has given us – and the platform it offers – to add fresh contributions to some of the most pressing questions facing our country today.

In its first year Dublintellectual hosted over 25 events including collaborations between universities north and south of the border, the Hugh Lane Gallery, Innovation Dublin, the Little Green Street Gallery, the Trinity Long Room Hub, The Institute for International Integration Studies, Washington Ireland Programme, The Irish Pages Journal, Upstart, Smock Alley Theatre, the Temple Bar Cultural Trust, Dublin City Council, La Catederal, the Centre for Cultural Practices, the Contemporary Music Centre, Architectural Association of Ireland and the Block T arts collective.

Events

Event themes have ranged from the role of the arts in Irish society, what it means to be urban in Dublin to eclectic topics such as Kindle and the End of Books, War Photography, Irish Cinema, The Role of the Arts, New Media, the Zombie Genre, Silent Cinema, Promoting Ghost Estates as Horror Movie Locations, Reconstructions of Our Gothic Past, City and Narrative, Apocalyptic Literature, The Wire, Cultural Policy and the Artist in Ireland, Co-Creation and Crowd Funding, and Archaeology to name but a few.

The project was awarded the IRCHSS “New Ideas” grant in December 2011 which provided funding to support the growth of the project. The funding also allowed Dr Ronan to bring on board Dr Madeleine Lyes to launch an urban series, City Intersections, which brings together urban scholars and practitioners alongside members of Dublin’s arts and cultural scene in order to share insight and expertise on a number of urban issues facing the city today.

Marisa further recruited two postgraduate students, Mr Miles Link and Ms Nora Pelizzari, to run the Uprising series, which encourages postgraduate scholars to engage with early career artists and cultural practitioners in order to discuss the challenges they face. Both series take place once a month and give its participants a chance to present their work free from the strictures of conference, symposium, and gallery formatting.