Our Crowdfunding Groups
Queering Ireland is an international network of scholars, activists, and performers devoted to understanding and promoting cultural change. Since 2009, in four conferences across three countries, Queering Ireland has brought together scholars from North American and Western Europe, as well as Japan and Australia. International collaborations that have developed at the conference have led to groundbreaking scholarship, the recovery of under-represented voices, and a growing and vibrant community of collaboration and understanding.
In May 2017, the University of South Carolina will host Queer Times, the fifth international Queering Ireland conference and the 19th annual USC Comparative Literature Conference. This conference will bring to our campus approximately 60 international scholars, activists, and performers. They come from a range of disciplines—history, politics, literature, economics, film studies, theatre and dance, religion, and public health—all examining the status of queer peoples, politics, and performance in Ireland and beyond.
Our goal of $5000 will supplement base project funding. It will allow us to meet uncovered needs and to significantly enhance the depth and breadth of conference attendees’ experience, allowing USC to maximize its goal as the international conference host.
Critically, this funding will also guarantee participation by graduate student and junior faculty from Ireland, Northern Ireland, Canada, France, and the United States, as well as independent scholars who have no institutional support
In times of economic austerity, institutional support for research and travel can be difficult to find, but we believe that our work will be far richer and more productive with the inclusion of the voices of graduate students, theatre and dance practitioners, activists, and others unable to secure funding to join us.
Help us to bring an exciting and diverse international group of scholars, activists, and performers to USC in May!
In 2015, Ireland became the first nation in the world to legalize marriage equality, not by judicial or legislative action, but by popular vote. How is Ireland different? What can the culture of Ireland teach us about sexual and racial minorities in other cultures? How do we understand sexual identities across borders, nations, communities, and through time? What is the role of economic austerity, migration, HIV, or social media in cultural and political change? What do we mean by inclusion or belonging? How can we think differently and more carefully about queer identities, trans identities, and cultural resistance?
We learn through international collaboration, though coming to understanding in rich and sometimes difficult conversations with our global peers. Queering Ireland helps us to understand cultural change through careful consideration of one culture in its global contexts. Through our emphasis on transnational research and collaboration, this project addresses the university’s call for a responsible and informed citizenship in a complex and changing world. In addition, the conference specifically addresses issues of inclusion and diversity across disciplinary and national boundaries.
Your gift enriches this conversation by helping us include otherwise underrepresented and unfunded voices!
Your donation matters!
Funds raised in this campaign will allow graduate students, junior and unaffiliated scholars, and others without institutional support to attend the conference, as well as a pre-conference workshop that brings together junior and senior scholars for the purposes of mentorship and collaboration.
Your donations will create a richer conversation about LGBTQ peoples and politics with the necessary inclusion of young voices, activist voices, and voices from outside academia.
Your donations help us to make South Carolina’s conference an amazing event, by helping to make it possible for those without institutional resources to join in this exciting and important work.
Thank you for your support!
Your gift at this level will help us to print the conference program and publicity for our speakers and public events. (And we’ll be sure to get copies to you!)
A gift at this level will help us to continue our conversations—and pack our daily schedules—by including coffee and food at the conference. A gift at this level will also cover the shuttle from the Charlotte airport to downtown Columbia for a young scholar or performer who is jet-lagged but excited to be here.
A donation at this level covers the registration for a young scholar or an activist who wants to participate in the ongoing critical conversation.
Your gift at this level will cover two nights in the conference hotel for a young scholar without institutional resources. A donation at this level and above will include an invitation to a conference reception, where you can meet our diverse and exciting participants!
Your gift at this level helps us to bring over a performer—an Irish dancer, a cast or crew member of TheatreofplucK, a choreographer. A donation at this level and above comes with reserved seating at the Theatreofpluck performance, maybe even an invitation to an Irish dance workshop!
Your gift at this level will cover airfare for a graduate student or younger scholar otherwise unable to attend our conference. A donation at this level comes with an invitation to a private pre-conference reception at the home of one of our local hosts, as well as benefits listed above.
Your gift at this level will cover airfare and other travel expenses for a graduate student or younger scholar otherwise unable to attend our conference. A donation at this level comes with all the benefits listed above, as well as a signed book by one of our conference participants.
