CfP: Thresholds: Contexts of Rupture, Change and Adaptation

The changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic have been so radical and extensive that the concept of ‘back to normal’ has evolved into that of a ‘new normal’ in recognition of the fact that there can be only new forms of existence in a new world. This sense of a before and after, and the processes of rupture, change, adaptation, translation and transformation that it entails, are what we seek to critically and creatively engage with through the symbolic vehicle of the threshold. We understand thresholds as representing the movement from one space or state to another, whether this be sudden and cataclysmic or slow and gentle. The ‘threshold’ also allows for an exploration of ‘in-between’ or ‘in process’, i.e. that which is located on or within the threshold, rather than on either side of it. The 2022 PhD Conference of the UCD Humanities Institute is seeking proposals from emerging scholars and artists who are engaged, either conceptually or practically, with thresholds of any kind. We invite proposals for individual papers from the fields of literature, philosophy, history, classics, archaeology, art history and other humanities disciplines.