In 2017 the city of Logroño and the University of La Rioja will host the XVI International Conference of the Spanish Association for Irish Studies (AEDEI). To mark International Women's Day on March 8th 2016, The Irish Times invited more than 40 Irish writers, critics and academics to nominate their favourite Irish woman writer and explain why in 180 words or less. The series culminated with, on one side, a poster of 12 of the finest Irish women writers. As Martin Doyle (2014) argues, ‘a deliberate pastiche of the various familiar Irish Writers posters, which do not have even a token woman among their 12 featured writers (echoing the famous Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing affair in 1990, which was so bereft of female writers that an extra volume had to be commissioned to atone)’.

Within such panorama, the organisers of the XVI International AEDEI Conference seek to engage prospective contributors in the discussion of challenging fe/male figures from a variety of disciplines and fields of knowledge, such as History, Politics, Economics, Religion, Art, Music, Film, Literature, Theatre, Poetry, etc. whom delegates working on Irish Studies are interested in. We invite papers that will assess the important role played by all these challenging fe/male figures from the 19th to the 21st Centuries in the construction of Irish identities.

Melania Terrazas Gallego
Conference Organiser