University Hosts 30th Annual Celtic Colloquium

Slated to feature the presentations of more than 30 papers on a variety of subjects within the field of Celtic studies, the 30th annual Harvard Celtic Colloquium began last night and will continue throughout the weekend.

The colloquium, which students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures have organized every year since 1980, is one of three major Celtic conferences in the United States.

This year’s paper topics range from the medieval to the modern, from the “Wise Women and Wanton Warriors in Early Irish Literature” to the manipulation of Welsh public opinion in the 1980s and 1990s.

According to Catherine McKenna, chair of the Celtic languages and literatures department, the colloquium “is the central event of what [the department] does publicly.

“it’s our major interface with a larger scholarly world,” she said.

A defining aspect of Harvard’s colloquium is that it is run entirely by graduate students, McKenna said.

Each year, two third-year graduate students run the conference with the assistance of two second-year graduate students.

This year, third-year students Margaret A. Harrison ’05 and Erin D. Boon organized the colloquium with the assistance of Albert Joseph “Joey” McMullen III and Natasha Sumner.

Harrison, who concentrated in folklore and mythology as an undergraduate at the College, said that the colloquium raises the profile of Harvard’s graduate program in Celtic studies.

Currently, undergraduates can earn a secondary field in the subject.

“[The conference] certainly does showcase the breadth of interests that exist in Celtic studies,” she said.

Harrison added that the graduate program in Celtic studies is the only one of its kind in the United States.

“It’s wonderful that the department exists at all,” she said. “It’s hard to look at a tiny department that’s holding on by its fingernails in this economy.”

Matthieu W. Boyd—a doctoral student in Celtic studies who has organized the colloquium in the past—said he hopes that the 30th anniversary of the colloquium will help draw the link between Celtic studies and other disciplines.

“My hope is that this will happen sooner rather than later—that people in the English department get in a dialogue with Celtic studies,” he said.

—Staff writer James K. McAuley can be reached at mcauley12@college.harvard.edu.