The annual Education Studies of Ireland conference takes place this year at the National College of Art and Design and Irish Museum of Modern Art. In association with Critical Voices there will be three public lectures held during the conference.

Leading US cultural theorist Henry Giroux will open the conference with a lecture entitled Cultural Studies and Education in Dark Times, on what he sees as a new form of authoritarianism in American cultural politics. Giroux argues that culture is a central sphere of politics, uniquely offering a language of critique and possibility and that it is an area in which matters of economy, power, globalisation and politics can be recognised, critically understood, and engaged with collectively. His talk will examine the importance of cultural studies' long-standing concern with matters of power and culture and the need to rethink what the author calls "public pedagogy".
7pm Thursday 30 March, NCAD
(Please note change of time to 7pm)

Canadian video artist, critic and professor of arts education, Stephanie Springgay, will deliver a public lecture on the intersection of educational theory and artistic practice. In an attempt to merge these two worlds, she has developed and employs a research model based on artistic practice, which she calls “a/r/tography”. Her talk is entitled A/r/tography as Living Inquiry: Arts-based Research in Educational Contexts and is an exploration and explanation of this practice. A/r/tographical inquiry is constituted through visual and textual understandings and experiences rather than representations. Her argument is that the ways in which we perceive ourselves and our world, sensuously and creatively, have an impact on how we examine educational phenomena. As hers is a research methodology informed by the arts, she argues that it is necessary that encounters with contemporary art become part of our understandings of self, other, community and education.
11.30am Friday 31 March, NCAD

Henry Giroux will also give a joint presentation with his wife Susan Giroux, with whom he wrote the recent influential book, Take Back Higher Education.
1pm Saturday 1 April, IMMA (Please note change of venue to IMMA).

The lectures on Thursday 30 and Friday 31 March take place in the School of Design for Industry, NCAD, Thomas St, Dublin 8.
The presentation on Saturday 1 April takes place at Irish Museum of Modern Art, Royal Hospital, Military Road, Kilmainham, Dublin 8.

All events are open to the public. Admission is free but booking is recommended.
To reserve a place, please contact Helen Fagan, ESAI Conference Secretary, on 01 636 4301 or by email esai@ncad.ie.