The Irish Studies Graduate Students of Boston College and the Irish Studies Program are pleased to host the eighth annual Comhfhios Boston College conference.

Comhfhios (pronounced "co-is") meaning "knowledge together," or "open to all knowledge," invites emerging scholars in all Irish Studies fields to gather in Boston. 

This year's theme is "Hibernia Beyond Humans: The Rise of Environmental Humanities in Irish Studies." Inspired by increased attention within the field to material and environmental studies, Comhfhios 2025 welcomes presentations that investigate interactions and relationships between human actors, nonhuman actors, and the environments across Ireland and her diasporas. Environments, both natural and constructed, are in part defined by the conditions in which someone or something operates; under the anthropocene, flora and both human and nonhuman fauna exist in and contribute to environments that inform our research today. 

How does the changing nature of the landscape - including material objects, archeology, and communities, as well as the climate - affect the course of Irish history and its reflection in memory and Irish folklore? How does ecocriticism inform our understanding of the environment? How can we challenge notions of what an environment is and how it is constructed? How has literature represented and engaged with a variety of environments from the blue humanities to crises and calamities? How has empire, colonialism, and imperialism affected or been affected by the nonhuman? And how, in turn, does the environment and/or animal studies relate to Irish culture and society? How does the current environmental crisis impact our work in Irish Studies? 

The keynote will be delivered by Malcolm Sen (UMass Amherst).