NYU’s Glucksman Ireland House will host a symposium Tuesday, May 22, 2018 to honor Professor J. Joseph Lee.
NYU’s Glucksman Ireland House will host a symposium Tuesday, May 22, 2018 to honor Professor J. Joseph Lee and celebrate his fifteen-year tenure as the Lewis L. and Loretta Glucksman Chair of Irish History and Director of Glucksman Ireland House (GIH), marking his departure from New York University.
Scholars from the United States and Ireland will participate in the symposium and include Professor Hasia Diner, Lee’s interim successor; Chair of NYU History, Professor David Ludden; the Irish Ambassador to the United States, Dan Mulhall; and the Consul General of Ireland New York, Ciarán Madden. Mulhall and Madden are both former students of Lee and will speak at the gathering.
The symposium will culminate in the inauguration of the Joe Lee Research Fellowship which will be announced by the co-founder of Glucksman Ireland House NYU, Loretta Brennan Glucksman.
About Professor J. Joseph Lee
Professor J. Joseph Lee is best-known for his seminal books, Ireland 1912-1985: Politics and Society and Modernisation of Irish Society, 1848-1918. His co-edited works include Making the Irish American, a collaboration with Dr. Marion R. Casey (NYU), as well as over 100 scholarly articles and chapters in books and periodicals. Lee was inducted into the Royal Irish Academy in 1985 and was elected to the Irish Senate in 1993.
Tributes for Professor J. Joseph Lee
“Professor Lee is one of Ireland’s finest historians and through his leadership at Glucksman Ireland House, has made an enormous contribution to the study of Ireland, Irish America and the Irish Diaspora. He has also played a significant role in the commemorative program for our Decade of Centenaries and has been one of our most eloquent commentators.” — Leo Varadkar, T.D., Prime Minister of Ireland
“It is probably through his magisterial account of twentieth-century Ireland, Ireland 1912-1985 - Politics and Society, that many people, not only from Ireland but from other countries too, have first come into contact with Professor Lee’s work. It remains both a classic of history-writing and an incisive, sometimes unsparing, analysis of the independent Irish state and its economic travails and tribulations. As a public intellectual, as an academic and during his time as a member of the Seanad Éireann [the Irish Senate], Professor Lee has made an important contribution to our national life, in particular in his frequent defense of academic freedom and of a humanist vision of the university.” — Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland
“Under Joe’s leadership since 2002, and building on the enduring legacy of the inaugural and founding director, Professor Robert J. Scally, there have been many achievements, including the development of a Master of Arts program in Irish and Irish-American Studies, outstanding book publications and the peer-reviewed American Journal of Irish Studies, the flourishing of the Archives of Irish America, dynamic public programs, and the the Glucksman Ireland House NYU Radio Hour on public radio. As we plan for the next 25 years of Glucksman Ireland House, we need just stay true to this brilliant course Joe has set for us and build upon it.” — Loretta Brennan Glucksman, co-founder of Glucksman Ireland House.
Glucksman Ireland House is celebrating their 25th anniversary with programming focusing on Irish-Jewish themes. This theme pays tribute to Loretta Brennan Glucksman and the late Lewis L. Glucksman, who believed in the universality of the ethnic and immigrant experience and creating dialogue between immigrants of different backgrounds.
For further information, email ireland.house@nyu.edu
About Glucksman Ireland House
Glucksman Ireland House is NYU’s Center for Irish and Irish-American Studies and one of the top-ranked academic Irish Studies programs in the United States. Through innovative undergraduate and graduate academic curricula and extensive public programming, it provides access to the best in Irish and Irish-American culture.