International Conference
2023

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5th May 2023

 

Location:  

St Mary’s Community Campus Ltd., Granard Road, Edgeworthstown, County Longford, N39 W425, Ireland

Contact: 

Edgeworth Society, 

Maria Edgeworth Centre

Tel: 

+353 43 6671801 

Mobile: 

+353 87 2241351     

info@mariaedgeworthcentre.com

International Conference:

“The Education of A Nation” -The Role of the Edgeworths

Friday 5th May 2023

Morning Session

09.30 a.m. – 10.00 a.m. Registration at St Marys Community Campus, Tea & Coffee

10.00 a.m. – 10.10 a.m. Welcome Address

10.10 a.m. – 10.20 a.m. Opening Address by Cathaoirleach Longford County Council Turlough McGovern

10.20 a.m. – 10.30 a.m. Official Opening by Senator Micheál Carrigy, chairperson of the County
Longford Tourism Committee, Seanad Spokesperson on Tourism, Culture,
Arts, Sport and Media

10.30 a.m. – 11.10 a.m. Dr. Susan Manly, University of St Andrews, Scotland

  • ‘The greatest possible happiness of the whole society’; Practical Education’ (1798) and the Irish Nation

11.10 a.m. – 11.50 p.m. Dr. Joanna Wharton, Research Associate of the University of York

  • ‘An “experimental science” Placing Practical Education in the history of child psychology’

11.50 a.m. – 12.10 p.m. Tea Break

12.10 p.m. – 12.40 p.m.  Brian Tubbert, Senior Lecturer, Head of Froebel College (Retired)

  • “Similarities between the educational theories of Friedrich Froebel and Maria Edgeworth and their continued relevance today”

12.40 p.m. – 01.15 p.m. Imelda Graham, M. Phil Independent Play and Learning Consultant

  • ‘Practical Education and Aistear, the Irish Early Years Play-based, Child-centred Curriculum’

01.15 p.m. – 02.15 p.m.  Lunch Break

Afternoon Session

02.15 p.m. – 03.00 p.m. Prof Raffaella Leproni, Università Degli Studi Roma TRE, Italy

  • ‘Maria Edgeworth’s stories as a teaching aid, the application of Edgeworth’s pedagogic principles’

03.00 p.m. – 03.40 p.m. Joani Etskovitz, PhD, Harvard University

  • ‘Lessons in Pedagogy from Practical Education’

International Conference Featured Speakers

Dr. Susan  Manly – University of St Andrews, Scotland.

‘The greatest possible happiness of the whole society’; Practical Education’ (1798) and the Irish Nation

Imelda Graham M. Phil – Independent Play and Learning Consultant. 

  • ‘Practical Education and Aistear, the Irish Early Years Play-based, Child-centred Curriculum’

  Joani Etskovitz – PhD Harvard University, USA

‘Lessons in Pedagogy from Practical Education’

Prof Raffaella Leproni – Universitá Degli, Studi Roma Tre Italy

Maria Edgeworth’s stories as a teaching aid, the application of Edgeworth’s pedagogic principles.

Dr. Joanna Wharton – Research Associate of the University of York 

‘An “experimental science” Placing Practical Education in the history of child psychology’

Brian Tubbert -Senior Lecturer, Head of Froebel College (Retired)

“Similarities between the educational theories of Friedrich Froebel and Maria Edgeworth and their continued relevance today”

Susan Manly is a Reader in English St Andrews Scotland

Susan Manly is a Reader in English at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Susan’s research interests are in Romantic-period Irish and English literature. She is an expert on the work of Maria Edgeworth and has produced scholarly editions of a wide range of Edgeworth’s writings, including her innovative books for children and young adults. Susan is currently completing a political biography of Edgeworth.

This will be the first account of Edgeworth’s life to appear in the last 45 years. It will provide a new assessment of Edgeworth’s intellectual and political life, looking at her milieux, correspondence, allegiances, interventions, and influence. Edgeworth’s sustained engagements with debates about Ireland, education, democracy, slavery, and women will form a major part of the story told in this biography. In 2019, Susan made a radio documentary about Edgeworth, ‘A Radical Life’ which aired on RTÉ Lyric FM in May 2019 and re-aired in May 2020. You can hear it here: https://soundcloud.com/the-lyric-feature/a-radical-life http://: https://soundcloud.com/the-lyric-feature/a-radical-life

Imelda Graham M. Phil. Independent Play and Learning Consultant

Imelda specialises in both adult and children’s learning. Imelda currently serves on the Board of the National Childhood Network, highlighting and addressing quality issues in the Childhood sector across Ireland. She is also a member of PEIN in Ireland, EDEN DLE in Europe and NRCA in the US.

Imelda has worked with disadvantaged communities throughout her career. In recent years Imelda has authored a number of publications with Barnardos and has worked on a number of Erasmus+ Projects with ULS and European partners. She worked for two years in a refugee camp in Greece, establishing a kindergarten and learning supports for adults.

The role of Play in the lives of both children and adults is a key focus, while advocating for the voice of the child to be included as a basic right.

Joani Etskovitz PhD Harvard

Joani Etskovitz is a PhD candidate in English Literature at Harvard University, where she studies the novel genre, women’s literature, and children’s books. A Marshall and a Beinecke Scholar, Joani earned two Masters degrees from the University of Oxford in British & European History (1700-1850) and English Literature (1830-1914), as well as an A.B. summa cum laude from Princeton University in English.

For her MSt in History, Joani studied the collaborative childhood writing of Maria Edgeworth’s siblings, which you can read about in her essay on “Making and Measuring Education at Home” for the Los Angeles Review of Books. At Harvard, Joani is writing her doctoral dissertation on “The Feminist Adventure Novel and The Curious Girl”, and she serves as the founding director of the English Department’s Literary Careers Program. Her first academic article, “Sarah Fielding’s Feminist Literary Pedagogy, in which Nasty Women become Novel Writers” was published in ELH (Spring 2023). To bring her research to a broader public, Joani writes for the LA Review of Books and Public Books. She has also curated exhibits and coordinated public outreach events featuring children’s books and women writers at the Bodleian Library, Library of Congress, Houghton Library, and Cotsen Children’s Library.

Prof Raffaella Leproni – Universitá Degli, Studi Roma Tre Italy

Raffaella Leproni is Adjunct Professor of English and Translation at Roma Tre University, Department of Education. Her didactic activity, held in different curricular and postgraduate courses, develops around Storytelling and authentic materials in socio-pedagogic and educational areas dealt with in CLIL perspective. Her research activity focuses on English for Specific Purposes, teachers’ self-assessment, and on the analysis of the role of language in the participated construction of intercultural social identity, with a particular attention to Special Education Needs, to stereotypes and bullyism, and to the re-definition of gender perspectives in disciplinary studies.

She has long dealt with Edgeworth’s work and its reception in Italy; among her latest publications, “Still Blundering into Sense”. Maria Edgeworth, her context, her legacy (R. Leproni, F. Fantaccini eds., FUP 2019), Tra il Dire e il Fare. L’innovazione educativo-pedagogica dell’opera di Maria Edgeworth (Firenze University Press, 2015), and Literature fighting prejudice: teaching social behaviours against bullyism in an intercultural perspective (in Di Rienzo P., Azara L. (eds.), Learning City e diversità culturale, Rubbettino editore, 2018). She also translated some of M. Edgeworth’s works: “The Purple Jar” and “The Little Merchants”, collected in Due Racconti (Kappa edizioni, 2009), and Harrington (Belforte editore, 2012-2015).

Dr. Joanna Wharton, Research Associate of the University of York

Joanna Wharton is a Research Associate at the University of York’s Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies. Her first book, Material Enlightenment: Women Writers and the Science of Mind, 1770-1830 (Boydell, 2018), shows how influential women including Anna Letitia Barbauld and Maria Edgeworth adapted and applied psychological theory in their writings to transform educational culture and make substantial interventions in the social reformist politics of Romantic Britain and Ireland.

Joanna has published several articles on Barbauld, Edgeworth and, more broadly, on gender history and literary and scientific cultures of the Romantic period. Developing from her research on the collaborative pursuits of the Edgeworth family, Joanna is currently working on a second book project on the optical telegraph in Ireland and the British empire.

Brian Tubbert -Senior Lecturer, Head of Froebel College (Retired)

Brian Tubbert – N.T. (Marino College of Ed.), Froebel Inservice Diploma, B.Ed. (Hons), M.Litt (Trinity College, Dublin) Primary teacher – 1974-1997. Co-ordinator, Dublin Inner-City Primary Schools Initiative 1997-1999, Head of Education, Froebel College of Ed.1999-2007
Senior Lecturer, Froebel College/Dept., Maynooth Uni. 2007-2020.

Lecturing in Social Environmental and Scientific Education (SESE), History of Education, Professional Development. Participated in Educational Development projects/Curriculum Development in Yemen, Bhutan, Kolkata (India),.Vietnam, Kenya, Zambia.
Member of National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) SESE committee 1992-1997; NCCA Council member 2018 – Member of International Froebel Society Organising Committee 2004-2020; Chairperson 2010-2018 Research interests:- Friedrich Froebel; History of Irish Education; Curriculum Development;SESE.