Conor Brockbank

CALL FOR PAPERS: PERFORMING EVIL: the mediation and display of diabolic spectres, 1700-2000'. 4 & 5 June 2026, Leuven. This conference explores the tangled histories of supernatural, diabolic evil and all kinds of spectral apparitions in the last three centuries – Walter Scott’s ‘malignant and unhappy beings’. Specifically, it is interested in how and why ghosts, spirits and related apparitional phenomena were framed as diabolic, demonic or malign manifestations from the afterlife. Diabolic connotations of ghosts and spirits did meaningful cultural work. They were mobilised to discredit ghost beliefs and spiritual practices, to delegitimise competing beliefs, or to invest doctrinal arguments with occult authority. They could also function as tools of scepticism and ridicule as well as triggers of wonder, fear and religiosity. Put differently, the nexus of ghosts and evil is deeply historical. And it was often articulated through performative means: in gestures and expressions of (dis)belief, in visual and textual representations, in séance rooms, on the stage and on the page. Emerging from this nexus are theatrical spirits of evil, staged, embodied, and made legible through mediation and display. In this sense, every ghost is a theatrical ghost. Through the focus on the construction and staging of diabolic spirits, this conference aims to develop a methodological framework for studying historical forms of occultism and demonology more broadly in terms of performance.

Exploring how the relationship of spectrality and evil has shifted in shape over time and across different cultures, the conference invites contributions that can consider a wide range of historical actors – clerics, mediums, ghost-hunters, debunkers, necromancers, stage performers, eyewitnesses. This conference aims to study cultural intersections and interactions to arrive at a more granular understanding of discursive, practical and material connections between spirits and evil. At the same time this lens zooms out, making visible broader dynamics of knowledge construction in specific historical moments. How, for instance, did hauntings and possessions shape communities and audiences? How did religious or folkloric ideas about the devil inform spectral encounters? We hope to bring together historians, art historians, theatre and literary scholars, folklorists and anthropologists from every stage in their career around the above questions. We welcome 20-minute papers on topics that include but are by no means limited to: - making spectral evil visible: performance, arts, media, technologies, popular cultures - making spectral evil invisible: popular and occult knowledge circulation - performing (un)belief: practices and rhetoric, summoning and debunking on the stage (from popular stages to the lecture hall and the laboratory) - materiality of spectres: the function of bodies and objects - diabolic spirits and (intellectual, vernacular, theological, folkloric) ideas about morality, mortality and temporality - occult performance and ‘cultural scripts’ of ghost encounters (from necromancy to poltergeists) - affect and emotions: fear, grief, trauma… and hope Send abstracts (c.250 words) and bios (c.100 words) to kristof.smeyers@kuleuven.be before 21 March 2026. Please do get in touch if you have any questions.

Hi all, if you are doing research on (d)evil-related histories 🗃️ I have just the thing for you: a conference in Leuven on 4 + 5 June!

Send me your abstracts in the next two weeks:

Liberation Past, Present Stagnation: Queer Nostalgia and Memories of the Northern Irish Troubles The troubled past looms large in Northern Ireland decades after the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement. This article examines how queer memories of the Troubles mobilise nostalgia to contest linear narr...

I’m delighted to share that my first journal article has been published in Ethnos, entitled ‘Liberation Past, Present Stagnation: Queer Nostalgia and Memories of the Northern Irish Troubles’.

Looking forward to this week’s @qubhistory.bsky.social seminar by @sophienoble.bsky.social! Drinks and snacks provided. All welcome! More information about the seminar and the sign up to attend online in the link below:
www.eventbrite.com/e/qub-histor...

Our next USIHS seminar will be on Thursday 5th March (next week!) when we'll welcome Antonia Hart to speak on Ulster Women in Business & Bankruptcy, 1888-1922. All welcome!

www.eventbrite.ie/e/usihs-ulst...

I'm pleased to launch a major new update of the Andersonville Irish Project database. It contains details on over 1060 Irish Americans who died. New datapoints include place of enlistment, capture, occupation, together with Irish origins. Access it here: irishamericancivilwar.com/2026/03/01/m...

If you are free later, why not consider adding this seminar to your tu-do(r) list?

This THURSDAY: Don’t miss a fascinating seminar both in-person and online to kick off the @usihs.bsky.social calendar for 2026! More information on the Eventbrite below.

Really looking forward to this week’s @qubhistory.bsky.social seminar by @mauricejcasey.com! A great title and no doubt a great paper on anti-fascist vegetarians - one not to miss! Snacks and drinks provided. All welcome - in person and online! More information:
www.eventbrite.com/e/qub-histor...

A reminder that our first seminar of 2026 is on Thursday! Neil Murphy @northumbriauni.bsky.social will speak on 'Violence, colonialism and the mid-Tudor monarchy: Ireland in context'. If you can't join us in person @irishstudiesqub.bsky.social join online 👇
www.eventbrite.ie/e/violence-c...

Get to know Claudia M. Serrano, Doctoral Candidate in Political Science at UBC, and learn about her research on border control, migrant safety, and critical border studies, as well as her advice for graduate students navigating critical migration studies.

🔗 Read the Q&A: shorturl.at/PM861

Friends, can I ask you to spread the word that we have a THREE-YEAR postdoc in American history at Cambridge up for grabs - ANY field, but applications are due March 1 so don't delay - apply, apply, apply! networks.h-net.org/jobs/69790/u...

Really looking forward to hearing this week’s @qubhistory.bsky.social seminar by QUB’s very own, Andrew Himmelberg! Drinks and snacks provided as usual. All welcome!
www.eventbrite.com/e/qub-histor...

Looking forward to this week’s @qubhistory.bsky.social seminar with @emilybaughan.bsky.social (chaired by @kieranconnell.bsky.social). Snacks and drinks provided as usual. All welcome!
www.eventbrite.com/e/qub-histor...

Looking forward this Friday to hearing this week’s @qubhistory.bsky.social seminar in collaboration with @publichistoryqub.bsky.social. Annie McAleer will talk about the work of UNTOLD: The Museum. Snacks and drinks provided. All welcome! More information:
www.eventbrite.com/e/qub-histor...

Looking forward to this seminar series kicking off in February!

19 Feb: Neil Murphy on 'Violence, colonialism and the mid-Tudor monarchy: Ireland in context' 5 March: Antonia Hart on 'Ulster women in business and bankruptcy, 1888-1922' 23 April: David Dickson on 'The Foyle, the Chesapeake, and a fifty-year transatlantic conversation'

Our spring 2026 seminar series programme is here! We'll be adding eventbrite links soon so you can join us online or in person - all are welcome!

First up we have Neil Murphy on 19 February at 6pm. Neil will speak on 'Violence, colonialism and the mid-Tudor monarchy: Ireland in context'.

Rebecca Brown (@ulsteruni.bsky.social) is kicking off the @qubhistory.bsky.social seminar series for the semester this Friday at 4pm (more details below and on the Eventbrite link). Snacks and drinks provided as usual. All welcome!
www.eventbrite.com/e/qub-histor...

Looking forward to this semester‘s @qubhistory.bsky.social seminar series which starts this Friday! Drinks and snacks provided as usual. All welcome!

Still looking for a gift for the person who has everything? How about 'Childhood and the Irish', with accounts of good times and bad from a range of childhoods from the medieval to the recent. I have a pieces on a Waterford keen and on the foundlings of Youghal and their nurses.

Thank you to the wonderful Castle Books in #Castlebar (one of my truly beloved independent bookshops) for stocking both Christmas & the Irish and Childhood & the Irish. Popped in to sign some copies this afternoon.

Man stood in doorway holding a book with a blue door to his right hand side and a brown door behind labelled “Royal Irish Academy”

The opening page of an article in a book entitled “A Carmelite Childhood: The Childhoods of Future Missionaries in Ballymanus, Co. Wicklow From The 1890s To 1910s”

It was great to be at the launch by @miriamocal.bsky.social of Childhood and the Irish: A Miscellany edited by @salvadorryan.bsky.social last week at @ria.ie! Thinking back on the childhoods of two of the crucial Carmelite figures within my PhD was fascinating and so rewarding.

We are delighted that Dr Ruth Duffy has been awarded an honourable mention in the Irish Historical Studies First Book Prize 2024 for Healthcare and the Troubles! Congratulations, Ruth 🎉

Discover more about the book here:
www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10....

#OpenAccess Research article, 'Gendered hierarchies and marked bodies: narratives of household violence in early modern Ireland' by Dianne Hall is available through the following link!

@universitypress.cambridge.org

#OpenAccess Research article, 'Between sickness and sin: models of male homosexuality in Northern Ireland c.1960-1990', by Charlie Lynch is available through the following link:

@universitypress.cambridge.org

#OpenAccess research article, 'Encountering modern Irish history: historiography, archives and imagination in the twenty-first century' by Lindsey Earner-Byrne, Roisín Higgins and Carole Holohan is available through the following link!

@universitypress.cambridge.org @earner.bsky.social

What a great way to end this semester’s @qubhistory.bsky.social seminar series tomorrow with @niamhcullen.bsky.social, chaired by @elainefarrell.bsky.social! Drinks and snacks provided as usual. For more information and to sign up to attend online see:
www.eventbrite.com/e/qub-histor...

Speaking of great books on Irish America, my @irishhiststudies.bsky.social book review on @anelisehshrout.bsky.social's excellent 'Aiding Ireland: the Great Famine and the rise of transnational philanthropy' has just come out www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Have you got a new book out about Irish America? Regardless of discipline, if it came out in 2025, you can submit it to the ACIS Lawrence McCaffrey Prize for Books on Irish America! You need to fill out the form on this website and the books need to be sent by 1 January!
acisweb.org/mccaffrey-pr...

Looking forward very much to the launch of Childhood and the Irish THIS EVENING in the Royal Irish Academy by @miriamocal.bsky.social, with the event MC’d by @jdmccafferty.bsky.social. Hope to meet many of you there. Fáilte roimh chách!

A great and supportive environment is provided by the @catholicrs.bsky.social annual conference. To read more about the range of fascinating topics and research which is discussed at this conference, see my report on this year’s conference below.