Threshold as Space of Encounter: Boundaries, Crossings, Openings

Organisers: Jeanne Riou and Michael Brophy
(UCD School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics)

With the support of the UCD Humanities Institute and the French Embassy in Ireland, this one-day symposium will take place on Friday 17 October in the Humanities Institute, exploring across disciplines the notion of the threshold as a space of encounter. Under the auspices of the UCD College of Arts and Humanities Thresholds of Knowledge research strand, the symposium will expand on the conversations begun in our roundtable discussion on 5 December 2024.

Our symposium will address the idea of ‘a space of encounter’ as physical space, imagined space, experiential space, aesthetic space. Participants will present papers of no more than 15 minutes, followed in each session by more general discussion on how we might collectively conceive of these spaces.

Our keynote speaker is the French novelist and essayist Philippe Forest, who, linking his current editorial work to his own creative endeavours, will question the supposed boundaries between fact and fiction.

Venue: Humanities Institute, UCD (HI Seminar Room, H204, top floor)
Date: Friday 17 October 2025, 10.30am - 4.15pm

For full details of the programme and participants, see here.