Dr. Julie Bates
Associate Professor, English

Projects

• Title
  • Exploring Heritage Collections (HCI:C5-WP3 CPD Heritage Collection)
• Summary
  • Exploring Heritage Collections is a 5-year project funded by the HEA's Human Capital Initiative grant led by Dr Julie Bates and Dr Jane Carroll (School of English). The project creates new relationships between Trinity College Dublin and 10 key partners in the heritage sector: The Library of Trinity College Dublin: Manuscripts and Early Printed Books; The National Library of Ireland; The Irish Film Institute; Dublin City Library and Archive; The Irish Museum of Modern Art; The National Archives; Marsh's Library; The Hugh Lane Gallery; The National Visual Arts Library at NCAD; The Digital Repository of Ireland. Using digitised materials from the archival collections of all 10 institutions, we will develop a new online module which will be offered to undergraduate students and to industry professionals. The online classes will be complemented by a series of practical workshops in which learners engage directly with special collections from the 10 institutions. Over the course of the module, students and industry professionals will work together on digital projects, showcasing the learners' new skills and opening up the archival materials to a wide public audience, and creating new digital pathways for the access and enjoyment of Ireland's heritage collections.
• Funding Agency
  • Higher Education Authority
• Date From
  • 2021
• Date To
  • 2025

• Title
  • Animating the Archive: Creative Legacies from Samuel Beckett Collections
• Summary
  • Project Leaders: Julie Bates (Trinity College Dublin) and Steven Matthews (University of Reading, UK). This project is a collaboration between the Samuel Beckett Research Centre and Special Collections at the University of Reading, UK, and the School of English and Manuscripts and Archives Research Library (M&ARL) at Trinity College Dublin. In collaboration with the existing Creative Fellowships at Reading, the newly-formed Trinity Creative Fellows will create new work in response to the Beckett archive at M&ARL. They will also have access to the Beckett collections at Reading. Twice per year, Creative Fellows and Beckett scholars from the two partner universities will travel to each other's archives to hold workshops, and in order for the Creative Fellows to present and reflect on their work in progress.
• Funding Agency
  • Trinity College Philanthropy
• Date From
  • 2022

• Title
  • RIA Charlemont Grant - Research trip to Beinecke Library, Yale University
• Summary
  • In 2019 I was awarded a Royal Irish Academy Charlemont grant for a week-long research visit to the Beinecke library, Yale University. The purpose of this research trip was to explore the archives of the writer and artist Erica Van Horn, and to lay the groundwork for a collaboration with Nancy Kuhl, the curator at the Beinecke responsible for the purchase of Van Horn's archive. The project was a success, and I have been encouraged to apply for a longer residency by Kuhl, who will support my ongoing research project on Van Horn.
• Funding Agency
  • Royal Irish Academy
• Date From
  • 20 October 2019
• Date To
  • 27 October 2019

• Title
  • University of Reading - Beckett Creative Fellowships
• Summary
  • I have set up a collaboration with Professor Steven Matthews, director of the Samuel Beckett Creative Fellowships at the Beckett International, University of Reading, UK. These creative fellowships support contemporary writers and artists to create new work in response to the Beckett archive at Reading. The first creative fellow was Eimear McBride. We are in discussion about extending these fellowships so that Trinity will participate, and writers and artists will have access to the Beckett archives in both Trinity and Reading. Professor Matthews secured starter funding to support the early stages of this collaboration. We have so far funded the visit of two Irish-based writers to the Reading archive, who participated in a workshop with current creative fellows, including the writer Robert McCrum. We also funded a public event featuring readings by these writers (Nathan O'Donnell and Niamh Campbell) and discussion with Professor Matthews, at the Beckett Summer School in TCD in 2019. In January 2020, this Reading grant will also fund an event in the Irish Museum of Modern Art, an exploration of contemporary writers and artists responding to canonical writers and artists: https://imma.ie/whats-on/reactive-practices-an-evening-of-artists-responses/
• Funding Agency
  • University of Reading
• Date From
  • 2019
• Date To
  • 2020

• Title
  • IRC New Foundations - Residency in Louise Bourgeois Foundation, New York, U.S
• Summary
  • I was awarded an Irish Research Council New Foundations fellowship, for a week-long residency in the Louise Bourgeois Foundation. The purpose of this research visit was to build on my earlier archival research and collaboration with the lead archivist Maggie Wright, President of the Foundation Jerry Gorovoy, and to lay the groundwork for a proposed publication to bring together the new research and ideas emerging from the archive. A further aim of the research visit was to explore the potential lines of comparison between the creative practices of Bourgeois and Samuel Beckett, as figures spanning the modern and contemporary periods. As a result of this and the previous research visit, I set up a collaboration with Dr Lea Vuong to collect the research emerging from the archive in a special issue of the journal Word & Image. I have also had an article accepted by the Journal of Beckett Studies that will undertake a comparative assessment of Beckett and Bourgeois. The special issue and journal article are both forthcoming.
• Funding Agency
  • Irish Research Council
• Date From
  • 5 November 2017
• Date To
  • 12 November 2017

• Title
  • RIA Charlemont Grant - Residency in Louise Bourgeois Foundation, New York, U.S.
• Summary
  • In February-March 2016, I arranged a week-long residency in the archive of the artist Louise Bourgeois. The archive is located in the Foundation next door to her former Chelsea studio and home. During my residency, I conducted interviews with a number of pivotal figures, including her longterm studio assistant and President of the Foundation Jerry Gorovoy, and the chief curator emeritus at MoMA who organised Bourgeois's 1982 retrospective in the museum, Deborah Wye. This was the first major exhibition by a female artist in MoMA. I also viewed artworks by Bourgeois in the MoMA archive and in the Cheim and Read gallery in Chelsea, NY.
• Funding Agency
  • Royal Irish Academy
• Date From
  • 27 February 2016
• Date To
  • 5 March 2016