The Hely-Hutchinson lectures were established in 1976, endowed in memory of Provost John Hely Hutchinson who established the Professorships of Modern Languages and Literature in 1776. The lectures are given by a scholar or writer of the highest distinction in the modern languages and literature field.

The lectures are open to the public, students and staff, but booking is essential. Booking links for the lectures will be made available on the School website before the start of the 2026/27 academic year.

Yves Citton: Common Languages, Curiosity and Co-habitation in (and after) the Plantationocene

In this lecture, Yves Citton argues that our main ecological and political challenge, in the 21st century, is to find ways to live together in living milieus made uninhabitable by the dynamics of a capitalist extractivism born out of the industrial plantation. Our common languages have been formed and polished over centuries by the need to share limited spaces and practices. Human curiosity ceaselessly faces new problems and adjusts old words to new needs and new meanings. Power rivalries endlessly attempt to turn shared understandings into dominant forms of language. Linguistic and literary studies are best positioned to study, understand, foster, amplify and spread the multi-perspectivist process that simultaneously shapes our common words and our common practices. What can they do in 2026 to help us overcome (or by-pass) the current gridlocks of the Plantationocene?

Yves Citton is professor in Literature and Media at the Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint Denis. He has been executive director of the Ecole Universitaire de Recheche ArTeC from 2018 to 2021, he has taught for 13 years at the Université Grenoble Alpes and for 12 years in the department of French and Italian of the University of Pittsburgh, PA. He got his PhD from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, has received a Doctorat Honoris Causa from the Université de Louvain in 2018 and has been invited Professor at New York University, Harvard and Sciences-Po Paris.

Ulrike Draesner: On Like(li)ness

In this lecture, Ulrike Draesner reflects on multilingualism, literature, and the political and cognitive stakes of language in the age of AI. Beginning with autobiographical memories of growing up in postwar Germany within a hidden multilingual environment of dialects, displacement, silence, and radio voices, she develops a poetics of listening “under the table”: listening to what is not said, to linguistic fragments, emotional undertones, and suppressed histories.

Draesner argues that multilingualism is not an exception but the fundamental condition of both human language and literature. Languages shape perception, memory, embodiment, and thought; they create distinct “worlds” rather than merely naming one shared reality. Literature emerges precisely where language ceases to appear natural or transparent. Against nationalist monolingualism and against AI-driven “fake multilingualism” based on probabilistic translation and algorithmic middle-choices, she defends literary language as a space of ambiguity, slowness, and cognitive freedom.

Revisiting the concept of littérature engagée, Draesner redefines engaged literature not as ideological messaging but as the creation of spaces in which complexity, contradiction, uncertainty, and multiple perspectives remain possible. Literature becomes an ethical and political practice of resisting simplification, preserving human differentiation, and imagining futures beyond algorithmic predictability. In this sense, literature is presented as a resource of democratic openness, resistance, and human freedom.

Ulrike Draesner is a German poet, a writer of long and short fiction and a translator of French and Anglo-American poetry. She studied English literature, philosophy and German literature in Munich and Oxford (St-John’s College, Balliol College) and was awarded her Ph.D. in 1992. Apart from numerous appearances in anthologies and magazines, she has published five poetry collections, two collections of short stories, and five novels.

 

Graphic with the words Teangacha Languages 250 at Trinity (1776-2026).

This event forms part of the 'Languages 250 at Trinity (1776-2026)' programme, throughout 2026, the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies is marking the 250th anniversary of the establishment of Modern Languages in Trinity College Dublin.