Dear Friends,

     We have bad news and good news. Owing to severe budgetary constraints, and with regret, the University of North Florida is suspending most of the operations of its Irish Studies program, which has grown and flourished at UNF over the past 20+ years. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the program may at a later date, if circumstances permit, be reactivated.

     The other good news is that the three Irish Studies public events scheduled for Fall 2008—constituting A Samuel Beckett Festival—will be held as previously planned:

Thursday, October 30, 7:00 p.m.—a lecture, “Dark Energy: An Aesthetic of Irrelevance,” by Herbert Blau (Recital Hall, UNF Fine Arts Center);

Monday, November 3, 7:30 p.m.—a performance of Morton Feldman’s For Samuel Beckett by a chamber ensemble conducted by Tom Chiu (UNF’s Robinson Theater); and

Thursday, November 6, 7:30 p.m.—a performance of Beckett’s play, Krapp’s Last Tape, by Rick Cluchey (UNF’s Robinson Theater).

For more information about these events, please see below. These will be the 99 th , 100 th and 101 st public events in the Irish Studies performance and lecture series that began in Fall 1995. After Fall 2008, however, the Irish Studies series will be dormant until further notice.

     The Beckett Festival—a trilogy of worldclass events—was conceived and has been organized by Clark Lunberry, Associate Professor of English, and is but the latest of many illustrations on the UNF campus of Lunberry’s imaginative intelligence and entrepreneurial skills. The first two events listed above are free and open to the public; for the third, tickets ($5 for students, $10 general admission) can be purchased through the box office of UNF’s Fine Arts Center (9046202878) or its website: http://www.unf.edu/fineartscenter/.

     Since 1995, thanks to John Francis Reilly Fellowships awarded to eleven UNF faculty members, a variety of Irish Studies courses have been developed in art history, history, literature, nursing, political science and sociology; and such courses will continue to be offered at the discretion of the academic departments in which they are housed. The Reilly Fellowship program, however, like the Irish Studies series, will be dormant until further notice.

     Inquiries or suggestions about Irish Studies at UNF may be directed to Pamela Zeiser, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of International Studies (pzeiser@unf.edu); Richard Bizot, Emeritus Professor of English (rbizot@unf.edu); or Barbara Hetrick, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences (barbara.hetrick@unf.edu). We thank you for your interest in and support for Irish Studies and look forward to seeing you at our events this Fall.

All the best,

Dick and Pam