2025 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON WELSH STUDIES

In July 2025, NAASWCH celebrates 30 years since our first meeting, and resumes action after the disruptions of the COVID pandemic. The 2025 conference returns us to where it all began, at the Madog Center for Welsh Studies, University of Rio Grande Community College, Rio Grande, OH.

Conference Schedule

Tuesday, 15 July: Optional Bus Tour and Opening Evening Reception

Wednesday, 16 July: Sessions and Keynotes

Thursday, 17 July: Sessions, Keynotes, and Banquet

Friday, 18 July (until noon): Sessions and Farewell

Keynote Speakers

Registration and Logistics

Registration Costs

$195 - Full Conference Registration

$75 - One-Day Registration

$10 - Conference Zoom Pass

Included in conference rates are meals (Tuesday evening through Friday morning), with an Italian-themed conference “banquet” dinner at the Greer Museum on Thursday evening July 17.

Columbus Airport Shuttles

Optional bus transportation will be provided between John Glenn Columbus Airport and University of Rio Grande campus ($35 return). Buses will depart Columbus airport for Rio Grande on Monday evening 14 July at 6pm; and on Tuesday afternoon 15 July at 4 pm. Return trip to Columbus airport will depart campus on Friday 18 July at noon.

Optional Tuesday Bus Tour ($40)

Those who arrive on campus on Monday evening may opt to purchase tickets for a day-long bus tour of the historic Welsh region in and around Rio Grande. The tour will include a boxed lunch. Sites to be visited on the tour include Buckeye Furnace; Lilian E. Jones Museum; Welsh American Heritage Museum; Moriah Church; Tyn Rhos Church; Madog Center for Welsh Studies; University of Rio Grande Archives. 

Book Registration, Airport Shuttles, and Optional Bus Tour Here

Accomodations

Conference accommodations are in an air-conditioned dormitory on the campus of the University of Rio Grande ($38/night). Dormitory rooms are arranged in suites shared by up to four people (single rooms with shared kitchenette and bath).

Book Campus Accommodations Here

Alternative lodging can be found through Gallia County Convention & Visitors Bureau Accommodations website: https://visitgallia.com/accommodations/.

Location

University of Rio Grande / Rio Grande Community College

The University’s contemporary 190-acre campus in Rio Grande, Ohio is nestled in the beautiful rolling hills of the southeastern region of the state.  A unique private / public institution of higher education, Rio Grande’s mission is to provide learners the opportunity to attain a high-quality, high-value education through personalized, learner-centered tuition that promotes successful lives, careers, and responsible citizenship.

The Madog Center for Welsh Studies

The Madog Center for Welsh Studies is located on the campus of the University of Rio Grande / Rio Grande Community College in an historic Welsh American community. It is the only center for Welsh studies in North America, serving both the US and Canada. Established by the University’s board in June 1996, the mission of the Madog Center for Welsh Studies is to foster understanding of and appreciation for Welsh heritage and contemporary Welsh culture.

The Madog Center for Welsh Studies was established following a conference on Welsh Studies at the University of Rio Grande in June 1995.  Conference participants, who came together from across North America and the UK, saw the need for a study center to support and promote knowledge of Welsh history and culture.  This 1996 conference was the inaugural meeting of NAASWCH, founded to facilitate the sharing of research and perspectives on the many facets of Welsh culture and history of interest to a North American audience.  NAASWCH conferences have welcomed the participation of academics, post / graduate and graduate students, and independent scholars from around the world, representing disciplines as various as history, literature, languages, art, social sciences, political science, pedagogy, philosophy, music, religion, and linguistics.

Call for papers - Now closed

Next summer, NAASWCH will celebrate 30 years since our inaugural meeting, and our return to action after the disruptions of the COVID pandemic. The 2025 conference returns us to where it all began, at the Madog Center for Welsh Studies, University of Rio Grande and Rio Grande Community College, Rio Grande, OH. 

For the 2025 conference, the NAASWCH Program Committee seeks diverse perspectives on all aspects of Wales and Welsh culture and history – as well as proposals focused on the Welsh in North America – from many disciplines, including, but not limited to, history, literature, languages, art, social sciences, political science, pedagogy, philosophy, music, and religion. NAASWCH invites participation from academics, postgraduate/graduate students, and independent scholars from North America, the United Kingdom, and across the world.  

Those wishing to present a paper suitable for a 20-minute reading may submit an abstract (maximum one-page).  Proposals for thematic sessions, panel presentations, or other formats in English or Welsh are also welcome.  Please include a brief (one-page) c.v. and a brief (150 words) bio with your abstract submission. 

Submit abstracts or session proposals by no later than 5 March 2025 to Professor Daniel Williams, Chair, English Literature, Swansea University, at daniel.g.williams@swansea.ac.uk, with cc’s to melindagray99@gmail.com and drowbotham@rio.edu. Early submissions are encouraged. Submissions will be acknowledged promptly. If you have not received confirmation of your submission within a week, please resend the document. Presenters will be notified of acceptance in early March.  

A small number of bursaries will be available for students currently enrolled in a graduate degree program. Interested applicants should provide, together with a paper proposal, a 250-word explanation of how attendance at this conference will make a difference in the advancement of their work and career. 

Conference information will be available on the new NAASWCH website and updated periodically: www.naaswch.wales. Keynote presentations to be announced. Those who are not submitting proposals but who would like to receive conference information should contact Dr. Melinda Gray (NAASWCH Secretary/Treasurer), melindagray99@gmail.com and Dan Rowbotham (Director of the Madog Center for Welsh Studies at the University of Rio Grande, OH), drowbotham@rio.edu. 

NAASWCH 2025 PRESENTATIONS

Wednesday 9:15—10:45 am

Panel A
Welsh Icons and Identity through Sport and Screen
Exploring the global imprint of Welsh identity via film, sport, and celebrity culture.

1.     Dulais Rhys (NOVA Center for the Performing Arts, Billings, MT), “Ray Milland, Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins: how three great Welsh actors, born within ten miles of each other, became Hollywood legends,” Zoom

2.     Malcolm Dowden (University of Winchester), "Rugby and Revivalism: resolving the conflict between sport and religion in Wales, 1893-1933"

3. Michael Hawkins (Kent State University), “Hollywood, Football, and Home: Exploring Welsh Identity through Wrexham AFC”

Panel B
Vision, Place, and Policy: Artistic Responses to Welsh Landscapes
Interdisciplinary engagements with Wales through film, art, and environmental practice.

4. Zachary Zurschmiede (Michigan Technological University), “Artistic and Emotive Policy Intersections in Bannau Brycheiniog National Park”

5. Lowri Williams (Independent Scholar/Artist, Swansea, Wales), “Reclaiming the Habitus through Artistic Practice: The Malurion Project,” Zoom

6. Philip Todd (The Northern Film School of Leeds/Beckett University), "The Stars Reveal Your Dreams Are Real: Oneirocritical Visions of Wales in Jane Arden’s The Other Side of the Underneath [1972]," Zoom

Wednesday 1:30 – 3:00 pm

Panel C
Archives, Museums, and Memory: Mapping the Welsh Nation and Diaspora
How institutions shape collective memory and national identity through space, time, and text.

7. Mark Rhodes (Michigan Technological University), “Printing the Historical Geographies of the State: the temporalities, spatialities, and bureaucracies of the National Museum Wales Press”

8.     Gruffydd Davies (Aberystwyth University), “Acquisition, Appraisal, and Arrangement of Archives: What effect do the archiving practices of the National Library of Wales have on the nation’s collective memory of its literary heroes?”

9.     Owen Chennetier (University of Bristol), “Columbian Influences on Y Wladfa and Chubut’s Physical Landscape of Settler and Indigenous Memorialisation”

Thursday 9:00 – 10:30 am

Panel D
Faith, Nationalism, and Publishing: Forging the Civic Welsh Nation
Historic and institutional engagements.

10. Cynan Llwyd (Cytun/Churches Together in Wales), “Faith into Action: the 1925 Welsh Church Leaders’ Peace Appeal to America”

11. Lawrence Webber (University of Massachusetts, Boston), “Lessons Learned from Cymru Fydd”

12. Llion Wigley (Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru/University of Wales Press), “Gwaith a Hanes Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru ym maes Astudiaethau Cymru,” Zoom

Thursday 1:30 – 3:00 pm

Panel E
Welsh-American Cultural Lives: Identity, Memory, and Performance
Cross-cultural expressions of Welshness in North American contexts.

13. Robert Humphries (Great Plains Welsh Heritage Center): "Ambition and Adaptation: The American Ivorites and Welsh Ethnicity in the United States" 

14. Daniel G. Williams (Swansea University), “The Confidence Man: Richard Burton’s American Identities”

15. Jennifer Johnstone (Kent State University), "Music, Memory, and Welsh Cultural Identities in North America"

Panel F [Yn Gymraeg / In Welsh]

Podlediad / Podcast: an episode of “Yr Hen Iaith” (Jerry Hunter and Richard Wyn Jones)

Thursday 4:00 – 5:30 pm

Panel G
Welsh Women’s Voices and Diasporic Narratives
Recovering and reflecting on Welsh-American women’s literary and historical contributions.

16. Roderic Owen (Emeritus, Mary Baldwin University), “Reflections on Assimilation and Vanishing: a consideration of Vivienne Sanders’ Wales, the Welsh, and the Making of America (2021)”

17. Melinda Gray (Cambridge, MA), “Braiding Voices: on making an anthology of poetry by nineteenth-century Welsh American women”

18. Eirlys Barker (Emeritus, Thomas Nelson Community College), “Heddwch Nain Mamgu: The American Side of the Story,” Zoom

Panel H
Sounding the Nation: Music, Museums, and Welsh Cultural Expression
Artistic and institutional frameworks for performing and curating Welsh national identity.

19. Tomos Williams (Cardiff, Wales/Global Music Institute, New Delhi, India), “Cwmwl Tystion: From Waldo Williams to Wadada Leo Smith”

20. Chris Trevino (Michigan Technological University), “Interpretive Technologies, National Museums, and the Welsh Nation”

Friday 8:30 – 9:45 am

Panel I
Reimagining Wales in Myth, Literature, and Architecture
Interpreting early Welsh cultural expressions and their afterlives in literature and heritage.

21. Megan Lloyd (English, Kings College, Wilkes-Barre, PA): "Replacing Llans with Lawns: Anglicizing Wales in Milton’s Mask at Ludlow Castle"

22. Joel Romero-Meredith (Purdue University), “Knowledge Traditions, Courage, and an Early Arthur: Understanding the Otherworld in Preiddeu Annwn”

23. Louise Williams (Bangor University), "Does ‘Ruin’ Actually Mean Ruin? Rethinking Authenticity and Modernisation of Edward I’s Castles and Town Walls in North Wales," Zoom

Friday 10:00 – 11:15 am

Panel J

Modernism and Poetic Renewal in Wales
Reimagining Welsh poetry and modernist connections across wartime and transatlantic contexts.

24. Zoe Brigley (Ohio State University), “New Welsh Poets”

25. Huw Jones, (Swansea University), "When David Jones met Louis Zukofsky: how the Americans saved Welsh Modernism"

26. Jim Pratt (Independent Scholar), "Margiad Evans and the Wartime Skies of Potacre," Zoom or alternate reader

Panel K

“A Panoply of Pedagogical Possibilities: Conversations Amongst Three 2024 Wales-Based Study Abroad Programs”

Speakers:

·       Gareth E. John (St. Cloud State University)

·       Michael Knight (St. Cloud State University)

·       Mark Alan Rhodes II (Michigan Technological University)

·       Dan Rowbotham (University of Rio Grande)

·       Chris Treviño (Michigan Technological University)

·       Kathryn L. Hannum (Michigan Technological University), Moderator