Behind the Headlines | The Culture of Work

Monday, 22 November 2021, 7 – 8:30pm ‘Work is a necessary evil’,
wrote the American author Mark Twain. But as we emerge from the
pandemic, during which working life for many changed dramatically,
do we need to reconsider our attitude to the culture of work? As we
transition to remote and flexible working arrangements, is there a
nostalgia for the collective rotas and routines of industrial
capitalism? How do we value ideas of employment and labour within
contemporary society, and how are conventional historical
definitions, such as ‘the working class’ or ‘white collar
occupations’, changing with the times? In this Behind the
Headlines, our panel of experts will consider the function and
representation of work from a variety of perspectives, to address
the shifting landscape of modern employment and the prospects for
our working culture in the future. Speakers: Caitríona Lally,
Rooney Writer Fellow at the Trinity Long Room Hub Caitríona Lally’s
first novel Eggshells, was published in the US by Melville House
(2017) and in the UK by Borough Press (2018). Caitríona lives in
Dublin and divides her time between her young children, her
writing, and working in the housekeeping department at Trinity
College Dublin. Wunderland is her second novel. When Caitríona was
awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish literature in 2018, she received
international media attention for being both a writer and a
cleaner, with some comparing her to “a real-life Good Will
Hunting.” Ryan Shanks, Managing Director, Accenture, The Dock Ryan
has been working for over 20 years at the coal face of industry
around the globe, implementing new technologies, restructuring
organisations, and developing talent with global organisations. His
experience ranges from corporate innovation and organisation
design, to culture change and leadership development. The Dock,
Accenture’s Flagship R&D Innovation Centre, hosts a diverse
team of over 250 creative problem-solvers and allows design,
technology and business to meet under one roof. Ilse White,
Corporate Learning Researcher at Learnovate, TCD Ilse consults and
collaborates with clients to improve practices in learning design
and employee development. Over the past 15 years, she has gained
extensive experience in learning design, learning strategy &
program management and technology-enhanced learning across a wide
range of topics like onboarding and management/leadership
development. She holds a MSc in Business Communication from Radboud
University Nijmegen (Netherlands) and a Graduate Diploma in
Education & eLearning from Dublin City University (DCU). Dr
Carole Holohan, Assistant Professor in Modern Irish History, TCD
Carole is a social historian whose research examines the social
history of the sixties, with publications on the history of youth
and the history of poverty in modern Ireland. Her book Reframing
Irish Youth in the Sixties (Liverpool University Press, 2018) also
explores Irish attitudes to welfare and employment, economic
growth, and emigration. Prior to her arrival at Trinity College,
Carole held an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral fellowship at
University College Dublin and a teaching fellowship at St.
Patrick’s College Drumcondra. The Trinity Long Room Hub Behind the
Headlines series is supported by the John Pollard Foundation. Learn
more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/