Emilie Pine – memory studies scholar, Professor of Modern Drama at University College Dublin (UCD) and Director of the Irish Memory Studies Research Network. Her research explores the intersections between memory and theatre, with a focus on modern Irish memory. She is the Principal Investigator for the Industrial Memories digital humanities project, which seeks to document and visualize the legacies of child abuse in the Irish industrial school system. Pine is also the bestselling author of Notes to Self, a collection of essays on topics from alcoholism to women's bodies, which has been translated into 15 languages. Pine's book The Politics of Irish Memory: Performing Remembrance in Contemporary Irish Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010) analyzes representations of memory through theatre, film, television, memoir, and art in Irish culture since 1980. Addressing themes as diverse as institutional abuse, the Irish memoir, emigration, and the 1981 hunger strikes, she delves into the nature of trauma, sentimentality, and ethics in engaging with memory via cultural means. Her most recent book The Memory Marketplace: Witnessing Pain in Contemporary Irish and International Theatre (Indiana University Press, 2020) explores cultural memory as a commodity in the realm of contemporary performance. Focusing on the role of witnesses – embodied in both the theatrical performers and members of the audience – she argues that, especially for "traumatic moments of cultural upheaval" as demonstrated in contemporary theatre, the role of empathy becomes significant in the dynamics of cultural memory-as-commodity and "shapes the kinds of witnesses created." Both of these works illuminate the intersections between memory and trauma while exploring in depth the role of performance in shaping social witnessing and the public discourse of memory.