Nowe Szkoty

Gdańsk Scottish Studies Research Group

Category Archives: Conferences


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Transcending Oppositions in Scottish Culture – Extended Deadline

Transcending Oppositions in Scottish Culture: A Symposium

2-3 June 2014
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto
CETAPS – Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies

Confirmed keynote speakers:
Professor Murray Pittock (University of Glasgow)
Professor Luísa Leal de Faria (Universidade Católica Portuguesa)

The culture of Scotland has frequently depended on a negotiation of opposites. A nation on the border of its more powerful, and linguistically victorious, Southern neighbour, Scotland developed its own centres of power, thought and knowledge. In several important stages of its history, the people of Scotland was socially and ideologically divided between the Highlands and the Lowlands, Presbyterians and Episcopalians, Unionists and Jacobites (including the more recent rift between those in favour of the Union and those in favour of Devolution and even national independence). Scots participated in the risks and opportunities of the British Empire, but many remained strongly attached to a feeling of national belonging which was emphatically not English. Scottish thinkers made far-reaching contributions to the Enlightenment, yet Scotland was – and is – one of the acknowledged cradles of the gothic. The themes and modes of Scottish literature, in particular, have often oscillated between the realistic and the fantastic, quixotism and pragmatism, with writers providing such impressive embodiments of contradiction as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and the many characters in the novels of Walter Scott who inhabit a world of recognizable places and problems but live in a world of romance.

This symposium addresses the problem of oppositions in all aspects of Scottish culture across the centuries. It is intended to focus on the persistence and/or resolution of tensions and discrepancies such as the ones mentioned above, taking into consideration the history, the thought and the literature of (and about) Scotland. At the same time, the event is meant to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Sir Walter Scott’s début novel, Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since, a landmark in the history of the representations of Scotland and of the symbolic negotiations which involve past and present, realism and romance, politics and personal identity, Englishness and Scottishness.
Submissions for 20-minute papers in English should be sent by email to scotland@letras.up.pt

Please include the following information with your proposal:

• the full title of your paper;
• a 200-250 word description of your paper;
• your name, postal address and e-mail address;
• your institutional affiliation and position;
• a short bionote;
• AV requirements (if any)

EXTENDED DEADLINE for proposals: 15 April 2014

Early-bird registration (until May 15)
Registration Fee: 70 Euros
Student fee: 55 Euros

Late registration (16-23 May)
Registration Fee: 90 Euros
Student fee: 75 Euros

All delegates are responsible for their own travel arrangements and accommodation. Relevant information will be provided on the conference website – http://web3.letras.up.pt/scotland

Organizing Committee
Jorge Bastos da Silva (Universidade do Porto, Portugal / CETAPS)
Katarzyna Pisarska (Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Poland / CETAPS)

For further queries please contact:
CETAPS – Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto
Via Panorâmica, s/n
4150-564 PORTO
PORTUGAL
Phone / Fax: +351-226077610
scotland@letras.up.pt

 


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CFP: Twenty-first Century Scottish Fiction: Where are we now?

Twenty-first Century Scottish Fiction: Where are we now?

2 September 2014

Ellen Wilkinson Building, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Keynote Speakers: Dr Aaron Kelly (University of Edinburgh) and Dr Monica Germanà (University of Westminster)

This one-day symposium aims to explore the exciting breadth and diversity of recent Scottish writing, attending to the importance of both tradition and innovation and examining how post-millennial texts negotiate and re-configure the boundaries of Scottish literature.

Questions of Scottishness and of Scottish literature have been of particular interest in the twenty-first century, in part because the start of the new millennium roughly coincides with Scottish devolution in 1999. Exploration of Scottish literature becomes ever more pertinent as the referendum on Scottish independence approaches. This symposium aims to take stock of the critical perspectives on Scottish writing and to explore the questions being raised as discussion about Scottish identity amplifies in anticipation of this new cultural landmark.

We invite abstracts on all aspects of twenty-first century Scottish fiction. Proposals for panels of three interlinked papers are also welcome. Suggested topics include but are not limited to:

  • Post-millennial texts by established Scottish authors
  • New voices in contemporary Scottish writing
  • The diffusion and reception of 21st century Scottish literature in Europe.
  • Dis/continuities and the role of tradition in new Scottish writing.
  • New developments in Scottish genre fiction
  • The 21st century Scottish Gothic
  • Hybridity, cosmopolitanism and trans-nationalism in Scottish texts
  • Pedagogy and the role of the academy in the formation of the 21st century Scottish canon
  • New perspectives on the Scottish canon/what constitutes Scottish literature?
  • Spatiality and/or temporality in 21st century Scottish writing
  • Gender and nation in post-millennial Scottish texts
  • The Scottish political landscape and its role in 21st century Scottish writing
  • Queer Scottish writing
  • Strangers and strangeness in 21st century Scottish writing

Please email 200-300 word proposals for 20-minute papers and brief biographical notes of 50 words to the conference organisers Jane Stedman and Kate Turner at c21scotfiction@gmail.com  by 14th May.

Conference website: http://www.c21scotfiction.co.uk/


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Crime Fiction Here and There and Again Conference – Deadline reminder

Call for papers – Deadline reminder

Crime Fiction: Here and There and Again

11-13 September 2014

Deadline for abstracts: 31 March 2014

Call for papers http://crimegdansk.wordpress.com/2013/11/10/call-for-papers/

For more information see the conference website or contact Agnieszka Sienkiewicz-Charlish at crimegdansk@gmail.com


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CFP: Fíanaigecht: the 2nd International Finn Cycle Conference

Call for Papers

Fíanaigecht: the 2nd International Finn Cycle Conference

University of Glasgow

11-12 August 2014

The Second International Finn Cycle Conference will take place on 11th-12th August at the University of Glasgow, featuring invited papers from Dr John Carey (University College Cork), Dr Anne Connon (Ohio Dominican University), Dr Joseph Flahive (Éiru Trust) and Dr Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart (University of Edinburgh/University of the Highlands and Islands).  Proposals of papers of 20 minutes’ duration are now invited.  Proposals of sessions made up of three papers are also welcome.  Papers may respond to any aspect of the tradition surrounding Finn mac Cumaill (later Fionn mac Cumhaill, Fionn McCool/M’Coul, Fingal etc) and his fían from the medieval to the modern; subjects of papers may include (but will not be limited to):

  • new readings of Finn Cycle texts and/or texts featuring Finn
  • orality and literacy in relation to the texts about Finn (medieval literature to modern folklore)
  • translations (however defined) of the vernacular material, including James Macpherson’s Ossianic works
  • genre and convention in relation to the Finn Cycle and the limits of the cycle
  • Finn Studies within Celtic Studies
  • editing and translating Finn material
  • place-names in the traditions about Finn
  • landscape and the fían
  • contemporary responses to the figure of, and traditions about, Finn (in scholarship, literature including children’s literature, school curricula, art, marketing, tourism/hospitality)

Papers may be delivered in English, Gaelic or Irish.  Proposals for papers and sessions should no longer than 300 words and should be submitted to finnconference2@gmail.com on or before the 16th May 2014. Conference registration will cost £45 (£25 for students). Accomodation will be available at the University of Glasgow. Further information will be available soon at http://www.facebook.com/fianaigecht.

The organisers would like to acknowledge the generous sponsorship of the Centre for Scottish and Celtic Studies, University of Glasgow.

Sharon Arbuthnot (University of Edinburgh)

Síle Ní Mhurchú (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies)

Geraldine Parsons (University of Glasgow)

Organising Committee

Download CFP


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CFP: Edwin Morgan Seminar @ ESSE Conference

12th international conference of ESSE (European Society for the Study of English),

Košice (Slovakia), 29 August– 2 September 2014

(conference website: http://kaa.ff.upjs.sk/en/event/4/12th-esse-conference)

Call for Papers

for the seminar

Edwin Morgan and the Prospect of Scotland

In Sonnets from Scotland (1984), Edwin Morgan envisioned a national history and potential which has increasingly urgent political application as the referendum on independence approaches in 2014. His poem on the Scottish parliament (2004) stressed connections between literary, cultural and political vitality. This seminar considers the place of poetry in national self-imagining, national self-realisation and continuing critical awareness. We welcome papers examining Morgan’s work in the national context, his relation with his poetic precedent Hugh MacDiarmid, his legacy to contemporary writers, and international connections through his translations from European literatures and through North and South American concrete and postmodern influences.

Seminar conveners:

Alan Riach, University of Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom (Alan.Riach@glasgow.ac.uk)

Silke Stroh, University of Muenster, Germany (Silke.Stroh@uni-muenster.de)

Submission guidelines and planning procedures:

Papers should be up to 15 minutes long and should take the form of an oral presentation, rather than mere readings of finished essays.

Abstracts of proposed papers should be submitted to the seminar conveners by 31 March 2014 [new extended deadline].

Abstracts should be c. 200 words in length. Please also submit a short paragraph of biographical information (including your academic affiliation).

The selection process will be completed by 15 April 2014. Once the programme has been finalised, abridged versions of accepted papers will be circulated among all speakers some time before the conference, to facilitate preparation for the seminar discussions.


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CFP: RNLA Conference

Call for Papers

Fifteenth International Conference on the Literature of Region and Nation.

The John Carver Inn in Plymouth, Massachusetts (USA),

June 26, 2014 to July 1, 2014.

 

The Region, Nation, and Literature Association (RNLA)

The RNLA was founded in 1986.   In August of that year the first of a series of biannual international conferences exploring all aspects of nation and region in literatures written in English was held in Aberdeen, Scotland. Since then, as the international network has grown, cities around the world have hosted the conferences: Nottingham, England (1988), Luxembourg (1990), Swansea, Wales (1992), Bratislava, Slovakia (1994), Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada (1996), Germersheim, Germany (1998), Östersund, Sweden (2000), Durban, South Africa (2002), Manchester, England (2004), Manhattan, Kansas, USA (2006), and Aberdeen, Scotland (2008).  The 2010 and 2012 conferences were held at Shiga University of Medical Science, Japan, and respectively, at Pécs University in Hungary.

The central theme of the Fifteenth Conference in the series will be Oceans Uniting Regions, Nations, and Literatures

Oceans, lakes, and rivers have often served as natural divides between regions and nations.  However, these vitally important water ways have often functioned to unite the people as well, particularly through the literature by the people inhabiting the different land masses.  It has been said that if you want to get to know the distinctiveness a people, study their literature. Literature has also played cross-fertilizing and transformative roles across cultures as, for example, the transcultural phenomenon that is Romanticism.

The RNLA invites papers on how oceans – or lakes and rivers — divide and/or unite regions and nations in a literal as well as a metaphorical sense. One approach might explore the symbolism of water—both life-giving and chaotic, creative and/or destructive.  One may also discuss how literature affirms the distinctiveness of a single people or distinctiveness of others. Another aspect might be the manner in which literature or literary genres cross boundaries and become instruments of trans-cultural creative transformation.  In other words, how does literature (or literary genres) express and/or create socio-politico-economic aspirations across oceans, lakes, and rivers; or, how do literatures in their cultural variety deal with dividing and uniting, domination and liberation across oceans in pre- or post- colonialist eras?  Additional reflections might include how literature deals with the theme of hybridity.

THERE IS STILL ROOM ON THE PROGRAMME FOR FURTHER SUBMISSIONS, and traditional individual papers, collaborative efforts, and panel discussions are all invited.  And should the above theme be too restrictive, papers on any aspect of regional and national literatures, from any part of the world, will be welcome.  As RNLA’s current President has said, “our cosmopolitan credentials are well established, and will assuredly be upheld by the upcoming gathering.”

Send submissions to Karoline (Karrie) Szatek-Tudor at kszatek@curry.edu

The venue of the Conference is the John Carver Inn in Plymouth.  Delegates will be accommodated here, and the session meetings, reception dinner, luncheon, and plenary will all take place in the Inn.  It is located close to the Plymouth Harbor, restaurants, shopping areas, and sites of historic interest.  The social programme will include an excursion to Plimouth Plantation, Wampanoag Village, the Ole Grist Mill and the Mayflower, and a trip to Boston with free time to explore the city.

 

 

 


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CFP:Land and People in the Northern Highlands

Call for Papers

Land and People in the Northern Highlands: The Strathnaver Conference

University of the Highlands and Islands (http://www.uhi.ac.uk/en/)

Bettyhill, 4-6 September 2014

Deadline: 31 march 2014

Call for Papers

 

 


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CFP: between.pomiędzy Deadline Reminder

BETWEEN.POMIĘDZY 2014

14-16 May 2014 Sopot/Gdańsk

New Beginnings/Openings in Scottish Literature

Deadline for abstracts: 1 March 2014.

Call for papers: Between.2014 CFP

The conference will take place as part of the New Beginnings.Otwarcia international festival of literature and theatre held in Sopot and Gdańsk from 12 to 18 May 2014. This is the fifth annual festival/conference organized by BETWEEN.POMIĘDZY.

For information on previous festivals/conferences, see http://www.betweenpomiedzy.pl

For further information, contact the organisers at between@ug.edu.pl


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CFP: Annual Conference of the French Society for Scottish Studies

The Production and Dissemination of Knowledge in Scotland: Invariance and Specificity

Annual Conference of the French Society for Scottish Studies
University of Bordeaux, 9-11 October 2014
Deadline for proposals: 15 May 2014

 

Call for papers and more info: http://sfee2014.wordpress.com/call-for-papers/

 

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