Please note that the call for papers is now closed.

 

Place and Space in Scottish Literature and Culture
8-10 October 2015
University of Gdańsk, Poland

Organised by the Scottish Studies Research Group at the University of Gdańsk  and the Society for Scottish Studies in Europe

under the auspices of 

prof. dr hab. Bernard Lammek, Rector of the University of Gdańsk and

prof. UG, dr hab. Andrzej Ceynowa, Dean of the Faculty of Languages of the University of Gdańsk

The conference will address the subject of place and space in all forms of Scottish literature and culture. Any text constructs a place, permitting for a (re-)imagining of that locale. Many Scottish authors have written from or about a particular place. One thinks of: George Mackay Brown and the Orkneys, Edwin Morgan and Glasgow, Lewis Grassic Gibbon and the Mearns, Ian Rankin and Edinburgh. Can we consider Scotland in terms of its disparate constructs of place? How does place shape Scottish culture? What is the influence of Scotland’s geographical situation on its literature and culture?

We wish to open up new perspectives on Scottish studies and examine how the traditional demarcations concerning space in all its aspects can be and are challenged. We aim to provide an opportunity for a discussion about the ever-changing relationship between place and space, as well as that between time and spatiality. We invite proposals concerning Scottish culture in its breadth as well as those concerning a particular writer or an individual text.

We welcome proposals for papers on place and space in any (but not only) of the following areas:

• forms of Scotland;
• physical vs. imaginary spaces;
• depictions of the natural world;
• dwelling places;
• the idea of North;
• travel literature;
• place-specific writing and art;
• cartography/mapping;
• psychogeography;
• space and gender;
• displacement and dislocation;
• Scottish diasporas;
• utopian spaces;
• betweenness;
• spatial relationships;
• cityscapes;
• borders

Confirmed keynote speakers include:
Professor John Burnside (University of St. Andrews)
Professor Carla Sassi (University of Verona)

Proposals for 20-minute papers on these or other relevant topics should be sent by email to both monika.szuba@ug.edu.pl and agnieszka.sienkiewicz@ug.edu.pl

Please include the following information:
• the full title of your paper;
• a 200-word abstract of your paper;
• your name and e-mail address;
• your institutional affiliation;
• a short bionote.

Deadline for proposals: 10 May 2015
Notification of acceptance: before 31 May 2015

For more information about the conference and our research group, see our website https://noweszkoty.com/conference-2015

Prof. David Malcolm
Dr Monika Szuba
Agnieszka Sienkiewicz-Charlish, M.A.