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printer friendly version (pdf) ConferencesTagore: The Global Impact of a Writer in the Community 4–6 May, 2012 Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland The conference is held under the aegis of the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies (ScoTs) being established as part of the Centre for Literature and Writing (CLAW). The conference invites papers exploring Tagore's literary and artistic output and welcomes presentations that evaluate his community and educational projects and assess his global impact in his time and today. Papers are also welcome on Tagore's literary output, art, poetry, and ideas about community projects and global peace. Queries to scots[@]napier.ac.uk Crime Scotland—Then and Now The Second Scottish Studies in Europe Conference 31 May–3 June, 2012 University of Goettingen, Germany Scotland's literary and cultural heritage is infused with narratives of crime. Both real and imagined criminals have shaped the image of Scotland's dual soul. The tension between good and evil, salvation and redemption as well as beauty and repulsiveness lies at the heart of the Scottish Tartan Noir tradition, which has been thriving ever since Robert Louis Stevenson published his novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Critics have frequently used Gregory Smith's term "Caledonian antisyzygy" in order to express this duality of the Scottish character, yet up to this day neither the production nor the reception of Scotland's alleged split soul has been properly analyzed and understood. This conference seeks to look at both literary and cultural forms of Scottish crime fiction in order to enhance our understanding of Crime Scotland—Then and Now. Queries to crimescotland[@]phil.uni-goettingen.de Crossing the Highland Line in the 19th Century: cross-currents in Scottish writing ASLS Annual Conference 2012 8–10 June, 2012 Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Isle of Skye, Scotland The nineteenth century saw the romanticisation of the Highlander, the rise of tartanry and the emergence of the modern Scottish tourist industry. It also witnessed the worst excesses of the Clearances and the beginnings of an exodus from the Highlands to the industrial cities and to the colonies. This conference will examine the literary culture of Scotland – Highland and Lowland – during this transformational period, and will explore its interactions and intersections. Queries to office[@]asls.org.uk Fourteenth International Conference on the Literature of Region and Nation 20–24 June, 2012 Institute of English Studies Pécs, Hungary Registration is available from the link above. Details will be posted as they become available. Queries to Trudi Szamosi: szamosi.gertrud[@]pte.hu James Hogg and the Romantics The Biannual James Hogg Society Conference Hosted by the University of Glasgow School of Critical Studies University of Glasgow, Scotland 29–30 June, 2012 jointly hosted by the James Hogg Society and the School of Critical Studies at the University of Glasgow The theme of the Conference will be "Hogg and the Romantics". The Conference will provide an opportunity to explore the nature of Hogg's relationship with other Romantic writers and welcomes, in particular, papers relating to all aspects of Hogg's relationship with Scottish Romanticism. Papers on topics related to the life and works of James Hogg and to Hogg's literary connections and influence are also welcomed. Queries to Dr Kirsteen McCue: Kirsteen.McCue[@]glasgow.ac.uk Byron and Genre The 38th International Byron Society Conference 4–9 July, 2012 The Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon Under this thematic umbrella, practically all of Byron's works are pertinent and could be approached from different perspectives. Exploring Byron's works, his journals, and his correspondence through genre allows fresh and engaging debates about issues such as Byron's use of various genre and his responses to genre and gender, genre and history, genre and culture, genre and poetic modes, etc... and the validity of his prescriptive definitions of genres such as biography, travel literature, narrative romances, epistolary, dramatic unities, satire, comedy, tragedy, etc ... And perhaps also an interesting revisionary study by William Duff, Romanticism and the Uses of Genre (OUP 2009) which won the ESSE Award last year. Duff challenges the widespread interpretation of Romanticism as a period of the "extinction of traditional genres" and focuses on "broader" genre patterns established by means of comparative study of West European Romanticisms (English, German and French). Queries to Naji Oueijan at noueijan[@]ndu.edu.lb or noueijan[@]hotmail.com The Corporeal and the Spiritual in the Works of Walter Scott 5–6 July, 2012 Sorbonne University, Paris, France Walter Scott cares little for ordinary representations of the body. He only finds it fascinating when it is either incomplete or immaterial—as in the case of ghosts for instance—or, on the contrary, when it is excessively present and materialized, in a Rabelais-like manner, when it is grotesque, misshapen, mutilated, dismembered or transgressive (a cross between male and female or between the human and the animal) or when it has turned into a corpse, embodying the ultimate victory of the matter over the spirit. Apparently absent from Scott's texts, sexuality is nonetheless conveyed through transpositions, transfers from the animate to the inanimate as illustrated by the rape of the prison in The Heart of Midlothian or the erotic treatment of the Scottish landscape. Queries to: colloquescott2012[@]gmail.com Languages of Scotland and Ulster 2012 18–20 July, 2012 Aberdeen, Scotland The 2012 International Triennial Conference of the Forum for Research on the Languages of Scotland and Ulster. Invited speakers include:
The 39th Annual Hume Society Conference 18–22 July, 2012 University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada The special themes for this conference are: Themes from the Work of Terry Penelhum: Self, Will, Religion; Hume and Rousseau On the occasion of Rousseau's 300th birthday; Nominalism and Relations. Queries to Anne Levy: levey[@]ucalgary.ca The European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) conference 4–8 September, 2012 Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey Several Scottish sessions have been confirmed for the ESSE conference in Istanbul, and there will be a reading of Scottish poetry on Turkish topics to complement the academic papers. If you would like a list of all the Scottish events scheduled for ESSE, please contact gwen[@]scottishwriting.org.uk. Scotland in Europe 17–19 October, 2012 Institute of English Studies University of Warsaw, Poland We would like to invite everybody interested and involved in Scotland, in the country’s culture, history and politics, and in how it has been perceived and represented particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, to participate in the first conference on this subject ever to take place in Poland. We would also like to draw attention to the interdisciplinary nature of the conference and to create a forum for discussion and future cooperation between different European centres concerned with the following subjects: Scotland Today; Scottish Literature in Europe; Scotland's Languages. Queries to: scotlandineurope[@]uw.edu.pl "Freedom, Come All Ye" 18–20 October, 2012 The French Society of Scottish Studies University of Coruña, Spain The notion of "freedom" has long been associated with a number of key perceptions deemed fundamental to an understanding of Scotland and the Scots. Thus Scottish history is explained from the Pictish resistance to the Romans through the Wars of Independence against English dominance, the Jacobite uprisings, to the birth of the Labour and Trade Union movements. Key Scottish texts have the concept of liberty at their core—from the Declaration of Arbroath through the poems of Barbour, Burns and MacDiarmid to the writings of Janice Galloway and Irvine Welsh. Scottish thinkers have written extensively on the freedom of the individual, on economic freedoms, and Scottish theology has historically regarded as fundamental the freedom of the individual before her or his deity. This Conference aims to examine the question of "freedom" in its broadest terms, regarding concepts such as artistic, intellectual and political independence as crucial factors towards an understanding of Scotland's self image. Queries to David M Clark: dclark[@]udc.es RLS2013: Stevenson, Time and History July 2013 University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia More details, including exact conference dates, will be available later this year. Topics for discussion include: History and historiography; The historical novel; Theories of evolution; The idea of progress; Generation and degeneration; Narrative temporalities; Genealogy and ancestry; Stages of life: childhood, youth, age; Memory and nostalgia; Change; Ancient and modern Queries to Roslyn Jolly at r.jolly[@]unsw.edu.au First World Congress of Scottish Literatures 2–5 July, 2014 University of Glasgow, Scotland From 2-5 July 2014, the University of Glasgow will host the first World Congress of Scottish Literatures in the College of Arts, with the involvement of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies and other bodies. The conference will be organized under four main themes:
Fourteenth International Conference on Scottish Language and Literature, Mediaeval and Renaissance 28–31 July, 2014 Bochum, Germany Details on the conference will be posted on the website (linked from the title above) as they become available. Queries to Luuk Howen: luuk.howen[@]t-online.de |