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CONFERENCES AND SEMINARS |
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Future Events [click on links below for details] "Translated Identities": 8 March 2012 - a joint IASH/Scottish PEN colloquium to mark International Women's Day Animals: three seminars on Tuesdays at 4 p.m., 14 and 28 February, 13 March Mental Health and the Disciplines: Contributions to mental health practice from Biology, Geography, Sociology, Architecture, Theology and Philosophy: Medical Humanities Research Network:
Seminar series: "English Literature 1762-2012": January - March 2012 IASH Work-in-Progress Seminars STAR (Scotland's Transatlantic Relations) Renaissance and Early Modern Group - fortnightly meetings on Thursdays at 1 p.m. Further information from Dr. Elizabeth Elliott (email: Elizabeth.Elliott@ed.ac.uk) Speculative Lunches: 2 February and 9 March 2012 Medical Humanities Research Network
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| 2.00 pm | Welcome and Introduction: Professor Susan Manning (Director, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities |
| 2.15 pm | Professor Dory Scaltsas (Chair of Ancient Philosophy, The University of Edinburgh): The Classical Model |
| 2.45 pm | Professor John Cairns (Professor of Legal History, University of Edinburgh): The Enlightenment Model |
| 3.15 pm | Tea |
| 3.45 pm | Professor Geoffrey Boulton (General Secretary, The Royal Society of Edinburgh) The potential of a University for its community: is it realised? |
| 4.15 pm | Professor Dr. John Psarouthakis (Postma Chair for Entrepreneurship, Nyenrode Business University, The Netherlands; Founder, JP-Management Center, llc, Ann Arbor, Michigan): A Path to the Future |
| 5.00 pm | Discussion |
| 5.30 pm | Drinks Reception |
This event is associated with the Institute's Research Theme "The Academic and The Civic"
Colloquium:
"Landscape - Mindscape: History, Geography and Literature"
24-25 June 2010
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Hope Park Square
This interdisciplinary event examined Scottish literature post-1998 with an emphasis on the sense of environment as process and as a problem for both literary criticism and creative writing. Speakers considered the interrelation between mental ecology and physical ecology and interfaces with history and geography that their texts propose. Points of focus included:
PROGRAMME:
Thursday, 24 June
| 1 p.m. | Arrival and Welcome |
| 1.15 p.m. |
Session A and Tom Bristow (Edinburgh): "John Burnside's Four Quartets" |
| 3.00 p.m. | Coffee |
| 3.30 p.m. |
Session B and Martin Philip (Edinburgh/Open University): "'And the land lay still': Going back over old ground with James Robertson" |
| 5.00 p.m. | Discussion |
| 5.30 p.m. | Close |
Friday, 25 June
| 10 a.m. | Coffee |
| 10.15 a.m. |
Session C David Cooper (Lancaster): "Critical Map-Making: The Possibilities and Problems of the Literary GIS" and Henning Fjortoft (NTNU, Trondheim): "Critical Perspectives: Power, Technology, Space" |
| 12 noon | Close |
For further information, please email Tom Bristow (t.bristow@ed.ac.uk)
Stevenson Textual Workshop: Friday, 11 July 2008
Sponsored by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh. Organized by the Centre for Scottish Writing in the Nineteenth Century
This event inaugurates the
new Edinburgh Edition of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson.
The workshop will address the importance of Stevenson to late nineteenth-century
publishing and his significance in establishing a new kind of readership
in the period. Stevenson is the last great nineteenth-century Scottish
novelist whose work has not been textually examined in detail. With the
great success of the Edinburgh Edition of Walter Scott, and Stirling Edition
of James Hogg, the time is right to turn to Stevenson, and we are now
in a position to take advantage of the vast accumulation of knowledge
from these editions.
The editorial workshop has two mutually illuminating aims. First, to finalise
the editorial policy of the new edition in the light of the recent work
on nineteenth-century editing, and secondly to use the example of Stevenson
as a focal point for discussion about nineteenth-century media and readerships.
The workshop will bring together scholars from English and Scottish Literature,
the History of the Book, and the theory of publishing and related media.
We will explore such topics as nineteenth -century publishing houses,
the relations of magazines to book texts, the culture of collected editions,
Stevenson's life and his exchanges with his publishers, his own commentary
on his working practices in letters, transatlantic publishing relations.
The aim is to discover how Stevenson worked, but the general exchange
of ideas will also reveal what opportunities and restrictions he faced.
Stevenson is a particularly useful case for the exploration of the international
focus of nineteenth-century publishing, as well as the progression of
texts as they change from magazine issues to collected editions. The proliferation
of his work in different forms, where the texts itself can change radically,
calls for some careful editorial work-for the first time we will be able
to look not only at what Stevenson wrote, but why he changed it.
Programme
| 9.30 am | Welcome |
| 9.45 am | Richard Dury : 'From Colvin to the new edition' |
| 10.30 am | Coffee |
| 10.45 am | Editorial Roundtable: Alison Lumsden, Gill Hughes, Peter Garside |
| 12.30 pm | Lunch |
| 1.30 pm | Andrew Nash: 'Stevenson Collected' |
| 2.45 pm | Editorial Workshop: Caroline McCracken-Flesher: 'Kidnapped: Mapping David Balfour' |
| 4.00 pm | Tea |
| 4.15 pm | Alexis Weedon (title tbc) |
| 5.15 pm | Stevenson illustrated. Presentation by Richard Hill and Ruth McAdams |
| 5.30 pm | Drinks |
Anyone interested in attending the Workshop should email ruthmmcadams@gmail.com
Roundtable: "Scott, Scotland, and Romantic Studies"
Wednesday,
23 April 2008
3:00 - 5:00 p.m., IASH, Hope Park Square
The focus of this roundtable will be Ian Duncan's recent book, Scott's
Shadow: the Novel in Romantic Edinburgh (Princeton UP, 2007). Short
talks will be given by Penny Fielding (English, Edinburgh), Alex Thomson
(English, Edinburgh), Susan Manning (English, Edinburgh), and Tony Jarrells
(English, South Carolina; current IASH fellow). These talks will be followed
by general discussion on Duncan's study and some of the issues it brings
to the fore regarding the relationship of Scottish literature and history
to Romantic studies more generally. Such issues might include:
Practice-based Research Working Group
Workshop: Thursday,
28 February 2008
2.30 - 4.30 pm,
Institute for Advanced Studies
in the Humanities, 2 Hope Park Square
Programme:
Session 1: Teaching/Assessment
Seamus Prior (Co-Director of Counselling Studies):"'Reflective
practice in the Counselling Studies MSc";
Dr. Guro Huby (Reader, School of Health in Social Sciences): "Practice
based module in Nursing Studies"
Session 2: Assessment/Research
Dr. Sophia Lycouris (Director of the Graduate Research School,
Edinburgh College of Art): "Improvisation as practice" Doctoral
Research
Dr. Dorothy Alexander (IASH Postdoctoral Fellow) "Creative
writing as practice" Doctoral Research
Coffee/Tea
Session 3: Research/Funding
Dr. Nick Higgins (Visual & Cultural Studies): "Filmmaking
as practice" ;
Dr. Eric Laurier (Institute of Geography): "Film Editing as
practice"
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Further information from Nick Higgins nick.higgins@ed.ac.uk
Roundtable: "Idealism and Theology in Nineteenth-Century Scottish Literature"
Wednesday, 12 December
2007
2.00 - 4.00 p.m. IASH, Hope
Park Square
This roundtable, organised by Dr. Timothy Baker and Dr. Tom Toremans (Postdoctoral Fellows of IASH), will bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore reactions to German Idealism and Protestant theology in the works of Carlyle, Scott, Hogg, MacDonald, Stevenson and others. The specific aim of the meeting is to establish possible relations and/or tensions between idealist and religious strands in nineteenth-century Scottish literature.
Short talks will be delivered by Prof Ian Campbell (Department of English Literature), Dr Penny Fielding (Department of English Literature) and Dr Alison Jack (School of Divinity), after which all participants are invited to contribute to the discussion. The roundtable will be chaired by Dr Tom Toremans.
Starting questions include, but are not limited to, the following:
In order to facilitate discussion,
the number of participants will be limited to 20. If you would like to
attend, please
e-mail Anthea Taylor (iash@ed.ac.uk).
Early
Modern Collections Seminar:
Shakespeare
and Early Modern Drama Collections in Edinburgh
Saturday, 24th November 2007
This seminar will be a joint event held at the National Library of Scotland
and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, The University
of Edinburgh.
All those with related research interests are welcome to come. Please
contact James Loxley (james.loxley@ed.ac.uk)
if you would like to attend.
Programme:
11.00 (National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge) arrival and welcome (James Loxley and Helen Vincent)
11.25-12:30 Helen Vincent (NLS) "Shakespeare and early modern drama collections in the NLS": talk and display of items.
12.45-1.30 (Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, 2 Hope Park Square) Lunch
1.30 Prof. Willy Maley (University of Glasgow): '"Stands Scotland Where it Did?' Shakespeare North of the Border"
2.15 Prof. Andrew Murphy (University of St Andrews) tbc
3.00-3.15. Tea
3.15-4.00 Sheila Noble (QMU): "Shakespeare and early modern drama collections in University of Edinburgh Library": illustrated talk
Trauma - Representation - Memory
A discussion meeting
at 3 p.m. on Thursday 15 November at IASH (2 Hope Park Square)
Organisers: Mary Cosgrove (LLC - German), Peter Davies (LLC - German), Hannah Holtschneider (Divinity - Jewish Studies) and Kamran Rastegar (LLC - Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies)
The aim of the meeting is to identify colleagues with an interest in the theme 'trauma - representation - memory' with a view to establishing academic collaboration in a 'research cluster'. We would like to attract as diverse a group of scholars as possible. The only criterion for joining the meeting would be that research is carried out in an area that connects two of the descriptors in the title. This should, we hope, ensure that everyone attending has some common interest. At the meeting we are planning to give a brief introduction to the themes we are currently working on, inviting everyone else to do the same. Then we would like to use the rest of the time to think constructively where collaboration can take us in the next academic year.
If you would like to attend please email iash@ed.ac.uk
The Edinburgh Renaissance/Early Modern research group
The inaugural meeting of
the Edinburgh Renaissance/Early Modern research group was held at IASH
(2 Hope Park Square) at 1pm on Friday 26th October. Further details can
be found at http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/Postgraduate/RtoE/earlymodern.htm
The theme of the first meeting was "Early Modern Studies in Edinburgh".
Please contact Jill Burke (jill.burke@ed.ac.uk)
for further information.
Monday
5 and Tuesday 6 March 2007 at 5.15 p.m.
The Playfair Library, Old College, South Bridge
The Tanner Lectures on Human Values
"The Inner
Life of Empires"
(previously delivered at Princeton University in 2005-6)
Professor Emma
Rothschild
(Director of the Centre for History and Economics, King's College, Cambridge;
Visiting Professor of History, Harvard University)
Abstract:
The lectures explore the
history of eighteenth-century globalization, by looking at the experiences
of a family of seven brothers and four sisters, their involvement in the
East and West Indies and North America, and their descriptions of the
vicissitudes of domestic and political life. The history of the Johnstones
and their extended connections, the lectures will suggest, can contribute
to the larger enterprise of a history of sentiments and values; and to
seeing eighteenth-century empires (in Adam Smith's expression) "with the
eyes of other people, or as other people are likely to view them."
Seminar:
"Is History Fiction?"
Wednesday, 8 November 2006 at 4 p.m.
The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Hope Park Square
Ann Curthoys (Manning Clark Professor of History, Australian National
University; currently Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Research in Arts,
Social Sciences and Humanities, Cambridge; and Bye Fellow, Robinson College,
Cambridge):
"Antipostmodernism and Holocaust Denial"
Abstract: Ann Curthoys will outline the main argument of Is History Fiction?, namely that history has a double character, being both a rigorous investigation of the past and a form of story-telling, of literature. This tension within history, as a discipline practised in the west, can be traced to its foundations in ancient Greece, and then in modern historiographical debate since Ranke. This paper will focus on the particular form these debates have taken in recent years, particularly around the questions posed by Holocaust denialism, and the implications for debates over truth in history of historians' increasing role in the courtroom.
John Docker (Adjunct
Senior Research Fellow in the Humanities Research Centre, Australian National
University):
"History Wars from Antiquity to Postmodernity: From Herodotus and
Thucydides to Foucault and Derrida"
Abstract: In this talk, John Docker raises the question, how much are history wars related to profound questions of honour, of nations and civilizations? Such a question bears on history wars across the world, from antiquity to the present. In antiquity, the acknowledged founders of Western historical writing, Herodotus and Thucydides, were accused of being too harsh on classical Athenian society, as if writing as hostile outsiders, as if culpably internationalist and cosmopolitan. The passion and intensity of contemporary history wars, as in the US over the cancelled Enola Gay exhibition at the Smithsonian, or the controversies over the Rape of Nanjing, or Israel's founding moment in 1948, or the extent of killing on Australia's colonial frontiers, may also be traced to similar concerns over the honour of nations. John will also discuss the history war that has centred on postmodernism. It has been claimed that postmodern thinkers like Foucault and Derrida had no notion of historical truth, that in their writings anything goes, that any interpretation is as good as any other. Foucault is accused of seeing truth as merely an effect of power. Derrida is held to argue that there is nothing outside the text, the world in effect is only a text. In arguments about the Holocaust, it has been charged by critics that Foucault and Derrida's supposed view that anything goes led to a situation whereby Holocaust denialists like David Irving could thrive, sure in the knowledge that postmodernism has removed the intellectual grounds for opposing them, however much postmodernists themselves would personally abhor Holocaust denialism. John will strongly dispute this characterisation of Foucault and Derrida and postmodernism.
Workshop
Series: Institutions and Oppositions of Enlightenment
Tuesdays at 4 p.m.
The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Hope Park Square
These workshops related to the Institute's Research Theme on "Institutions and Oppositions of Enlightenment" which sought to address the institution of modernity during the Enlightenment through the study of rule-governed practices. The formation of new orthodoxies across Europe and America (for example, in relation to universities, legal structures, and religious establishments), and the forces that opposed or challenged them, were a major focus of attention, as well as such issues as
For full details of the Workshops and other events related to this research theme click here
Leverhulme Project: The Science of Man in Scotland
At the beginning of his famous Treatise of Human Nature the philosopher David Hume declared, boldly, that "'[t]is evident that all the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature; and that however wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still return back by one passage or another." This "Science of Man", as Hume described it (women were comprehended in his term), involved the study of human life in all its various aspects. Built on the empirical methods of inquiry that underpinned the Enlightenment, it was expected to provide the key to understanding central questions of human existence, from personal identity to the foundations of morality and of civil society, to the long-term patterns underlying the historical evolution of human culture, manners, and government. Not only Hume, but many other Scottish theorists - Adam Smith, John Millar, Thomas Reid, and Dugald Stewart, to name only a few - committed themselves to formulating an overarching science which became one of the central and distinctive intellectual concerns of the Scottish Enlightenment in the second half of the eighteenth century.
The belief that
questions about morality, society, and history could be addressed by an
empirical analysis of human nature was not self-evident, whatever Hume
might claim. The aim of our research project on the "Science of Man" has
been to reconstruct the grounds on which these writers argued that this
science was so important, and to investigate what it actually involved,
in terms of the methods and paradigms that they developed, and which contributed
to establish a new range of disciplines in the human sciences, from psychology
and sociology to anthropology. To this end, we assembled a "primary group"
of experts from around the world: philosophers, historians, literary scholars,
linguists, social scientists and historians of science, whose common point
of interest was the Scottish Enlightenment.
From an intense programme of reading and discussions, a key concept that
has emerged is that of "character". A "character" distinguished one individual
or self from another and was crucial - so Hume and Smith showed - to a
sense of self. But character was also dependent on relations with others:
it did not exist outside society, because it was constituted and created
by the perceptions of others and was acquired through regular interaction
with them. It could be read and vouched for, allowing an individual to
enter civil society and be accepted in it. It was a form of currency that
crossed from the ethical to the commercial. But it could also be lost,
excluding individuals from the benefits of social life and the esteem
of fellow humans. Character connected the study of consciousness and identity
with that of society, culture and history. It was applied widely in the
Scottish Enlightenment, across a range of intellectual disciplines and
textual genres: it was used in literary fiction; it was central to the
writing of biography; it was an important analytical tool in historiography;
and it was crucial for discussions of ethics and sociability in moral
philosophy. The problems of character are raised in a correspondingly
wide range of Scottish Enlightenment writing, from Smith's Theory of Moral
Sentiments and Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, to the historical writings
of William Robertson, the medical correspondence of William Cullen and
the personal writing of David Hume.
The three-year grant has given us scope to establish an interdisciplinary
framework in which to recover a central and significant debate, which
unselfconsciously ignored the modern disciplinary boundaries between literature,
moral philosophy, social science, medicine, and history. It permitted,
in addition, the opportunity to offer a postdoctoral Fellowship to a young
scholar who has now entered the profession as a lecturer in History; and
it has established the grounds for a series of further collaborative inquiries
emerging from the initial project.
For further information visit the Project Website: http://www.scienceofman.ed.ac.uk,
or contact:
Dr. Thomas Ahnert
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
The University of Edinburgh
Hope Park Square
Edinburgh EH8 9NW
Email: Thomas.Ahnert@ed.ac.uk
'Biography
and the Enlightenment' Colloquium
Saturday,
27 November 2004
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
Hope Park Square
Programme:
| 10.45 am | Coffee |
| 11.15 am | Introduction (Dr. Frances Dow, Professor Susan Manning and Dr. Nicholas Phillipson) |
| 11.30 am | Professor Tony La Vopa (North Carolina): Boswell and Biography |
| 12.30 pm | Lunch |
| 2.00 pm |
Dr. John Christie (Leeds): Scientists' Biographies in the late Eighteenth Century |
| 3.00 pm | Professor Johanna Geyer-Kordesch (Glasgow): Women Writing: Rewriting their Lives |
| 4.00 pm | Tea |
| 4.15 - 5.15 pm | General discussion and conclusion |
A programme of events to celebrate 10 Years of Freedom in South Africa
The University of Edinburgh, 11-12 October 2004
featuring seven of South Africa's most important writers
André Brink
Achmat Dangor
Susan Mann
Zakes Mda
Gcina Mhlope
Wally Serote
Elinor Sisulu
who gave readings and talked with leading Scottish authors about their work.
PROGRAMME
MONDAY, 11 OCTOBER
5.15 p.m., The Playfair Library Hall, Old College, South Bridge
THE BLACKWELL LECTURE 2004
(sponsored by Blackwell's book shops)
Professor Dennis Walder
"Writing, Representation and Postcolonial Nostalgia "
H.E. Dr. Lindiwe Mabuza, High Commissioner of the Republic of South Africa, will introduce the lecture.
The lecture will be followed by a wine reception and readings by Wally Serote and Gcina Mhlope
TUESDAY, 12 OCTOBER
2 p.m. - 4 p.m., Raeburn Room, Old College, South Bridge
An afternoon of Readings and Conversation
4.30 p.m. - 5.30 p.m., Raeburn
Room, Old College, South Bridge
In Conversation: André Brink and Zoe
Wicomb
ADDITIONAL EVENT:
TUESDAY, 12 OCTOBER
8 p.m., Pleasance Cabaret Bar, 60 Pleasance
An evening of readings from Scottish and South African writers:
Alasdair Gray, Kathleen Jamie, Don Paterson
Wally Serote, Gcina Mhlope, Achmat Dangor
Saturday, 20 November 2004: 10.30 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Institute
for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
2 Hope Park Square
Study Day convened by Beate Perrey and Peter Dayan
A second Study Day devoted to current trends at the music/literature interface as part of the project "New Languages for Criticism: Cross-currents and Resistances" at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge (http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/projects/newlangs.html)
At the first Music and Literature Study Day in Cambridge, on 7 May 2004, the discussion centred on the question of what happens when one evaluates music by attributing to it the kinds of meaning normally formulated in words, say in literature or poetry. This second Study Day aims to bring into focus the converse question: what happens when literature is evaluated by attributing to it the kinds of meaning normally associated with music, rather than words? This, of course, invites us to consider what those kinds of meaning might be.
PROGRAMME:
10.30 - 11 a.m.: Coffee
11 a.m. - 1 p.m.:
Beate Perrey (Liverpool and the ENS, Paris): Moments musicaux in Adorno's writing
Janina Klassen (University of Music, Freiburg): Music as the "Language of the Heart"
David Evans (St. Andrews): What might "music" mean? A perspective from the French 19th century
Mary Breatnach (Edinburgh): The key to the sanctuary: Berlioz and musical criticism
1 - 2 p.m.: Lunch
2 - 3.30 p.m.:
Jean Khalfa (Cambridge): Meaning and Autoreferentiality in Music
Mikhail Karikis: The Acoustics of a Myth
Angela Leighton (Hull): The conditions of music in Pater
3.30 p.m. - 4. p.m.: Tea
4 - 5 p.m.:
Emma Sutton (St. Andrews): Woolf's musical prose
Gillian Beer (Cambridge):
George Eliot's musical allusions and Spencer's ideas on the meaning
and origins of music