CONFERENCES AND SEMINARS

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Future Events

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"From Missionising to Militourism: Anglo-American imperialism and the Pacific Imaginary":
7-10 December 2009. A one-day symposium on 7 December, followed by three morning workshops on 8-10 December.

"Darwin and Lincoln on Race and Society": 13 November 2009

Symposia related to the "Dialogues of Enlightenment" research theme

Workshops: "Translations, Adaptations and Modalities"

Workshops: "New Perspectives for the Humanities in the Twenty-first Century"

IASH Work-in-Progress Seminars

STAR Postgraduate Seminar in American Studies

Decadence Reading Group

Renaissance and Early Modern Group - fortnightly meetings on Thursdays at 1 p.m. Further information from Dr. Stephen Bowd (email: Stephen.Bowd@ed.ac.uk)

Speculative Lunches


Recent Events

Conference: Dialogues of Enlightenment: 11-13 June 2009 (Annual Meeting of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes)

Conference: "Romantic Translation, 1780-1830": Tuesday, 12 May 2009

Practical Translation Workshop: "Alice in Real Life": Thursday 7 May 2009

Symposium: "Reading the Photographic Image: Thursday, 19 March 2009

Symposia: "Dialogues with Darwin: Darwin and Edinburgh": Spring 2009

Lecture by Professor Marilyn Strathern on "The Value of 'Useless Knowledge'": 6 February 2009

AND

CHAT (Conversations in Humanities, Arts and Technologies) with Professor Marilyn Strathern: 6 February 2009

Seminar: "Kant in Königsberg: Imperial Cosmopolitanism": 9 March 2009

One-Day Conference: "Ultima Thule: Exploring Northern Scotland and Scandinavia in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries": 30 January 2009

Round Table Discussion on "The Crisis in the Humanities": Friday 21 November, 2008

Stevenson Textual Workshop: 11 July 2008

Workshop: "Everything in Moderation: Individuals, institutions and intellectuals in flux": 27 June 2008

A series of Workshops on "Embodied Values and the Environment"

  • Embodied Values and the Environment in Practice (19-20 June 2008)
  • Environmental Aesthetics and Ethics (10-11 January 2008)
  • Philosophy of Nature and Embodied Values (5-6 July 2007)

A series of one-day Workshops on "Transnational Histories of the Book", organised by the Centre for the History of the Book:

Anglophone Literature on the Continent 1800-1945 (30 May 2008)
Travel and Tourism (3 October 2008)

Roundtable: "Scott, Scotland, and Romantic Studies": Wednesday, 23 April 2008

Transatlantic Ideas of the American Founding: One-day Conference, Thursday 27 March 2008

Practice-based Research Working Group: Workshop, 28 February 2008

Workshop: "Biography, national narratives and history": 13 December 2007

Roundtable: "Idealism and Theology in Nineteenth-Century Scottish Literature": 12 December 2007

Early Modern Collections Seminar: Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama Collections in Edinburgh: 24 November 2007

Discussion on "Trauma - Representation - Memory": 15 November 2007

Edinburgh Renaissance/Early Modern research group: Inaugural meeting 26 October 2007

Conference: "Belonging in the New Europe: A Scottish Perspective" - 13-14 September 2007

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values: "The Inner Life of Empires": 5-6 March 2007

"Is History Fiction?" Seminar: 8 November 2006

Seminar on "Lyotard, Art and Music": 10 July 2006

Workshop on the Philosophy of the Enlightenment: 25 May 2006

Symposium on "Life writing and life representation in the long 18th Century (1670-1830)": 10 May 2006

One-day Symposium: "Acts of Union: Scottish and Irish thought and culture, 1707-1801": 29 March 2006

Joint British Academy/IASH Colloquium on "A Wealth of Ideas: The Value of the Humanities in Modern Society": 15 March 2006

One-day conference "Aesthetics, Culture and Society", 14 March 2006

IASH Open Day, 27 September 2005

"Material Cultures" Workshops, 20 & 21 July 2005: Peter Burke, Roger Chartier, Robert Darnton and John Barnard

Leverhulme Project: Science of Man in Scotland

History of the Book in Scotland Seminar: Friday, 27 May 2005

"Medicine and Poetry in Edinburgh: Early-Enlightenment Connections" Colloquium: Saturday,7 May 2005

'Testimonies of Violence: Narratives and Memory in Conflict' Colloquium: Monday, 25 April 2005

'Biography and the Enlightenment' Colloquium: Saturday 27 November 2004

Music and Literature Study Day: 20 November 2004

Meeting South African Writers: 11 - 12 October 2004
To celebrate 10 Years of Freedom in South Africa

Conference: Visual Knowledges (September 2003)

Conference: The New Information Order and the Future of the Archive (March 2002)


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:

  • A renewed interest in Scott's work after decades on the relative margins of the Romantic canon;
  • The place of Edinburgh as a "cultural capital" in the nineteenth century;
  • So-called "secondary" writers and forms popular in the age of Scott: Galt, Hogg, Johnstone, and Lockhart; national and regional tales, memoir, autobiography, and the literary magazine;
  • The idea of a "post-Enlightenment" period in literary history;
  • Scottish philosophy and "modernity";
  • Scotland and transatlantic literary / cultural connections;
  • Whether insights gleaned from postcolonial literature and theory are useful for understanding post-1707 Scotland;
  • Enlightenment history and the institution of the novel.

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"

----

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:

  • To what extent do the works of nineteenth-century Scottish authors display the influence of German Idealism? And how is this appeal to the Idealist tradition to be situated with regard to the religious thought of the author in question?
  • Do explicit references to the German Idealist tradition in these works convey an actual understanding of the philosophical issues at hand? And is this understanding mediated in any way by specifically theological considerations?
  • How can this relation between idealism and theology be understood in relation to broader continental philosophical and theological traditions? And how does the Scottish interpretation of German Idealism relate to a broader British reception of such work, as demonstrated in Coleridge, Eliot, et al.?
  • What is the specific position of the Old and New Testaments in the works of the authors in question?
  • What is the relevance of this line of questioning for the study of Scottish literature today?
  • Does the specific combination of idealism and Protestant theology in Scottish writing call for particular approaches or perspectives that are (in)compatible with 'Victorian Studies'?
  • What is the current state of research on these topics in the respective disciplines of theology and literary and religious studies?
  • Are there any opportunities for further interdisciplinary collaboration?

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

  • radical transformations of education and the emergence of modern disciplinary configurations
  • rule-governed practices of the Enlightenment, whether institutionalised or oppositional
  • changing rituals, habits and customs in the Enlightenment, and their study by contemporaries
  • 'alternative conversations': the challenge, for example, of erudite sociability to institutions during the Enlightenment

For full details of the Workshops and other events related to this research theme click here


STAR Postgraduate Seminar in American Studies

Participation is welcomed in this seminar for students of North American literature, history and culture and all those with interests in Transatlanticism.

The seminar is not period-specific, and serves as the core teaching seminar for University of Edinburgh postgraduates working in this area. In addition, we welcome participation from students across Scotland, visiting scholars and students with American interests, and members of staff.

Seminar Programme: Autumn 2009
All seminars will be held on Thursdays at 4 p.m. at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities,
Hope Park Square, unless otherwise stated

29 October
Transatlantic Reading Group Session

13 November
"Darwin and Lincoln on Race and Society"

A one-day conference organised jointly by IASH and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, followed by a public lecture by Marek Kohn: "Believing in Change: Darwin, Lincoln, Obama"

Full details of the programme and how to register at http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/events

19 November
Prof. Andrew Ginger (University of Stirling): "1826 and the Atlantic"

3 December
Joint STAR/Geography seminar

11 December
5.30 pm, St. Cecilia's Hall, Cowgate
Professor David Simpson (University of California, Davis): "Translating America in the Early Nineteenth Century"

 

Associated Event:

"From Missionising to Militourism: Anglo-American imperialism and the Pacific Imaginary"
7-10 December 2009

A symposium and series of workshops exploring the confluence of American and British (neo)-colonialism in the Pacific, as represented in various forms of Pacific discourse (including literature, film, photography and ethnography).

Full details at http://www.star.ac.uk/atlantic-exchange/anglo-american-pacific-encounters.aspx

 

Further information about the STAR project can be found on the project website: http://www.star.ac.uk


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

 


MEETING SOUTH AFRICAN WRITERS

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

 


Music and Literature II

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


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