Scotland’s Coastal Romanticisms

James Barret, A View of Stornoway, 1798. National Galleries Scotland.

This SWINC Workshop is supported by The European Commission’s Marie Curie Actions (Grant Agreement No. 890850), and jointly hosted by The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities.

This free in-person event will take place at the University of Edinburgh on 5th February 2022. For further information, please contact Dr Anna Pilz via apilz@ed.ac.uk. Advance registration is essential and is now available via this Eventbrite link.

The one-day workshop seeks to expand our understanding of the coastal beyond aesthetic categories. Contributions open out to investigations of today’s coastal romanticisms on Scotland’s shores. We invite contributions that dive into the material reality and ecologies of coasts in cultural productions from domestic travellers to transnational visitors and explorers, from writers and artists to natural historians and geologists and all those drawn to the coast in order to highlight the richness of R/romanticisms, past, present and future.

SCHEDULE

11:00-11:15: Welcome & Introduction – Professor Penny Fielding & Dr Anna Pilz

11:15-12:30: Panel I

• ‘Walking (and Sailing) West with Keats’ – Prof Claire Connolly (University College Cork)
• “Sailing on Horseback”: William Daniell’s Aquatint Tour of the West Highlands and Islands’ – Prof Nigel Leask (University of Glasgow)

12:30-13:30: Lunch Break

13:30-15:15: Panel II 

• ‘The Caithness Mermaid and Coastal Mythologies’ – Dr Katie Garner (University of St Andrews)
• ‘The Bass Rock: J. M. W. Turner, ecologies, and transmutable forms of an inshore island’ – Prof Susan Oliver (University of Essex)
• ‘“pictured seals basking, though there were none”: Coastal Travels’ Romanticisms’ – Dr Anna Pilz (University of Edinburgh)

15:15-15:45: Tea & Coffee Break

15:45-17:00: Panel III

• ‘John Galt and the Horizons of the Firth of Clyde’ – Dr Gerard Lee McKeever (University of Stirling)
• ‘Coastal encounters in the scientific writings of John Richardson, FRS, FRSE’ – Dr Christopher Donaldson (Lancaster University)

17:00-17:15: Break

17:15-18:00: Artist Talk – In Conversation with Christina Riley

[A recording of the talk with Christina Riley is available here]

18:00: Wine Reception – hosted by The Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities