Register on Eventbrite for access to the full event online and e-mail us if you have any questions.
All scheduled times indicate BST. We hope the later starting times will allow both our international and local attendees comfortable access to the whole programme.
The Symposium for Seventeenth-Century Scottish Literatures is pleased to announce our second gathering on the 27th–29th April 2022. Our inaugural symposium fostered dialogues on the century’s diverse corpus and reflected on the shape of current scholarship. With these contours sketched, this year we consider where the literary landmarks of the Scottish seventeenth-century lie and where, once placed, the inevitable faultlines appear.
The historical landscape of the seventeenth century is replete with landmarks – from regal union, regicide and restoration to rebellions and territorial expansion. James VI’s ascension to the London throne made possible an Imperial vision for a united British state. As well as colonial venture and military conflict, indentured slavery criminal punishment, and economic migration continued to scatter the Scottish diaspora across Europe and beyond. As R.D.S Jack observed in 1971 “literary men will produce literature whatever the theme”; yet the map of Scotland’s seventeenth century, so far, presents a lacuna in histories of Scottish literature. The aftershocks of the European Renaissance are felt in canonical writers from Drummond to Urquhart. The blurring of cultural boundaries with England and Europe fed literary networks and their readerships: printers, publishers, pamphleteers, poets, playwrights, lyricists, preachers, historians, travellers, and reporters fed a burgeoning print culture.
Proposals for papers have been accepted for this year’s event but we are also inviting blog posts to form a curated collection on the SSCSL website as part of the event. Images, transcriptions, posters are all accepted as content. Blogs can also take the form of sharing ideas that may not fit in a formal paper or article or describing particular research or cultural trips and experiences which are relevant to seventeenth-century Scottish literatures. It is our hope that the collection will be varied and broad. Researchers at any stage are encouraged to submit, but we particularly invite the submissions of undergraduate students who wish to introduce their ideas to a supportive, wider audience within the field and gain experience in sharing research. For more information, please email us at the address below and we will be happy to help.
The symposium is free to attend. Given the rapidly unfolding restrictions on in-person events, the symposium will be on Zoom, with discussion time between papers. We kindly ask that you inform us of any accessibility when registration opens.
We are delighted to introduce the first SSCSL Podcast! This episode features part 1 of a group interview featuring members of the committee. The discussion was facilitated by Dr Theo van Heijnsbergen. We discuss the creation of the Symposium, the organisational challenges we faced due to COVID, and the benefits of hosting events online. There will also be some behind-the-scenes information of the upcoming Symposium for you to enjoy!
We have been absolutely delighted with the proposals that have been coming in for papers so far – there is already a fascinating and exciting range of topics. We have decided to extend our initial deadline for abstracts to widen the possibility for discussion further. This new date is Saturday 26th February, 2022.
This applies to all proposals, so whether you’d like to offer a paper or a blog post, we would love to hear from you!
The SSCSL committee are thrilled to share the call for papers for this year’s symposium, being held online on the 27th–29th of April, 2022. The deadline for abstract submissions is Wednesday the 14th of February. The theme for this year’s symposium is Landmarks and Faultlines.
Full details can be found in the downloadable call for papers document.
Scottish Colonial Literature brings together previously dispersed sources to argue for a tradition of Scottish colonial writing before the Union of Parliaments. It focuses on three undertakings at Nova Scotia (1620s), East New Jersey (1680s) and the Isthmus of Panama, then known as Darien (1690s). Analysing works written in the larger context of the Scottish Atlantic, it examines how the Atlantic influenced seventeenth-century Scottish literature and vice versa. The relationship between art and ideology is key to the author’s discussion as Sandrock argues early modern writing employed utopianism as a tool for empire-building and as a means of claiming power over the Atlantic.
Kirsten Sandrock is Lecturer in English Philology at the University of Goettingen in Germany. She is the author of Gender and Region: Maritime Fiction in English by Canadian Women, 1976-2005 (Wissner, 2009). She has published on Atlantic literature, early modern literature, Canadian studies, Scottish literature and culture and postcolonial literatures.
If you have any accessibility requirements, please let us know by Friday the 22nd of January using our contact form.
We are very excited to annouce our call for papers! Please click the image above or link below for full information. Feel free to contact us with any queries you might have!
Find us on Facebook @17thcsymposium and Twitter @century_17th for updates on our very first symposium event!
