Robert Burns: At Home and Abroad
University of Glasgow Annual Robert Burns Conference
12 January 2013
Venue: The Western Infirmary Lecture Theatre
Time: 9.00am - 5.30pm
On Saturday 12 January 2013 the Centre for Robert Burns Studies was delighted to host its annual conference, this time on the theme of 'Robert Burns: At Home and Abroad'. We are delighted to announce that you can now listen to a selection of these papers on Glasgow's iTunesU. To listen, please click here.
In his paper, 'Fresh insight into Robert Burns's time at Mossgiel Farm', Alan Reid provided insights into Burns's contemporaries and genealogy in eighteenth-century Ayrshire.
Peter Kormylo and Hannah Dyka jointly presented their paper, 'Robert Burns - the Ukranian Translations', in which they discussed different facets of Ukranian translation of Burns's poetry.
Professor David Purdie presented information on the upcoming and newly-revised Burns Encyclopedia, which was first published in 1959 by Maurice Lindsay. The upcoming fourth edition - edited by Professor Purdie, Professor Gerard Carruthers and Dr Kirsteen McCue, has been thoroughly revised and updated in light of contemporary scholarship, and is due to be released in June 2013.
Dr Pauline Mackay gave the first Burns Scotland lecture: 'Robert Burns and Clarinda: The Objects of the Affair.' Dr Mackay demonstrated the usefulness of the confined collections of Burns Scotland in researching Burns's epistolatory affair with Agnes McLehose.
Bill Adair's performance of some of Burns's earliest and best-known songs was very well received. You can hear and download some of these by clicking here.
Mr Frank Shaw, the past president of the St Andrew's Society of Atlanta, delivered a fascinating paper on 'The History of Atlanta Burns Club.'
Michael Morris discussed 'Robert Burns and the Caribbean', and paid particular attention to references in Burns's work to the slave trade.
In his paper, 'The Scott-Douglas manuscripts: recently discovered material on Burns', Mr Chris Rollie revealed recently re-discovered letters by Burns and his contemporaries.
To finish the day, Professor Nigel Leask delivered the plenary paper on 'Burns's Prose in the New Oxford edition', with particular reference to Burns's tour of the Highlands.
After this fascinating and very enjoyable day, we look forward to our next annual conference, in January 2014!