Roslyn Potter
Published: 31 July 2023
July 2023
With generous CSCS Seedcorn funding, Roslyn was able to attend the 17th International Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Scottish Languages, Literatures and Cultures (aka Scoticonference). This triannual conference is a vital meeting of scholars at every career stage working in medieval and early modern Scottish studies and having the opportunity to present on her PhD research to peers and superiors was very important to her on a personal as well as an academic level. Her paper discussed manuscripts compiled by women living and working in seventeenth century Scotland; Jean Wemyss, Anne Ker, and Anne Elcho created collections of poem and song, as well as books of receipts, recipes and remedies. Her selection of manuscripts provide evidence for interconnected networks of literary women who recorded their knowledge for posterity, as well as for each other. Roslyn was glad to be able to discuss the expanding field of domestic history which acquaints contemporary readers with alternative and important accounts of daily life in early modern Scotland.
Roslyn was delighted to finally introduce her PhD research to the community of medieval and early modern scholars and received positive, constructive feedback for her paper. Being able to meet many PGRs from different institutions and learn about the great variety of topics being explored across disciplines was also a highlight. The plenaries and panels spanned topics which informed her PhD directly (‘Mothers and motherhood’ and ‘Masculinities and misogyny’), while others which indirectly relate to her research influenced strands of thought in surprising and challenging ways (‘Dunbar, Race and other challenges’ and ‘Landscapes of comedy’).
The combination of sharing ideas, meeting like-minded people and engaging in a sphere of general enthusiasm for all things medieval and early modern made Scoticonference a landmark moment in Roslyn's PhD thus far. She feels as though she has grown in confidence since the experience and looks forward to connecting with people and projects in the future.
First published: 31 July 2023
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