18th Century/Romanticism Research Review 2010-11
A major event in this area was the School’s hosting of the 12th biennial BARS Conference, 'Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Nation' hosted by the School (July 2011, convened by Nigel Leask, Alex Benchimol and Rhian Williams), with plenary lectures from Ian Duncan, Ina Ferris and Susan Manning. Prof Duncan led an associated graduate workshop just before the conference, which was inaugurated by the launch of Murray Pittock (ed.) Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Romanticism with contributions by Benchimol, Leask and McCue. This research cluster was strengthened by the inauguration in Oct 2010 of the ‘Scottish Romanticism Research Group’ (SRRG) (conveners Alex Benchimol and Gerry McKeever). SRRG promotes research into Scottish Romanticism, especially the engagement between Enlightenment and Romanticism, and in Oct 2010 hosted a conference entitled ‘Before Blackwood's’, an interdisciplinary symposium on Scottish Journalism in the Age of Enlightenment (Benchimol/ Shuttleton/ Brown). SRRG has hosted Visiting Speaker Seminars from leading scholars in the field, including Tom Furniss and Penny Fielding, featuring informal Research Workshops from speakers before their papers. A ‘Developing Research’ series involves the cohort of PhD students working in the field, and a Long-18th Century Reading Group is also led and organised by our PGR students with associated website. Nigel Leask’s Robert Burns and Pastoral was co-winner of the NLS/Saltire Prize for the best research book of 2010. In addition to delivering several plenary lectures in the UK and overseas, he gave the annual Stephen Copley Lecture at the Centre for 18th Century Studies, University of York on 18th Oct 2011. Richard Cronin gave a number of plenary lectures and his monograph Paper Pellets (2010) was nominated for the James Russell Lowell Prize. Alex Benchimol appeared as an academic expert for the BBC Radio 4 programme, Lyrical Journey, discussing popular visual representations of Glasgow in the Romantic period. Rhona Brown completed her monograph and was invited to edit a ‘lost’ poem discovered in Walter Scott’s library at Abbotsford. James Beattie’s ‘Grotesquiad’ appeared in the Faculty of Advocates’ Newsletter, the GU website and on BBC Scotland news – she was interviewed and had a great deal of web-coverage and an article appeared in the TLS. This links to our connections (through Emeritus Prof Douglas Gifford) with the Advocates Library Abbotsford Library Project Committee. The project to digitize Scott’s annotations on his books at Abbotsford (PI: Emeritus Prof Douglas Gifford, RA: Dr Megan Coyer funded by the Carnegie Trust and GU Chancellor’s Fund) is now coming to completion.