Scotland’s best to gather in New York for window on Britain
Scottish Secretary Helen Liddell leads top Scots in show of support for US
- Scotland’s leading cultural and educational institutions are set to fly the flag of support for New York during a festival on Britain in the city next week.
In a unique partnership, Scotland’s four ancient universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews, along with the Museum of Scotland and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, will present a series of events on the special relationship between Scotland and America during the UKwithNY (United Kingdom in New York) Festival.
UKwithNY, October 14-28, is the largest international initiative in the city for almost 20 years. It will feature a programme of some 200 events, from food and fashion to sports, business and culture, reflecting the spirit of Britain today.
One of the highlights is a major one-day public symposium exploring Scotland’s legacy and future in America at Columbia University in New York on October 20.
Scottish Secretary Helen Liddell MP will lead a top-flight line-up of speakers at the symposium including Richard Holloway, the former Bishop of Edinburgh, the industrialist Euan Baird, the journalist and critic Joyce McMillan, and the Scottish historian Tom Devine of the University of Aberdeen.
Other speakers include the philosopher John Haldane, of the University of St Andrews, literary scholar Andrew Hook of the University of Glasgow and the political expert Alice Brown of The University of Edinburgh. Jenni Calder, of The Museum of Scotland, will highlight the museum’s international profile.
Mrs Liddell said that she was delighted to be involved. “In Scotland, there are only five million of us, but in a recent census, more than 40million Americans were proud to declare that they were Scots. I want to reach out to those American Scots, to engage them and invite them to share in the re-birth of their heritage,” she said.
The event is being presented by the New York-based American-Scottish Foundation and sponsored by Euan Baird, CEO of Schlumberger. Jonathan R Cole, Provost of Columbia, will open the symposium which will be chaired by two distinguished Columbia scholars Alan Brinkley and Evan Cornog.
Professor Devine, symposium director, said: “We hope that this exciting venture will renew and refresh the long-standing intellectual and cultural connections between Scotland and the US. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Scottish educational, scientific and religious institutions played a key role in the functioning of modern America.”
Other events include a lecture on the American adventures of Robert Louis Stevenson by Jenni Calder at the New York Historical Society, and a discussion on the Invention of Scotland by Tom Devine, timed to coincide with the launch of the US paperback of his best-selling book, The Scottish Nation: 1700-2000.
The celebrity cook and broadcaster Clarissa Dickson Wright, Rector of Aberdeen, and Sir John Scott, co-presenter of the BBC television series Clarissa and the Countryman, will also carry out a series of engagements in New York next week including an evening of food and conversation at the famous Waldorf=Astoria Hotel.
An integrated promotional campaign has been created by Edinburgh-based Graphic Partners Ltd, Scottish Design Consultancy of the Year 2001, to market the events.
For more information, visit www.scotlandamerica.com or www.ukinny.com
MEDIA CONTACTS
Leonard Forman, for ScotlandAmerica, on (0)1224 273842,
or w.l.forman@abdn.ac.uk or Alan L Bain, for American-Scottish Foundation,
on (212) 605 0338, or asf@wwbcny.com
Shelley Clark, Lou Hammond & Associates, for UKwithNY
on (212) 981 0227 or shelleyc@lhammond.com
Issued by Public Relations Office, External Relations, University of Aberdeen, King's College, Aberdeen. Tel: (01224) 272014 Fax: (01224) 272086.
University Press Office on telephone +44 (0)1224-273778 or email a.ramsay@admin.abdn.ac.uk.