This is a past event
Hosted by the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies
Plenary Speakers
Colin Kidd (Queen's University, Belfast)
Fiona Stafford(University of Oxford)
Registration
Registration is now closed.
The conference will take place in the MacRobert Building CPD suite (rooms 027, 028, 029)
The welcome desk will open at 12pm on Thursday 7 July (MacRobert Building reception area) with the first event at 2.15pm. The event will close at 2.30pm on Sunday 10 July.
Additional activities
Ceilidh featuring Ruth Perry and William Donaldson’s “Scottish Enlightenment Songster” (included for all delegates)
Saturday afternoon excursion to Fyvie Castle (which houses an extraordinary collection of 18th-century paintings) (included for all delegates)
Conference Dinner at the Aberdeen Art Gallery (Saturday evening) (included for all delegates)
Accommodation
Delegates are required to make their own accommodation arrangements.
There is no accommodation held in direct conjunction with the event. However, there may be ensuite rooms remaining on campus at Crombie Hall
Ensuite costs £39.50 per night B&B
Standard (shared bathroom) £34.50 per night B&B
Guests can book these by calling 01224 273444 (accommodation@abdn.ac.uk) and making a reservation with the reception desk.
It is advisable to book early to secure on campus accommodation. These rooms are allocated on a first come first served basis, and will be available to anyone visiting the campus (not just for the ECSSS conference, as it is conference season it is likely these will sell out in months prior to the event).
Alternative accommodation (Hotels and B&Bs nearby) can be viewed here
Provisional Programme
The conference will take place in the MacRobert Building CPD suite (rooms 027, 028, 029)
The welcome desk will open at 12pm on Thursday 7 July (MacRobert Building reception area) with the first event at 2.15pm. The event will close at 2.30pm on Sunday 10 July.
THURSDAY 7 JULY
12:00 Registration opens
MacRobert reception area
12:30 Lunch available
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2:15 Welcome
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2:30–4:00 Parallel Session 1Epic Ossian (1a)
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Chair: Howard Gaskill (University of Edinburgh)
Dafydd Moore (University of Plymouth) ‘“Homer á la Erse”: Ossian, Macpherson’s Iliad, and the Dynamics of Literary Primitivism’Gauti Kristmannsson (University of Iceland)‘The Poems of Ossian as National Epic(s)’Eric Gidal (University of Iowa)‘Ossianic Unconformities: Culture, Geology and the Abyss of Time’
Scottish Emigrants in North America (1b)
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Chair: Catherine Jones (University of Aberdeen)
C Jan Swearingen (Texas A&M University)‘From Aberdeen to Hanover: Patrick Henry and the Presbyterians of Virginia’Ned Landsman (Stony Brook University)‘Scottish Episcopalians and North America’Juliet Shields (University of Washington) ‘Home and Away: Emigration and Nostalgia in Eighteenth-Century Scottish Poetry’
4:00 Tea/ Coffee
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4.30–6:00 Plenary Lecture 1
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Colin Kidd (Queen’s University Belfast)‘Hypocrisy and Dissimulation in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Case of the Rev. Alexander Fergusson of Kilwinning’Chair: Cairns Craig (University of Aberdeen)
6:00 Reception & Buffet Dinner
MacRobert Foyer
FRIDAY 8 JULY
9.15–10:45 Parallel Session 2
Common Sense Philosophy and Religion (2a)
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Chair: Michael Brown (University of Aberdeen)
Paul Wood (University of Victoria)‘The Reception of the Common Sense Philosophy in Britain, 1764–1788’Alexander Broadie (University of Glasgow)‘Common Sense from the Pulpit’Bradford Bow (University of Edinburgh)‘Dugald Stewart and Common Sense Philosophy at Edinburgh University’
Gender and Enlightenment (2b)
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Chair: Catherine Parisian (University of North Carolina Pembroke)
Rosalind Carr (University of Sheffield)‘Male Refinement and Male Violence during the Scottish Enlightenment’ Mark Towsey (University of Liverpool) ‘“Observe her Heedfully”: Family, Friendship and Women’s Reading in North-East Scotland’Ruth Perry (MIT)‘Women in the Aberdeen Enlightenment: Anna Gordon and Education’
Individuals and Progress (2c)
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Chair: John Cairns (University of Edinburgh)
Karen Grudzien Baston (University of Edinburgh) ‘“Something Might Be Got Worth While”: Charles Areskine of Alva and His Estates, c. 1730–1760’Derek Janes (Gunsgreen House Eyemouth)‘Alexander Dow: Historian, Playwright—and Smuggler’s Clerk’Rivka Swenson (Virginia Commonwealth University) ‘After the Seven Years War: Identity and Recovery in Humphry Clinker’
10:45 Coffee/Tea
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11:15–12:45 Parallel Session 3Bardic Literature (3a)
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Chair: William Donaldson (MIT)
Erin Makulski Sandler (Tufts University) ‘Macpherson and Authenticity’Ronnie Young (University of Glasgow)The Progress of Genius: Beattie’s Minstrel and Aberdeen Thought’
Adam Smith and the Nature of Progress (3b)
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Chair: Bruce P. Lenman (University of St Andrews)
Fotini Vaki (Ionian University)‘The Invisible Hand and the Teleology of Nature: Smith and Kant on Progress’ Toni Carey (Pennsylvania) ‘The Hosta Principle: Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson on Self-Betterment’Jeng-Guo S Chen (Academia Sinica) ‘From Defamiliarization to Refamiliarization: Adam Smith’s Consideration of Social Relationship’
Theological and Religious Issues (3c)
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Chair: Nigel Aston (University of Leicester)
Louisianne Ferlier (Université Paris Diderot)‘Theological Debates and the University of Aberdeen 1665–1716: The Progress of Authority?’Jodi Campbell (University of Guelph) ‘Forging Faiths: Episcopalians and Anglicans, 1690–1720’Kieran German (University of Aberdeen)‘Jacobitism and Non-jurors in the North-east of Scotland, 1718–1744’.
12:45 Lunch
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2:00–3:30 Parallel Session 4Early Macpherson (4a)
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Chair: Nick Groom (University of Exeter)
Shannon Chamberlain (University of California, Berkeley)‘The Hume Problem: Scepticism and Method in the Fragments of Ancient Poetry’Kristin Lindfield-Ott (University of St Andrews) ‘“See Scot and Saxon Coalesc’d in One”: James Macpherson’s Early Poetry’Peter Nelson Lindfield-Ott (University of St Andrews)‘Gothic Fragments: An Aesthetic in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Scotland’
Scotland and America (4b)
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Chair: Mark Spencer (Brock University)
Esther Mijers (University of Reading)‘Empire before Empire’Roger Fechner (Adrian College) ‘John Witherspoon on American Progress’Andrew Hook (University of Glasgow) ‘Francis Jeffrey’s American Journal in 1813’
Authors, Publishers, Societies (4c)
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Chair: Richard B. Sher (New Jersey Institute of Technology)
David Mazella (University of Houston)‘Multiple Temporalities and Collective Authorship in the year 1771’Adam Budd (University of Edinburgh)‘The Financial Ledgers of the London-Based Scottish Bookseller Andrew Millar (1705–69)’Roger Emerson (University of Western Ontario)‘The Edinburgh Musical Society’
3:30 Tea/Coffee
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4:00–5:30 Parallel Session 5Moral Sentiments in Translation: Roundtable on New Editions of the Theory of Moral Sentiments (sponsored by the International Adam Smith Society) (5a)
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Chair: Nicholas Phillipson (University of Edinburgh)
Christel Fricke (University of Oslo)
Dionysius Drosos (University of Ioannina)Michael Biziou (University of Nice)Matti Norri (University of Helsinki)
Commentator: Ryan Patrick Hanley (Marquette University)
Literature and Topography (5b)
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Chair: Ken Simpson (University of Glasgow)
Pierre Carboni (University of Nantes) ‘“Clear North, Enfeebled South”: The Topography of Progress and Virtue in James Thomson’s Poetry’Pam Perkins (University of Manitoba) ‘Northern Visions: Orkney in Late Eighteenth-Century North Atlantic Travels’Nick Groom (University of Exeter) ‘Archipelagic Ossian: Macpherson and Representations of the British Isles’
Ossian, Enlightenment and Art (5c)
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Chair: Colin Kidd (Queen’s University Belfast)
Murdo MacDonald (University of Dundee)‘Ossian and Scottish Art’Barbara C Murison (University of Western Ontario) ‘Laughing Them Out of their Follies: Visual Attacks on the Scottish Enlightenment’Cairns Craig (University of Aberdeen)'Landscape remade: the visual art of gardening'
5:30 ECSSS AGM
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6.30 Reception, Buffet Dinner, and Ceilidh featuring William Donaldson and Ruth Perry, and the Scottish folk band Shepheard, Spiers & Watson
SATURDAY 9 JULY
9:15–10:45 Parallel Session 6
Common Sense and Moral Science (6a)
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Chair: Paul Wood (University of Victoria)
Jeffrey M. Suderman (Mount Royal University)‘Everything Connected: George Turnbull and the Premises of Common Sense’
Stephen Cowley (University of Edinburgh)‘Rejecting Common Sense: James Mylne's Theory of Perception’Gordon Graham (Princeton Theological Seminary) ‘Adam Ferguson, Progress and Moral Science’
International Relations (6b)
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Chair: Pierre Carboni (University of Nantes)
Philippe Massot-Bordenave (Université de Toulouse le Mirail)‘The Abbé Colbert, Bishop of Rodez: A Scot Enlightens the South of France?’Deidre Dawson (Michigan State University)'Fingal Meets Vercingetorix: Ossianism and the Transformation of French National Identity in Post-Revolutionary France’
Literature, Politics and Popular Culture (6c)
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Chair: Jane Rendall (University of York)
Martha McGill (University of Edinburgh) ‘The “Very Rare & Memorable” Tales of James Cowan: Ghost Beliefs in Early Eighteenth-Century Scotland’
Elizabeth Kraft (University of Georgia) ‘Jacobitism in the 1750s: The Ideal of the Patriot King in Samuel Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison and in David Mallet’s Revision of Alfred: A Masque’
Frances B Singh (Hostos Community College)‘Oats and Wild Oats, or Did Yorick Come to Forres?’
10.45 Coffee/Tea
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11.15–12:45 Plenary Lecture 2
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Fiona Stafford (Oxford University)‘Everything Unreconciled? The Place of Macpherson’s Ossian’
Chair: Howard Gaskill (University of Edinburgh)
12.45 Lunch
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2:00 Trip to Fyvie Castle
Buses leave from MacRobert building and at 2pm prompt. Please ensure you are at the carpark in front of the MacRobert building approx 10 minutes prior to departure. The bus will be leaving Fyvie castle at 5pm and will return to the Aberdeen Art Gallery for the buffet dinner at 6pm.
6:00-8:00 Buffet dinner in Aberdeen Art GalleryPresentation of the ECSSS Lifetime Achievement Award to Nicholas Phillipson, University of Edinburgh, by Susan Manning
SUNDAY 10 JULY
9:45–11:15 Parallel Session 7The Nature of Progress (7a)
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Chair: Thomas Ahnert (University of Edinburgh)
Paul Tonks (Yonsei University)‘Global Modernity: Patrick Colquhoun and the Possibilities of Progress’Jack A Hill (Texas Christian University) ‘Why Does Marx Cite Adam Ferguson and How Does Ferguson’s Idea of Progress Represent a Critique of Marx?’Glen Doris (University of Aberdeen) ‘Adam Smith against Abolition: The Use of Smith's Ideology of Political Change to Thwart the Abolition of the Slave Trade in Parliament’
Bards and Poets (7b)
Chair: Susan Manning (University of Edinburgh)
Andy Greenwood (University of Chicago)‘Progression from Pastoral to Commercial Society: Allan Ramsay’s Scots Songs as “Test Case” for the Stadial Theory of the Scottish Enlightenment’Jeff Strabone (Connecticut College)‘Bardic Reliques: Allan Ramsay and Romantic Editing’Rhona Brown (University of Glasgow) ‘Robert Fergusson: Poet of Progress’
Hume and his Contemporaries (7c)
Chair: Alexander Broadie (University of Glasgow)
M A Stewart (University of Aberdeen) ‘Hume’s Philosophy of Religion: Enlightened Progress or Cul-de-sac?’
James Harris (University of St Andrews)‘Parts X and XI of Hume’s Dialogues: Their Context and Function’
David Raynor (University of Ottawa) ‘David Hume and that “Silly Bigotted Fellow Beattie”’
11.15 Coffee/Tea
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11.45–1:00 Plenary Lecture 3
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Calum Colvin (University of Dundee)‘Contemporary Ossian’
Chair: Cairns Craig (University of Aberdeen)
1:00 Lunch
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2:30 Departure
- Venue
- University of Aberdeen