Elizabeth Bishop in Glasgow: A Symposium (26th to 28th June 2024) Early Announcement and Call for Papers

The University of Glasgow, College of Arts & Humanities, is delighted to welcome the 2024 Elizabeth Bishop Symposium to our beautiful, historic and friendly city. Following on from similar events in Oxford, Paris and Sheffield, Elizabeth Bishop in Glasgow provides an opportunity both to hear about recent and emerging work in Bishop Studies, and to consider Bishop’s writing in a Scottish Atlantic context – a legacy that helped to shape the history and culture of Great Village, Nova Scotia, Bishop’s maternal family home and her imaginative lodestone. Bishop was familiar from childhood with the poetry of Robert Burns (and had editions of his work in her adult library); our Symposium will consider the influence of Burns – and of other Scottish writers and artists – on Bishop’s writing. And it will ask, in turn, about Bishop’s influence on her successors in Scotland up to the present day. 

Confirmed speakers include Professor Langdon Hammer (Yale University) and Victoria Fox (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). 

Elizabeth Bishop in Glasgow is open to anyone with an interest in Bishop’s life, work and reception; in modern poetry; in Scottish and American literature and culture, in the Scottish Atlantic and in related fields. We welcome proposals for short papers (c. 20 minutes) or other forms of participation on these and related themes. Other areas of focus might include (but are not limited to): 

Boundaries

Travel and walking

The North

Mystery

Bishop’s correspondence

Religion, Protestantism, the Bible

Language: Gaelic and Scots

Music, Scottish Song, hymns

Diaspora

The Atlantic

Trade

Scottish Atlantic slavery

Publishing history

Visual culture

Bishop’s contemporaries

Bishop’s influence

Bishop in / and translation

Gender and sexuality

Robert Burns, Alexander Selkirk, Thomas and Jane Carlyle 

Please send brief proposals for papers, panels (3 contributors) or other forms of participation to: vp-arts@glasgow.ac.uk by MONDAY 15th JANUARY 2024. 

Location: Elizabeth Bishop in Glasgow will take place in the James McCune Smith Building on the University of Glasgow’s main (Gilmorehill) campus in the lively West End of Glasgow and will open on the morning of Weds 26th June and close after lunch on Fri 28th . The booking page will open shortly. There will be time in the programme to visit the Hunterian Art Gallery, the Hunterian Museum or the Charles Rennie Mackintosh House. The campus is easily accessible by bus or subway from the city centre and there are hotels, guesthouses and restaurants close by.

 For further information about the campus, visitor attractions, accessibility information and transport links see: University of Glasgow - Explore. For details about the city of Glasgow, including accommodation, things to see and do, and where to eat, see: Visit Glasgow - hotels and accommodation - People Make Glasgow and for information about the rest of Scotland, see: Accommodation in Scotland - Plan Your Stay | VisitScotland

Organisers and Steering Group: Jo Gill (University of Glasgow); Jonathan Ellis (University of Sheffield); Angus Cleghorn (Seneca College); Bethany Hicok (Williams College); Tom Travisano (Hartwick College).