Scotland and Islandness – new edited collection

Scotland and Islandness: Explorations in Community, Economy and Culture (2021) Edited By Kathryn A. Burnett, Ray Burnett and Michael Danson

Peter Lang – Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, New York, Wien, 2021. XIV, 262 pp., 2 fig. b/w.

Studies in the History and Culture of Scotland

Scotland’s islands are diverse, resourceful and singularly iconic in national and global imaginations of places ‘apart’ yet readily reached. This collection of essays offers a fascinating commentary on Scotland’s island communities that celebrates their histories, cultures and economies in general terms. Recognising a complex geography of distinct regions and island spaces, the collection speaks to broader themes of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, narratives of place and people, the ideas and policies of island and regional distinctiveness, as well as particular examinations of literature, language, migration, land reform, and industry. With a view to placing ideas and expressions of islandness within a lived reality of island life and scholarship, the collection provides a multidisciplinary perspective on the value of continued and expanding research commentaries on Scotland’s islands for both a Scottish and an international readership. 

This book should instantly appeal to scholars of Island Studies, Scottish Studies, and Regional Studies of northern and peripheral Europe. Readers with particular interests in the sociology and history of Scottish rural and northern Atlantic communities, the cultural histories and economies of remote and island places, and the pressing socioeconomic agenda of small island sustainability, community building and resilience should also find the collection offers current commentaries on these broad themes illustrated with local island examples and contingencies.

Available in Hardback, PDF and Ebook.

https://www.peterlang.com/view/9781789974133/html/ch05.xhtml

“Whichever way I look I see a clouded horizon”: Compton Mackenzie SCIS Research Paper at MeCCSA 2019

MECCSA 2019, University of Stirling

 

Kathryn A. Burnett, University of the West of Scotland and Ray Burnett, Scottish Centre for Island Studies

“Whichever way I look I see a clouded horizon” wrote Mackenzie once of his uneasy relationship with the island of Herm, in the English Channel.  D.H. Lawrence’s tale (pub.1928) of the “the man who loved  islands” is reputed to be greatly informed by the complex affections and affectations of  – amongst many descriptors – writer, broadcaster, activist, and resolute islophile Compton Mackenzie.  The “topos of the island explores and creates bridges between the real and the imaginary” state Stephanides and Bassett (2008) but crucially also between “genres and disciplines ”. This paper deploys a retrospective lens through the post-war iconography of Whisky Galore (1949 Dir., Mackendrick), offering a pivoting multi-disciplinary perspective of Mackenzie ’s time in the Hebrides, as well as  his “island time” spent elsewhere. With reference to Mackenzie’s own memoirs – not least  of his time among the “aristocrats of democracy” – and his considerable published works, as well as media accounts and broadcast archive, off-shore socio-political questions will be asked of onshore cultural policy, and of continuing  dialogues of ‘remoteness’, ‘islandness’, independence and nationhood today.

 

Islandness: Identity and Independence Panel MECCSA 2019

MECCSA 2019 (Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association) Annual Conference, University of Stirling

Islandness: Identity and Independence Panel proposer: Dr Kathryn A Burnett, University of the West of Scotland;  Contributors Mr Tony Grace,  Mr Ray Burnett and Dr Kathryn A. Burnett; Chair: Dr Sarah Neely, University of Stirling.

This Scottish Centre for Island Studies panel contribution is offered in close reflection of the 40^th anniversary of MacDiarmid’s death in 1978, and the 90^th anniversary of the formation of the National Party of Scotland, which involved both MacDiarmid and Mackenzie. 2019 itself is the 50^th anniversary of the release of the iconic island film ‘Whisky Galore’ based on Compton Mackenzie’s celebrated novel. This film continues to offer a set of island tropes that signify both Scottishness and Britishness as well as the ‘national antisyzgies’ of cultural authenticities, the islandness complicities of place and people and the mediated complexities of remoteness, connectedness and independences. A further thematic of ‘island and national liberty’ draws on archival records and new film practice celebrating the ‘father of biography’ James Boswell, and his celebrated accounts of ‘tours’ including the Hebrides (1773) with Johnson, as well as his earlier account of Corsica and most particularly its independence movement.

We are delighted to be working in partnership with The Boswell Trust and hope to revisit aspects of this themed panel later in the year as part of the Boswell Trust’s event and celebrations diary 2019.

Book now! A fantastic line-up for Scottish Centre for Geopetics and UHI: Expressing the Earth conference, Argyll – June 2017

A Trans-disciplinary Conference the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics in collaboration with the University of the Highlands and Islands Seil, Easdale, Kilmartin and Luing, Argyll
22-24 June 2017
Call for Engagement: https://www.facebook.com/events/1254649587891661/
Creative workshops, presentations, papers and performances
‘Geopoetics is concerned, fundamentally, with a relationship to the earth and the
opening of a world’.
The Scottish Centre for Geopoetics and the University of the Highlands and Islands
will host Expressing the Earth in Argyll 2017 to bring together creative artists,
musicians, poets and film makers along with academics, researchers, students and
teachers to explore, create and debate the earth and the environment in this
spectacular area of Scotland.
‘Atlantic space, the west coast of Europe, is characterised in the first instance by
fragmentation … a multitude, a proliferation of islands and peninsulas separated
by difficult waters. It is a territory of dispersion and precariousness – but each
fragment is exact in itself, there is no confusion in this plurality. In a word, unity
is not something given, to be taken for granted, it has to be composed.’ (Kenneth
White, 2004)
Expressing the Earth will look to the multitude and proliferation of the islands
and peninsulas and address the ways in which people are influenced and brought
together by these features from the Neolithic and Bronze Age, early Celtic Christian
heritage and seafaring history to more recent industrial exploitation of the
Slate Islands.
Themes and activities, rooted in Geopoetics, include literature, history, visual
arts, film making, archaeology, geology, geography and theology – with active engagement and creative outcomes as central to the conference as academic papers
and presentations.

The conference will take place at the Seil Island Hall in Argyll with field activities
also in Kilmartin Glen, Easdale Island and the Isle of Luing. Poetry readings, musical
performances and social gatherings will play a key part in the conference programme
and it is intended that publications and exhibitions will follow.

The full programme is detailed here: http://www.geopoetics.org.uk/

The Curiosity Cabinet, by Catherine Czerkawska

Vulpes Libris

Perhaps we need to consult more in the den – I had no idea that the Island in Anne’s choice yesterday would be so close to the island setting of mine today (and that after I’d made such a point of saying that there is no discernible theme this week).

Catherine Czerkawska’s novel The Curiosity Cabinet is set on a fictional Hebridean Island, Garve, or Eilean Garbh. It reminded me of a gentler version of the island of Raasay, and made me yearn to go back; in fact, it is based on the island of Gigha, which has immediately found a place on my holiday list. I love islands and all that is unique about them. I love the idea that each island is a miniature world, with tiny bays, moors, mountains, and that is so easy to shrug off the day to day and behave as though the…

View original post 1,624 more words

Clàr-ama na Co-labhairt

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/A-Cholaiste/Naidheachdan/somhairle/index_gd.html

Ainmeil Thar Cheudan

Comharrachadh Ceud Bliadhna bho rugadh Somhairle MacGill-Eain Diciadain 15 –  Disathairne 18 Ògmhios 2011 Mar  chomharrachadh air ceud bliadhna bhon rugadh Somhairle MacGill-Eain (1911 –  1996), tha Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Ionad Nàiseanta na Gàidhlig agus an t-Ionad  Albannach airson Sgrùdaidhean Eilein aig Oilthigh Taobh Siar na h-Alba a’ toirt cuiridh dhuibh tighinn còmhla rinn aig comharrachadh de bheatha,  de  shaothair agus de  na dh’fhàg e mar dhìleab.Am measg nan urramach ionadail, nàiseanta is  eadar-nàiseanta a bhios a’ nochdadh ann, bidh Liz Lochhead, a chaidh a chur an  dreuchd o chionn ghoirid mar Bhàrd-molaidh na h-Alba agus Aonghas MacNeacail. Bidh cuideachd an t-Ollamh Douglas Gifford, Timothy  Neat, an t-Ollamh Máir Ní Annracháin agus Crìsdean MacIlleBhàin. Gheibhear fuireach aig a’ Cholaiste airson  £275 le trì oidhcheannan, biadh agus dìnneir na co-labhairt sa phrìs. Cosgaidh  e £35 a bhith an làthair gach latha as aonais cosgais àite-fuirich agus tha  prìsean sònraichte ann do dh’oileanaich. Ma tha sibh ag iarraidh àite a bhucadh aig  a’ cho-labhairt lìonaibh AM FOIRM AIR LOIDHNE seo a-steach no cuiribh fios gu  Sandra Byrne air 01471 888 000 no air post-d.

Book by 29th April for Sorley MacLean 2011

Booking & Costs are detailed at the event website.

For all event information  including booking and registration, keynotes, programme please access the event website hosted at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig at:

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/A-Cholaiste/Naidheachdan/somhairle/index_en.html

Delegates can choose to stay on campus for the duration of the conference at a rate of £275 which includes 3 nights accommodation, full board and conference dinner. A daily delegate rate of £35 not including accommodation is also available, as are special discounted rates for students.

To book your place at the conference fill in our ONLINE BOOKING FORM or contact Sandra Byrne on 01471 888 000 or by e-mail.
Closing Date for registrations 29 April 2011

Ainmeil Thar Cheudan: A Centenary Celebration of Sorley MacLean (1911-2011)

Ainmeal Thar Cheudan

A Centenary Celebration of Sorley MacLean (1911-2011) Thursday 16 – Saturday 18 June 2011 Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Isle of Skye In commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Sorley MacLean (1911 – 1996) Sabhal Mòr Ostaig and the Scottish Centre for Island Studies, Faculty of Business and Creative Industries, University of the West of Scotland invite you to join in a celebration of his life, work and legacy. It is anticipated that this event will offer a range of academic and creative responses to Sorley’s cultural and political legacy with particular attention to his deep roots and referencing of island culture, history and experience. Furthermore, this proposed event will explore, with both established and more recently introduced scholars and artists, the significance and importance of Sorley MacLean within the wider context of the national culture of Scotland, the cultural terrain of the Highlands and Islands, and the cultural engagement of the 20th century Scottish left. The academic focus will be a two day event structured around a selection of papers and discussion panels, as well as performance and creative practice activity detailing both Sorley’s own work and his inspiration to others. In keeping with the internationalist perspectives that permeate Sorley’s own work, the event will be framed as an opportunity to offer an appreciation of what experiences and understanding of island life and culture, and of an island sense of place and dwelling, specifically but not exclusively in reference to Scotland, informed Sorley in his creative work and commentary. Online Booking: Access  event website at http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/A-Cholaiste/Naidheachdan/somhairle/index_en.html

Ainmeal Thar Cheudan Sorley MacLean Centenary Research Event 2011

The Scottish Centre for Island Studies, at University of the West of Scotland will hold a centenary celebration research event in partnership with Sabhal Mòr Ostaig UHI and the Sorley MacLean Trust.  http://www.uws.ac.uk/schoolsdepts/mlm/sorley-maclean/index.asp 

Ainmeal Thar Cheudan

A Centenary Celebration of Sorley MacLean (1911-2011) Thursday 16 – Saturday 18 June 2011 Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Isle of Skye In commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Sorley MacLean (1911 – 1996) Sabhal Mòr Ostaig and the Scottish Centre for Island Studies, Faculty of Business and Creative Industries, University of the West of Scotland invite you to join in a celebration of his life, work and legacy. It is anticipated that this event will offer a range of academic and creative responses to Sorley’s cultural and political legacy with particular attention to his deep roots and referencing of island culture, history and experience. Furthermore, this proposed event will explore, with both established and more recently introduced scholars and artists, the significance and importance of Sorley MacLean within the wider context of the national culture of Scotland, the cultural terrain of the Highlands and Islands, and the cultural engagement of the 20th century Scottish left. The academic focus will be a two day event structured around a selection of papers and discussion panels, as well as performance and creative practice activity detailing both Sorley’s own work and his inspiration to others. In keeping with the internationalist perspectives that permeate Sorley’s own work, the event will be framed as an opportunity to offer an appreciation of what experiences and understanding of island life and culture, and of an island sense of place and dwelling, specifically but not exclusively in reference to Scotland, informed Sorley in his creative work and commentary.

Please  contact either Kathryn A. Burnett ( kathryn.burnett@uws.ac.uk)  or Ray Burnett (ray.burnett@uws.ac.uk)  for information on SCIS’s partnership in this key event. For link  to download call for papers, event details and further booking information connect to: http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/A-Cholaiste/Naidheachdan/somhairle/index_en.html

‘The Furthest Hebrides’: Critical reach from contested shores: Kathryn Burnett and Ray Burnett deliver to IGU 2010 Conference, island of Ven, Sweden

Finding Their Place: Islands in Social Theory

The Island of Ven, Sweden, 27–30 August, 2010

ABSTRACTS PARALLEL PAPER SESSION B1: Identity, culture, tradition and knowledge

 

 

 ‘The Furthest Hebrides’ : Critical reach from contested shores

Kathryn A Burnett & Ray Burnett

University of the West of Scotland, UK

 

Scotland’s islands are paradoxically peripheral yet conceptually central to an

understanding of the layered complexity of issues relating to land and identity in

contemporary 21 st  century Scotland. Through a specific focus on Scotland’s

western isles, this paper traces the authoring of the layered constructions and

reconstructions of space and place that has produced a dense and variegated

palimpsest; the process of the ‘making’ of the Hebrides. It examines visual and

documentary representations to draw out some of the issues of ‘belonging’ and

ownership, appropriation and dissemination, in the context of the nationalidentitarian

functions of culture, that are embedded in the complimentary and

contradictory ‘ways of seeing’ the contested terrain of island cultural landscape(s).

Through a grounded multi-disciplinary approach to the issues raised and the

exemplars elaborated on, the paper opens up several overlapping and inter-related

issues of concentric and conflicting identities, delineation of the field of cultural

discourse, the inscription of meaning and value and the production of cultural

landscapes, and the deeper processes of complicity, self colonialism and

subalternity.

The paper concludes by advocating that a detailed study of how these processes

of ‘making’ are mediated at local (island), national (Scottish) and supra-national

(UK) level opens up new channels for further research in the intricate waters of

the cultural dynamics of authorship, ownership, ‘belonging’ and power in the

politics of land and identity.

Ray Burnett delivers on ‘Pelle the Conqueror: Reflections on History, the Arts and Small Islands’

Ray Burnett, SCIS Hon. Research Fellow,  will deliver a plenary session paper at the ISISA 2010 conference at the Bornholm Art Museum. The paper entitled “Commemorating Pelle the Conqueror: Reflections on History, the Arts and Small Islands” is part of the wider programme of delivery of this years conference. For details of all papers and sessions click here: http://www.conferencemanager.dk/ISISA/program.html

The abstract for Ray’s paper can be read here:

Commemorating Pelle the Conqueror: Reflections on History, the Arts and Small Islands

Ray Burnett

Isle of Benbecula, Outer Hebrides, Scotland

Scottish Centre for Island Studies, University of the West of Scotland

ray@diis.ac.uk

The life and times of the writer Martin Andersen Nexø is most often presented and discussed either in the context of his literary career as a major Scandinavian novelist of the twentieth century or his political career as a prominent cultural figure in Europe’s anti-fascist struggles, a committed member of the Danish Communist Party and a resolute defender of the Soviet Union. In each of these overlapping contexts his significance for Danish, Scandinavian and European literature, culture and politics is enduringly associated with his classic novel, Pelle the Conqueror. Published over 1906-1910, it vividly drew on Martin Andersen Nexø’s deep memories of his childhood and formative years on Bornholm and the island town of Nexø which he later took as his adopted name. This paper commemorates the centenary of the publication of the final volume of Pelle the Conqueror by approaching Martin Andersen Nexø from a specifically island studies perspective to raise the question: in what way might his portrayal of island life be of relevance to issues of culture, history and the arts in small islands beyond Bornholm, the Baltic and Scandinavia?

It offers some tentative reflections on this question by identifying some of the themes in Nexo’s portrayal of Baltic island life and tracing their applicability to comparable themes and issues in the small island communities of Scotland through a specific focus on history and the arts, reality and representations, in the Hebrides. The paper seeks to confirm the importance of Martin Andersen Nexø as a writer and observer of small island life and to raise awareness of the wider comparative significance of other writers and artists from within Scotland’s small island communities. It concludes with the reflection that there are several aspects of comparative small island research in relation to history and the arts, both within a specific Scottish-Nordic-Baltic arc and beyond, that would benefit from further collaborative engagement.

From the Hebrides to Herm

SCIRI 2010 ART AND ISLANDS ISLOMANIA CONFERENCE

See images here of the trip to the island of Herm during the conference.  Compton MacKenzie lived on the island of  Herm from 1920-1923. See here for some additional images and details of his time on the island and neighbouring Jethou. http://www.ciss1950.org.uk/herm_postcards.html or  for some information on the tenants of Jethou, including MacKenzie, see this link http://www.faed.net/cfaed/jethou/jethou.htm

A co-authored paper (Ray Burnett and Kathryn A Burnett)  on  the legacy and influence Compton MacKenzie and other writers and film makers have had on the  iconography and representation of  Scotland’s Hebrides was delivered by Ray Burnett, Hon. Research Fellow, School of Creative and Cultural Industries,  to the SICRI 2010 ART AND ISLANDS ISLOMANIA CONFERENCE  conference in Guernsey.

SCIS Paper on Compton MacKenzie delivered to SICRI conference 2010

SCIRI 2010 ART AND ISLANDS ISLOMANIA CONFERENCE

A co-authored paper (Ray Burnett and Kathryn A Burnett) was delivered by Ray Burnett on behalf of SCIS to the SICRI 2010 ART AND ISLANDS ISLOMANIA CONFERENCE  conference in Guernsey. The paper –  “Portaying the Hebrides: the irresistible lure and the irredeemable legacy” – offers a critical examination of the life and work of Compton Mackenzie in relation to the wider representation of islands.  The abstract for the paper is available below.  A version of this paper was delivered to the June 18th 2010 SCIS Research Meeting and Seminar, UWS. Thanks to colleagues for their comments.

Abstract
From the 18th century to the present, the islands that lie off the western seaboard of Scotland, collectively known as the Hebrides, have been one of the foremost island groups in Europe to attract the attention of artists and to acquire a substantial volume of cultural representations of their landscape, environment, people and communities, in literature, music, song, the visual arts, photography and film. Restricting itself to artistic representations in literature and film this paper examines the formulation and the legacy of two recurring and influential tropes of cultural representation of these islands ─ the ‘Hebridean Other’ and ‘Solitude and Desertion’.

The literary prism for this close focus study is provided by the life and work of Compton Mackenzie, the islomanic inspiration for D. H. Lawrence’s short story, ‘The Man Who Loved Islands’. MacKenzie’s lifelong attraction to islands involved successive periodic residency on acquired island properties from Capri in Italy, to Herm and Jethou in the Channel Islands and the Shiants and Barra in the Hebrides. The screen adaptations of MacKenzie’s Hebridean novels and the acclaimed Hebridean classics of the Michael Powell / Emeric Pressberger partnership provide the filmic prism.

The paper discusses the twin tropes of the ‘Hebridean Other’ and ‘Solitude and Desertion’ with specific reference to key iconic cultural representations, the novel/film adaptation Whisky Galore! (1947/1949 and the films The Edge of the World (1937) and I Know Where I’m Going (1945). It reflects on the enduring consequences of this cultural legacy for the island locations and communities with which they are associated, Barra, Eriskay, St Kilda, Mull and its adjacent isles in relation to the cultural referential framework they created. And it concludes by tracing the far-reaching and continuing reverberations in relation to ongoing issues relating to the cultural and symbolic capital of the islands.