Aberdeen conference on "Migrating Minds"

(From H-Net--no, I'm not proposing a paper, but it looks like a conference where the Marion Brown letters would fit right in!--PLR]

Migrating Minds: Imagined Journeys - Imagined Homecomings 14-15 May 2009

The AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen will host a conference in 2009 on the topic “Migrating Minds: Imagined Journeys – Imagined Homecomings”. The conference will take place on the 14 and 15 May 2009 alongside the Aberdeen WORD Festival. Literature (both fiction and non-fiction), personal journals and correspondence, and art enable us to explore the impact that journeys and homecomings have had on Irish and Scottish imaginations. Irish and Scottish migrants, as well as those who sought to understand, interpret and exploit the experience of migration, participated in the production and circulation of these accounts and images both at home and abroad. As such, they form an important dimension to any understanding of the Irish and Scottish diasporas. With this in mind, we seek to investigate the idea of migration as a series of narratives and rhetorical tropes that develop over time. Papers that consider diasporic movements from a non Irish/ Scottish point of view are welcome as are those that adopt a theoretical perspective.

Dr. Paul Shanks
AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies
19 College Bounds
Aberdeen
AB24 3DB
Email: p.f.shanks@abdn.ac.uk
Visit the website.

Greetings from San Francisco

This is a photo (taken by Susan Burch) from the presentation given by Iain Hutchison and myself about Marion Brown, today at the Disability History Conference in San Francisco. See that big grey box on the table between us? That's the box of letters from Sanquhar. In front of us, on the table, there are photos in frames, a small Bible from Scotland, two of the books we've put Marion's story into, and other goodies. The session went well--we had audience participation and some animated conversation in the comments time (especially about what medical historians should or should not ask of such stories).

Marion Brown is too busy to blog this week

Actually, the letters are already packed, along with some photos and other goodies, to show off at the Disability History Conference at San Francisco State University this weekend. I'll be presenting with (and meeting!) Iain Hutchison, in a session where we'll be talking about our trans-Atlantic collaboration on a trans-Atlantic correspondence. I'll report back, and hope to have some photos too.