BSECS Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Conference

13-14th July 2023

University of Edinburgh

Errantry, Exile and Elsewhere

We invite proposals for papers for the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies’ Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Conference 2023.

In his 1990 work, Poetics of Relation, Martiniquean writer Édouard Glissant examined the construction of Caribbean identity, for both the coloniser and the colonised, through the concepts of “Errantry” and “Exile”. In particular, he explored this through the notion of “roots”: questioning what it means to be unrooted, the nomadic search for roots, and the movement of rooted identities through colonial expansion and displacement. Our conference takes its theme from Glissant’s essay, broadening his focus to consider wider topics related to “Errantry, Exile and Elsewhere” in the long eighteenth century. We are excited to be hosting this conference at the University of Edinburgh, where these concepts are particularly poignant in relation to eighteenth-century Scotland, which was largely defined by Jacobite exile, forced errantry through Clearance, and involvement in British military expansion overseas.

Proposals related to any aspect of the long eighteenth century are welcome, but we particularly invite papers that address our theme. We invite proposals for individual papers, full panels of three papers, roundtable sessions, workshops or other innovative formats. Topics of interest may include (but are not limited to):

• Diasporic identities
• Social and geographical mobility
• Travel and nomadism
• War and empire
• Political or social exile
• Emotions and Feelings

All submissions should be sent to postgrad@bsecs.org.uk for consideration. For individual papers, please send abstracts of 250 words and a short biography. For fully formed panels, (3-4 speakers), roundtables or workshops please send abstracts of 250 words for each paper along with brief details of the proposed theme, biographies of speakers, and proposed chair. CFP opens 1st November 2022 and closes 15th January  2023.