Société Française d’Études Écossaises
2025 Annual conference
La Rochelle Université
Amphithéâtre Michel Crépeau, Pôle Communication Multimédia Réseaux, 44 av. Albert Einstein
11.15-11.30am welcoming participants
11.30am-1pm panel 1. Power(s) and the Coast / Pouvoirs et littoraux
Chair: Nathalie Duclos (université de Toulouse Jean Jaurès)
John R. Young (University of Strathclyde), The Covenanters and the coast: coastal and maritime security and military intervention in Ireland in the War(s) for the Three Kingdoms.
Edwige Camp-Pietrain (Université Polytechnique des Hauts-de-France, Valenciennes), Crown estate properties on the Scottish coast under devolution: political and economic issues.
Ugo Bruschi (University of Bologna), The Legacy of Darién in 1690s and 1700s Scottish Political and Constitutional Discourse.
1pm-2pm lunch (Technoforum)
2pm-3.30pm panel 2. The Coast as a Crossing Point / Le littoral comme lieu de passage
Chair: Sabrina Juillet Garzón (Université Sorbonne Paris Nord)
Asha Hornsby (University of St Andrews), Fishing for Meaning: Nineteenth-Century Whaling Surgeons, Shetland, and the ‘High North’.
Philippe Laplace (Université Marie et Louis Pasteur, Besançon), First Encounters: Approaching St Kilda.
Struan McCorrisken (University of Glasgow), Robert Burns and the Scottish Coast: Tobacco, Tears and Whisky.
3.30pm-4pm tea & coffee (Technoforum)
4pm-5.30pm panel 3. The Coast: A Represented Space / Le littoral : un espace représenté
Chair: Rémy Duthille (Université Bordeaux Montaigne)
David Leishman (Université Stendhal Grenoble), Steaming through the sea of books: Steamboats, Scott and North British consumer nationalism.
Mathieu Mazé (Université Versailles-Saint-Quentin), Le tourisme culturel sur les littoraux écossais (1770-1850).
Clément Guézais (USPN), Dangers d’écueils, rencontre des vents, incertitude et sables mouvants : La carte écossaise du géographe Nicolas de Nicolay.
Dinner (own arrangements)
9am-10.30am panel 4. Writing and Describing the Coast / Ecrire et décrire le littoral
Chair: Danièle André (université de La Rochelle)
Daphné Cousin-Martin (Université de Rouen), An investigation of coastal associations in Val McDermid’s crime novel The Distant Echo.
Glenda Norquay (Liverpool John Moores University), Landlocked: counter-coastal narratives.
Julie Gay (Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale), “We are still here upon the water side”: Terraqueous Littorals and Coastscapes in Robert Louis Stevenson's Fiction.
10.30am-11.am tea & coffee (Technoforum)
11am-12.30am panel 5. The Coast as a Site of Mythology / Le littoral : lieu de la mythologie
Chair : Emmanuelle Andres (université de La Rochelle)
Katie Garner (University of St Andrews), Resounding Myths in the Gulf of Corryvreckan, 1800-1900.
Gabrielle Fath (University of Limerick), The ‘Cailleach’ and coastlines in Iain Crichton Smith/Mac a’ Ghobhainn’s poetry and fiction.
Ingibjörg Ágústsdóttir (University of Iceland), Selkies and the Liminal Coast: Myth, Memory, and History in Elisabeth Gifford’s Secrets of the Sea House.
12.30am-1.30pm lunch (Technoforum)
1.30pm-3pm panel 6. Discourse on Coastal Resources / Discours sur les ressources du littoral
Chair : Gilles Robel (Université Gustave-Eiffel)
Matt McDowell (University of Edinburgh), Coasts, islands, and international networks in Scottish sport: a contemporary-historical reinterpretation.
Rémy Duthille (Université Bordeaux-Montaigne), Seaweed and the Scottish Enlightenment: a study of Sir John Sinclair’s Statistical Account of Scotland (1791-1799).
Camille Manfredi (Université de Bretagne Occidentale), « Canny, uncanny » : figurations du littoral écossais dans les arts et discours pro- et anti-éoliennes.
3pm-3.30pm tea & coffee (Technoforum)
3.30pm-4.30pm Keynote Speaker: Prof. Steve Murdoch (The Swedish Defence University, Stockholm).
Introduced by Florence Petroff (université de La Rochelle)
4.30pm-6.30pm SFEE Annual General Meeting
7.30pm Conference Dinner
9am-10.30am panel 7. Coastal Communities / Les communautés littorales
Chair : Clarisse Godard Desmarest (à confirmer)
Annie Webster (University of Edinburgh), ‘Doon the Watter’: The Blue Space of Bute and Archipelagos of Asylum.
Euan Healey (University of Glasgow), “Have they not sent us down to the rocks, and the shore of the sea?”: exploring experiences of coast, shore and sea in the Highland Clearances.
Kathleen H.B.Cowe (independent scholar), St Combs: a Scottish fishing community – Continuity and Change.
10.30am-11.am tea & coffee (Technoforum)
11.15-12.15am Exhibition (médiathèque Michel Crépeau)
12.15am-1.30pm lunch (Technoforum)
1.30pm-2.30pm In conversation with Kathleen Jamie.
Introduced by Lesley Graham (Université de Bordeaux)
2.30pm-4.00pm panel 8. The Coast as a Network / Le littoral : lieu de réseaux
Chair: Clotilde Prunier (Université Paris Nanterre)
Thomas Archambaud (University of Glasgow), The whale and the elephant coalesced in one: Scottish kin-based networks of trade, science and diplomacy on the coast of Coromandel and the Malaysian peninsula, c. 1770-c. 1790.
Rebecca Wilkieson (University of Strathclyde), The development of Scotland’s maritime infrastructure through the transatlantic slave trade, 1690-1750.
Morag Munro-Landi (Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour), C for CalMac or for ‘calamity’? F for Ferguson (Marine), or for ‘fiasco’? The ongoing coastal connectivity crisis in North Ayrshire.
4pm-4.30pm tea & coffee (Technoforum)
4.30pm-5.30pm panel 9. Visual Images of the Coast / Les représentations visuelles du littoral
Chair: Christian Civardi (Université de Strasbourg)
Marion Amblard (Université Grenoble Alpes), Les représentations de l’espace littoral comme expression de l’identité écossaise dans les tableaux de William McTaggart et des Coloristes.
Anne-Lise Marin-Lamellet (université Jean Monnet, Saint-Étienne), Le littoral dans « le nouveau cinéma écossais ».
6.30pm-7.30pm Concert by Carentona, Scottish and French Celtic music (médiathèque Michel Crépeau)
7.30pm Dinner (own arrangements)