2024-25
18 September 2024 – The Seven Sages of Scotland
Jane Bonsall
What might we learn from medieval narratives about violence, gender, and truth-telling? This adaptation of the 15th-century Older Scots story collection The Seven Sages of Rome investigates the cultural scripts that shaped medieval ideas of gendered power and public accusations, and their striking resemblance to our contemporary conversations.
Originally performed at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in July 2023, this second performance of The Seven Sages of Scotland brings together performers and poets working in modern Scots, retelling and responding to the original medieval frame narrative – a storytelling competition used to adjudicate a case of gender-based violence – and the inset tales, which serve as moral ‘evidence’ in the case. In a range of voices, styles, and adaptive practices, the performers demonstrate both the differences and the resonances between medieval and modern attitudes about gendered stereotypes and public perceptions of truth, and the power of pre-modern narratives to hold a mirror up to our biases and preconceptions.
02 October 2024 – Poetry from the Mine (and elsewhere)
Gavin Bowd
To mark the beginning of the Festival of Languages and the fortieth anniversary of the 1984-1985 miners’ strike, Gavin Bowd and acclaimed poet Paul Malgrati will present and read the work of three miner-writers: the Fifer Joe Corrie, the Belgian Constant Malva, and the Frenchman Jules Mousseron. Paul will then present his French translations of their precursor, the Ploughman Poet himself, Robert Burns. He will conclude with a reading from his own Poèmes écossais, shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Prize.
This event is also part of the Festival of Languages, organised by the University of St Andrews School of Modern Languages. Mainly based in the Byre Theatre, all events in the Festival programme are FREE and open to the public, featuring various forms: readings, talks, language tasters, a creative workshop, a walkshop, interactivities and exhibitions. Find the full Festival of Languages programme here.
09 October 202 – Meet the Artist: Uncovering ‘Palimpself’
Elise Hugueny-Leger
What can an encounter between a writer, two researchers and a visual artist lead to? In this conversation with Drs Elise Hugueny-Léger (University of St Andrews) and Fabien Arribert-Narce (University of Edinburgh), visual artist Susan Diab will discuss the process behind her sculptural work displayed at the Byre Theatre under the title ‘Palimpself’. In this project, creative practice and scholarly expertise are brought together to provide new interpretations of the works of Nobel-Prize laureate Annie Ernaux, who is renowned for her exploration of time, memory, and personal experience. This discussion will uncover the many layers of ‘Palimpself’, from the reading of Ernaux’s books, to reflections on materiality in her works, to the production of original artwork.
This talk accompanies the art display ‘Palimpself’ presented at the Byre Theatre in October 2024 and the international conference ‘1974-2024: Annie Ernaux’s years – a global perspective’.
23 October 2024 – Publishing from and for Morocco: A Conversation with Hicham Houdaïfa and Kenza Sefrioui
Clara Défachel
This talk will discuss the challenges faced by authors, translators and publishers in Morocco to publish their texts locally, in a literary market that is often submerged by texts imported from France or the Middle East.
Clara Défachel will be in conversation with Hicham Houdaïfa and Kenza Sefrioui, the directors of En Toutes Lettres, which is engaged in an activist journey to publish critical work that speaks to local readerships. They will discuss the strategies they have developed to reach multilingual audiences, notably through the programme Open Chabab, the challenges that come with developing a multilingual editorial line, and the critical issue of literary translation.
This event received financial support from Scottish Graduate School for the Arts and Humanities.
29 January 2025 – The Holobiont Herbarium
Damiano Benvegnu
Herbaria are collections of preserved biological specimens documenting the plants, algae, and fungi of the world. Even though their scientific role has declined since the 1980s, they have been foundational in the development of modern science and its processes of classification. In this event, Dr Damiano Benvegnù and Dr Harry Watkins discuss their Holobiont Herbarium project, which revises the role of herbaria in the late Anthropocene. This project aims to deconstruct the St Andrews Botanic Garden herbarium as a mere archive of scientific objects and reconstruct it as a new system of knowledge production capable of acknowledging plants, algae, and fungi as cognitive and historical agents embedded in multispecies narratives and ecosemiotic systems.
12 February 2025 – The Mothers of the Belgian Empire’s Stolen Children
Nicki Hitchcott
During Belgium’s colonisation of what are now the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi, mixed-‘race’ children born from relations between European men and African women were taken from their mothers and placed in orphanages. As these African countries approached independence, many of the children were removed to Belgium. Most mothers never saw their children again. Their stories have been conveniently forgotten. In conversation with François D’Adesky, who was forcibly separated from his Rwandan mother in 1953, Nicki Hitchcott and John D McInally discuss this traumatic episode in Belgium’s colonial history with a particular focus on the mothers of the Belgian empire’s stolen children and their stories.
This event has received financial support from The Royal Society of Edinburgh.
16 April 2025 – Writing for Ukrainian Children in Wartime
Emily Finer
Ukrainian writers, illustrators, and publishers have responded to the war waged by Russia by publishing an unprecedented number of children’s books. In discussion with Emily Finer and Viktoriia Medvied, our guests will present books they have created and discuss their collaborations with psychologists and linguists to create trauma-informed books for children living in Ukraine and abroad.