Registration is now open for the conference Histories of Scottish Politics in the Age of Union, c.1700-1945, taking place at Durham University, Tuesday-Wednesday 23-24 July 2024. It is organised by Dr Naomi Lloyd-Jones and is supported by the History of Parliament, together with the British Agricultural History Society, the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies, the Leverhulme Trust, the Past & Present Society and the Scottish Historical Review Trust. It features 40 paper presentations across parallel streams and two plenary sessions on the past, present and future of Scottish political history. It is free to attend and hybrid, and will be preceded on 22 July by an Edinburgh University Press workshop on publishing in academic journals. To read the programme and book your place, visit the conference website.
Histories of Scottish Politics is the first event dedicated to exploring the political, and its meanings, in Scotland after the Act of Union. It brings together scholars working on often discrete periods and fields to learn from each other’s research and to inform future initiatives. Half of all speakers are either postgraduate or early career researchers.
Papers will examine a broad range of topics, drawing on diverse sources and methodologies, and taking in, for example, the place of emotion and the role of religion in politics; women’s politicised activities and identities; the activism and materiality of abolitionism; the politics of the courtroom and legal system; changing concepts and uses of land and the environment; colonial and diasporic politics; radical, constituency, party and participatory politics; and the changing shape of the multi-nation UK constitution. Each day will conclude with a plenary, offering moments of reflection and debate on the state of Scottish historical studies and of modern political history. Ewen Cameron will give a keynote on ‘Where did the nineteenth century go?’ and a roundtable on ‘The future of Scottish political history?’ will feature commentaries and questions.
The conference builds on the July 2023 conference Organise! Organise! Organise! Collective Action, Associational Culture and the Politics of Organisation in Britain and Ireland, c.1790-1914, run by Naomi in conjunction with the History of Parliament, and on which you can read our blog series.
NLJ
The Victorian Commons 