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The Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures warmly invites everyone interested to the guest lecture by Prof. Murray Pittock (University of Glasgow): ‘Scottish Art, Architecture and Culture, 1870-1914: Britain and the Continent in Conflict’. The lecture will take place on Wednesday 4 March at 14:15 in Room 111 (Faculty of Arts, Jan Palach Square 2). No registration needed, all welcome!Abstract: The 1870-1914 period was a peak era for the development of national commemoration and cultural celebration in Europe, which in many respects fed the growth of nationalism. From World Fairs (Paris (1867), Vienna (1873)) to folk villages, from ethnographic museums (Stockholm in 1880, Bucharest in 1906) to renewal of national physical culture (Sokol (1862), the GAA (1884)) to a flood of statuary and public expressions of ethnocultural identity in every sphere from pageantry to music, expressions of cultural and linguistic distinctiveness grew so frequent as to verge on the banal.
Scotland was no different. But the country’s alignment with these pan-European forces remains seldom identified or examined because in Scotland they served a significantly different purpose: for the peak years of Scottish ethnocultural celebration and the formation of new national institutions were also the years of Scotland’s deepest and most successful integration into the British Empire. What elsewhere was so frequently political in Scotland gave the appearance of colourful conformity with the largest imperial mission of all. If the long nineteenth century seemed to make a politics without a shared culture impossible (with fatal consequences for imperial Austria and major changes elsewhere), what were the hidden grounds of difference in a country where a distinctive culture appeared to be celebrated without politics?
About the speaker:
Murray Pittock is Bradley Professor and Pro Vice-Principal at the University of Glasgow and Scotland’s leading public intellectual and cultural historian. He is best known for his work on the international centrality of Jacobitism and for the nature and relationships of national Enlightenment and Romantic movements in Europe, and his Scotland: the Global History, Enlightenment in a Smart City and Culloden all won book of the year awards or equivalent recognition in the UK and overseas; his next book is After Culloden: The British Army, Scotland and Imperial Policy in an Age of Global Conflict. He is a member of the European Academy, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a prizewinner of both the RSE and the British Academy, a senior member of the winning Queen’s Anniversary 2023 Prize team, Scottish national Knowledge Exchange Champion in 2022 and the founder of Scotland’s national graduate school in the Arts and Humanities and of the International Association for the Study of Scottish Literatures. He serves as co-chair of the Scottish Arts and Humanities Alliance, a member of the Board and Investment Committees of the National Trust for Scotland, on the Board of the European Alliance for Social Sciences and Humanities (eassh.eu) and the Scottish Council on Global Affairs (scga.scot) and is a Council and universities committee member of the British-Irish Chamber of Commerce, as well as on the Scottish Government’s international advisory committee. In 2026, he has been awarded the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow’s Glasgow Medal and an honorary D.Litt. by Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen for his nationally leading role as a historian and public intellectual. https://murraypittock.com/
The event is supported by the project Beyond Security: Role of Conflict in Resilience-Building. Reg. Nr. CZ.02.01.01/00/22_008/0004595.
CoRe is funded by the Johannes Amos Comenius Programme, prestigious programme supporting the development of an open and educated society based on knowledge and skills, equal opportunities and developing the potential of each individual, which will lead to the growth of the competitiveness of the Czech Republic and the improvement of living conditions of its inhabitants.
Image: John Duncan, Tristan and Isolde (1912), Museums & Galleries Edinburgh – City of Edinburgh Council.
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Event Venue
Filozofická fakulta, náměstí Jana Palacha 2, Prague, Czech Republic
Tickets
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