Reading group - National and Cosmopolitan Antiquities in the Late Eighteenth Century
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street
No booking required
Alexis Wolf (PhD candidate, English and Humanities, Birkbeck) introduced the writings of Anglo-Irish sisters Martha and Katherine Wilmot, who travelled to Russia between 1803-1808 to live as the guests of Princess Yekaterina Dashkova, a major figure in the Russian Enlightenment, and recorded observations about the customs and songs of Russian peasants, relating them to Dissertations Sur Les Antiquities de Russie (1785) by Matthew Guthrie, a Scottish physician resident in St Petersburg and a Correspondent Member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The transnational practice of the Irish women and the Scottish doctor in Russia was compared to German reflections on the poetry of Ossian through texts by Herder and Bürger introduced by Catherine Angerson (PhD candidate, Cultures and Languages, Birkbeck).
Contact name:
Kate Retford