Alexander Selkirk 1704-2004 Scotland and the Cultural Perception of Islands Ray Burnett Dícuil...
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Transcript of Alexander Selkirk 1704-2004 Scotland and the Cultural Perception of Islands Ray Burnett Dícuil...
Alexander Selkirk 1704-2004Scotland and the
Cultural Perception of Islands
Ray Burnett Dícuil Institute of Island Studies
Outer Hebrides, [email protected]
Island Voyages: Charting a Passage
• Moment: 1704• Perspective: Scotland & the
Hebrides• Approach: landfalls & links• Focus: cultural perceptions• Aim: post-voyage reflections
The Moment: 1704
• Alexander Selkirk– Daniel Defoe– Robinson Crusoe
• 1707 Act of Union
• A Scottish
perspective– colonialism– subalternity– complicity
Perspective: Scotland & the Hebrides• MacPherson’s Ossian
– the Ossianic impact
• Issues– National Identity– Indigenous Culture– Island Landscapes
• The Ossianic gaze – the Sublime Savage
Voyages & Landfalls: Joseph Banks
• Voyages & Voyagers– Tahiti– Staffa
• Purveyors of the primitive– exotic Islanders– sublime Islands– concentric circles
Voyages & Landfalls: Johnson & Boswell
• the Hebrides August 1774– Bossie and the Doctor– Scotland’s Past - England’s
‘Other’
• Cultural waypoints– Monboddo’s monkeys– Formosa & Tahiti
• Enlightenment & Empire– Edinburgh– London
Voyages & Landfalls: James Cook• The Pacific August
1774– Cook’s parallel Voyage– New Hebrides– New Caledonia
•Cultural contacts– the third dimension– Forster’s prism
•Conversational silences
– Boswell and Cook
Islands of Empire: the binaries of colonialism
• R. M. Ballantyne– Coral Island
• Merchants– James Matheson
• Missionaries– Formosa &
South Seas
• Travel writers– Isabella Bird
The Binaries of Colonialism: R. L. Stevenson
• Background– Edinburgh– Lighthouses– Scott &
Balantyne
• Scottish Islands– Treasure Island– Kidnapped– Landscapes of
memory
The Binaries of Colonialism: R. L. Stevenson
• South Seas Islands– The Beach of Falesa– The Foreigner at Home
20th Century Islands: engaging modernity
• island essentialism– Celtic Twilight– outpost islands– the distilled nation
• exotic into comic– Whisky Galore– myths into caricature
• island retreats• The ‘island problem’
21st century: Selkirk’s Legacy• Crusoes
– ‘Robinson Crusoe’ Taiwan 2004
– postmodernity/late capitalism
• Castaways– ‘Robinson Crusoe Island’– ‘Castaway Island’– branding the Hebrides
• cultural capital
1704 – 2004:post-voyage reflections
• Perspective– the peculiarity of the Scottish
prism
• Cultural ontology of islands– the making of islands,
islanders, islandness– cultural cargoes
• Cultural transmission– landfalls of empire– texts of colonialism
• Changing Islands –Changing Worlds
– cultural landscapes– cultural identities
– sustainable communities–comparative island studies
–brokerage and outputs