Conference Panel Announcement: Imagining a Future (Inside/Outside) Britain
12 and 13 March 2026, UNIVERSITÉ TOULOUSE - JEAN JAURÈS
Organised jointly by the Centre de Recherches en Civilisation Britannique (CRECIB),
the Société Française d’Etudes Ecossaises (SFEE)
and the Centre for Anglophone Studies (CAS, UR 801)
UNIVERSITÉ TOULOUSE - JEAN JAURÈS
Maison de la Recherche
Organising committee:
Nathalie Duclos, nathalie.duclos@univ-tlse2.fr [ScotLitCult member]
Anita Jorge, anita.jorge@univ-tlse2.fr
Myriam Yakoubi, myriam.yakoubi@univ-tlse2.fr
How has the future of the United Kingdom and its various components been imagined, conceived and projected at all periods, including the present day? Drawing on the interdisciplinary field of futures studies, and more specifically critical futures studies, this conference, supported by two scientific societies, the SFEE and the CRECIB, and by the Centre for Anglophone Studies (CAS) of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès University, proposes to study the ways in which the future of the United Kingdom and its constituent nations has been imagined over time, in fictional and non-fictional modes. We will be looking at both representations of the future of the United Kingdom as a whole (the future of the British State, society and Union), and representations of the future of the various constituent territories of the United Kingdom, either within the Union and the Empire or outside of it.
Panel 1: Futurescapes of Scotland. Inside, Outside, and Beyond
Chairs: Julia Boll/Nina Engelhardt
• Julia Boll (University of Salzburg, Austria) - Alternative Futures: How Willa Muir Explores Potentialities with John Donne
• Nina Engelhardt (University of Stuttgart, Germany) - Between National and Archipelagic Visions of the Future: Douglas Stuart’s Young Mungo (2022)
• Wolfgang Funk (Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany) - Eau Caledonia: Re-Imagining Scottish Myths with Ali Smith
• Nora A. Plesske (University of Magdeburg, Germany) - “Building a New Scotland”: Cultural Regeneration in Scotland’s Post-Industrial Cities
More information can be found here.