Short Abstract:

Posters selected for the session respond to the congress theme with different approaches, thematizing unwriting, reflecting on what we do, what we can do and what we should have done. We also welcome proposals that engage the medium of the poster from these perspectives.

Abstract And Instruction:

The Aberdeen location of the SIEF Congress has witnessed much changing folklore around writing. Pictish people used granite to incise symbols on stones that 1500 years later, can still be seen within ten miles of the university. In medieval times at a scriptorium thirty miles away, monks used local materials of oak gall and vellum to create the illustrated pocket gospel book known as the Book of Deer. The University of Aberdeen, founded 1495, allowed men to pursue writing in the form of education although it would be another 400 years before women were allowed the same academic privileges. Writing for all children up to the age of 13 became mandatory in Scotland in1872. From the top floors of the university library, you will see the flat dunes where the ordnance survey mapping of Scotland began. After so much effort focussed towards writing, it is interesting to imagine how those Aberdeenshire Picts, monks, surveyors and university founders would consider our examination of UNwriting.

The medium of the poster is an embodiment of the relatively recent hegemonic practice of writing folklore. The challenge is the incongruity of using this physical medium to explore that which is UNwritten, unreported, under-described, and misrepresented. We shall organize the presentation of the posters based on the issues they address. These could include Indigenous knowledge; reflections on ethnographic research; ethnology and intersectionality; remembering and forgetting; narrating environmental catastrophe; and conflict. We welcome different approaches to create and present a physical poster which captures an intangible theme.

Instructions: in person

Your poster must be a one-page paper A0 size, landscape layout PDF.

Those who will physically participate in the conference need to print their own posters and arrive with those and will present their poster in-situ as part of the parallel sessions of the conference.

Instructions: hybrid

Poster presenters who will be attending virtually or do not wish to present in person may provide an electronic version of the poster and a two-minute video describing their poster.

This Panel has so far received 5 paper proposal(s).
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