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1715-1716: The Apex of Jacobitism?

Origins, Representations, and Legacies: Essays in Honour of Daniel Szechi

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Published on Thursday, August 31, 2023

Abstract

This collection of essays, entitled ’1715-16 : The Apex of Jacobitism ? Origins, Representations and Legacies’, in honour of the life work of Professor Daniel Szechi aims to re-evaluate the 1715 rising in its broader international context and within the heritage of the long eighteenth century. Contributors who have encountered the Jacobite rising in their respective fields, for example, while studying its industrial, intellectual, and scholarly impact from the Treaty of Union to the present, are invited to propose their contributions. As Jacobitism was a ubiquitous landmark of the eighteenth century, researchers are invited to question the military, political, literary, and/or cultural significance of the rising. The editors are particularly interested in consequential research on the rising through a comparative perspective in the interdisciplinary fields of literature, material culture, and travel or media studies.

Announcement

Arguments

Of the many Jacobite challenges to the British state in the long eighteenth century, the Jacobite Rising of 1715–16 (the ’15) arguably posed the most formidable threat to the post-1688 order (Szechi, 2006). This multifaceted event has been studied from the military perspective with a strong emphasis on the decisive battles of Preston and Sheriffmuir (Inglis, 2005; Reid, 2014; and Oates, 2016, 2017) and with analyses offering a comparative perspective with its more famous counterpart: the Jacobite Rising of 1745–46 (Roberts, 2002). Studies on or around the ’15 have focused on its religious and socio-political factors (Monod, 1989; and Glickmann, 2009) and have led to extensive research converging on the most involved individuals present at the Jacobite court in exile (Corp, 2003, 2009, 2014, 2018), within the widespread European Jacobite diaspora (Rowlands, 2001; Wills, 2002; Genet-Rouffiac, 2007; and Costel, 2010) or the British Isles (Sankey, 2005). Although recent studies have adopted a pan-European perspective to explain the origins of the rising (Holmes, 2003; Macinnes, 2007; Oates, 2019; and Szechi, 1984, 2019) and have explored the influence of the Jacobites in international politics via spies and diplomats (Douglas, 2000; and Cruickshanks, 2002), much remains to be discovered. While several scholars have tackled the support of Irish (Ó Ciardha, 2004), Scottish (Bowie, 2003; Macinnes, 2007; and Szechi, 2015) and English Jacobites (Gooch, 1995; and Lord, 2004), consequential research on this rising through a comparative perspective in the interdisciplinary fields of literature, material culture, and travel or media studies is sorely lacking.

Emerging new research paths have shown that we know less about the origins, representations, and legacies of the ’15 than previously thought. For over a century, this inquiry has been the turf of the fertile and ubiquitous field of Jacobite studies. Jacobitism was a multifaceted phenomenon, and researchers from disparate backgrounds are now questioning its military, political, literary, and cultural significance (Guthrie, 2013; Griffin, 2020; Lewis, 2021; Davis, 2022; Filet, 2022; and Barget, 2023). This new collection, therefore, aims to re-evaluate the ’15 in its broader international context and within the heritage of the long eighteenth century. We invite submissions to this forthcoming volume from within the wider spectrum of Jacobite studies and beyond. Particularly welcomed are contributions to widen the disciplinary scope of approach to the ’15. Of equal interest are contributors who have encountered the Jacobite rising in their respective fields, for example, while studying its industrial, intellectual, and scholarly impact from the Treaty of Union to the present.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of themes that may be explored:

The ’15’s legacy today

  • The lingering political, legal, and cultural consequences of the ’15 and Jacobitism’s position amidst the European and global politics of the period and its relevance/parallels with the modern world.
  • The loss or gain to the British Isles as a result of the ’15, whether intellectually, literarily, militarily or commercially.
  • Jacobitism as a vehicle to think beyond the intellectual iron cage of nation-statehood.
  • The contemporary presence of the ’15 in educational curricula, tourism, museums, transmedia popular culture, movies, TV programmes, books, and games, etc. or its modern reach (YouTube channels, radio podcasts, TV programmes, etc.).

The martial and material aspects of the ’15

  • The analysis of the Jacobite command-and-control structure and its impact on the ’15’s
  • Was the ’15 launched out of confidence in Jacobite strength or desperation? One may compare the degree of popular mobilisation for both sides during the rising with the same during similar conflicts (for example, the 17th-century civil wars, wars of 1689–92 and, of course, the ’45).
  • The activities and impact of female protagonists, militarily and otherwise.
  • The material culture surrounding the ’15, especially its current depiction in museum spaces or heritage sites.

The political, cultural, and literary instrumentalisation of Jacobitism

  • How the language of Jacobitism was affected by the ’15 and the surrounding propaganda campaigns conveyed by both sides.
  • How Jacobitism was instrumentalised throughout history by historians, politicians, artists, poets, and linguists, etc.
  • The treatment of the ’15 in domestic and international contemporary presses and/or through personal or diplomatic correspondences.
  • The Jacobites as ‘losers’, militarily and politically, and what does their failure contribute to our understanding of the process of losing arguments?

Submission guidelines

We are interested in submissions from contributors of all academic stripes and genders, including early career and senior scholars, independent researchers, heritage-focused specialists and individuals yet to identify or have experience with Jacobite studies.

If you are interested in contributing, please direct any questions or proposals to Bill Runacre by 31 January 2024 at billrun101@gmail.com. We are hoping to receive all submissions by September, 30th, 2024.

Proposals should be written in English and include the following:

  • Author’s name.
  • Affiliation (academic or otherwise).
  • A 500-word abstract.
  • A short bio-bibliography.

Editorial Committee

  • Dr Jérémy Filet, Lecturer in French (Grosvenor / Arts & Humanities Building 5.12) Manchester Metropolitan University Department of Languages, Information and communication. 
  • Bill Runacre, Independent Researcher and specialist in Jacobitism
  • Dr Calum Cunningham, Lecturer and Associate Tutor at the Universities of Stirling and Dundee 

Date(s)

  • Monday, September 30, 2024

Keywords

  • jacobitism, jacobites, rising, 1715,

Information source

  • Bill Runacre
    courriel : billrun101 [at] gmail [dot] com

License

CC0-1.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

To cite this announcement

« 1715-1716: The Apex of Jacobitism? », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Thursday, August 31, 2023, https://doi.org/10.58079/1bpy

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