RHAGLEN Y GYNHADLEDD CONFERENCE PROGRAMME LLYFRGELL GENEDLAETHOL CYMRU NATIONAL LIBRARY OF WALES ABERYSTWYTH 14–16/09/2015 Mewn cydweithrediad â / In collaboration with: Cyfnewidfa Lên Cymru / Wales Literature Exchange ac / and Amgueddfa Ceredigion Museum Prif ddarlith / Keynote: Yr Athro / Professor Michael Cronin (Dublin City University) Cyfweliad: Yr awdur Basgaidd Kirmen Uribe mewn sgwrs gyda Ned Thomas Interview: Basque writer Kirmen Uribe in conversation with Ned Thomas Rhwydwaith / Network: LLGCWPA Cyfrinair WiFi Password: pFvdE2kDX Hashnod trydar / twitter Hashtag: #MinTrav Amgueddfa Ceredigion Museum Terrace Rd, Aberystwyth, Dyfed SY23 2AQ Conference Dinner Pier Brasserie The Royal Pier, Marine Terrace, Aberystwyth SY23 2AZ. Ffôn / Tel: 01970 636123 Dydd Llun, 14 Medi 2015 Monday, 14 September 2015 11.00 Cofrestru o flaen y DRWM, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru Registration in front of the DRWM, National Library of Wales 12.30 Cinio / Lunch 13.40 DRWM – Croeso / Welcome Address 14.00 DRWM – Panel 1a: Belgian Refugees in Wales John Alban: ‘Belgian Refugees and Swansea’s Belgian Community’ Caterina Verdickt: ‘Belgian artists finding refuge in Wales during the Great War’ Rhian Davies: ‘Soir héroïque: Belgian refugee musicians in Wales’ Ystafell y Cyngor / Council Chamber – Panel 1b: Women Travellers Alison Martin: ‘A Welsh "Assembly": Compilation and Adaptation in Priscilla Wakefield's Family Tour (1804)’ Kathryn Walchester: ‘The Picturesque and the Beastly; Wales in the journals of Lady’s Companions Eliza and Millicent Bant (1806, 1808)’ Silvia Pelicier-Ortín: ‘A Minority in Search of Identity: Travel Writing and the Representation of British-Jewish Women in Linda Grant’s The Cast Iron Shore and When I Lived in Modern Times’ 15.30 Te/ Tea Break 16.00 DRWM – Panel 2a: Iberian Travellers David Miranda-Barreiro: ‘“Everything Stays the Same”: Julio Camba Travelling Spain’ Bárbara Álvarez Fernández: ‘Everything but the squeal: A portrait of present day Galicia’ Enrique Santos Unamuno: ‘Galician National Identity and Extraterritoriality in Diarios dun nómada (1993) by Xavier Queipo: a Geoliterary and Cartographic Approach’ Ystafell y Cyngor / Council Chamber – Panel 2b: Literary Travellers Ruth Oldman: ‘The Chivalrous Nation: Travel and Ideological Exchange in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ Amy L. Klemm: ‘Traversing Across Imagined Lands: Magic Realism and “Minority” Culture’ Marija Bergam: ‘“A language of wet stones and mists”: A Caribbean Poet as Traveller through England and Wales’ 17.30 Swper / Dinner 19.00 DRWM Sgwrs rhwng Kirmen Uribe a Ned Thomas A Talk with Kirmen Uribe and Ned Thomas Dydd Mawrth, 15 Medi 2015 Tuesday, 15 September 2015 10.00 DRWM – Panel 3: Involuntary Travellers Gabor Gelleri: ‘Exile meets minority: chevalier La Tocnaye’s “promenades”’ Arddun Arwyn: ‘German Prisoners of War in Wales’ 11.00 Coffi / Coffee Break 11.30 DRWM – Panel 4a: Western Travellers Eimear Kennedy: ‘Complex Encounters: Irish-language travel writers and the cultural “other”’ Julie Watt: ‘Highlanders in West Africa’ Diana Luft: ‘Identity? Politics: William Griffith’s African Adventure’ Ystafell y Cyngor / Council Chamber – Panel 4b: Minorities of the Imaginary Jessica Reid: ‘“Folk” celebration? Thomas St. Serfe’s “The Prince of Tartaria, his Voyage to Cowper in Fife”’ Christopher McMillan: ‘A Discription, A journey and a Prophecy: Scottophobia in English Literature, 1626-1763’ Lorna McBean: ‘White Man Writing: Language of Colonisation in the writings of William Lithgow (1582-1645)’ 13.00 Cinio / Lunch 14.00 DRWM – Panel 5a: Purposeful Travellers Marion Löffler: ‘German Scholars in Wales, c.1840–c.1880: Friedrich Carl Meyer’ Adam N. Coward: ‘Rambles and Studies of the United States Consul in south Wales’ Ystafell y Cyngor / Council Chamber – Panel 5b: Travellers and Commodities Gwyn Griffiths: ‘Yr Ymwelwydd Tymhorol o Lydaw’ Anna-Lou Dijkstra: “‘Guidebook Gazes”: Wales Through Dutch, German and French Eyes, 1990-2010’ Melinda Szarvas: ‘Immobile travel: The “postcard-literature” in Yugoslavia’ 15.30 Te / Tea Break 16.00 DRWM – Prif Ddarlith / Keynote Lecture: Michael Cronin ‘Minority Reports: Travel, Language and the Politics of Microspection’ 19.30 Cinio’r Gynhadledd / Conference Dinner: Pier Brasserie Dydd Mercher, 16 Medi 2015 Wednesday, 16 September 2015 9.30 Amgueddfa Ceredigion Museum Arddangosfa ‘EwrOlwg: Cymru drwy Lygaid Ymwelwyr o Ewrop, 1750–2015’ Exhibition ‘EuroVisions: Wales through the Eyes of European Visitors, 1750–2015’ 10.00 Panel 6: Travellers and Material Culture Robert Lewis: ‘Welsh Language and Bilingual Provision in Tourism in Wales’ Jacqui Ansell: ‘Difference and Decorum: Addressing Dress in Published Travelogues’ 11.00 Dychwelyd i Lyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru / Return to the National Library of Wales 12.00 DRWM Panel 7: Curious Travellers Elizabeth Edwards: ‘“[B]leak and desolate as anything I have seen in Scotland”: Mary Brunton on the home tour’ Mary-Ann Constantine: ‘“To find out all its beauties, a man must travel on foot”: Catherine Hutton’s explorations of Wales’ 13.00 Casgliadau / Closing Remarks Dydd Llun, 14 Medi 2015 Monday, 14 September 2015 11.00 Cofrestru yng Nghyntedd Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru Registration in the Foyer of the National Library of Wales 12.30 Cinio / Lunch 13.40 DRWM – Croeso / Welcome Address 14.00 DRWM Ystafell y Cyngor / Council Chamber Panel 1a: Panel 1b: Belgian Refugees in Wales Women Travellers Panel 1a: Belgian Refugees in Wales Cadair / Chair: Robert Evans Belgian Refugees and Swansea’s Belgian Community Following the outbreak of the Great War, Great Britain received the largest influx of refugees in its history, as over 250,000 Belgians arrived, having fled from the advance of the German army across their homeland. It was an exodus which has been described as ‘a migration phenomenon without previous precedent in the modern history of Europe outside the Balkan peninsula’. The arriving refugees were dispersed across the whole of the United Kingdom, including many parts of Wales. Relief for them was coordinated by the central War Refugees Committee in London, but was actually delivered by local committees, of which there were over 2,500 across the country. Some 700 of these Belgian refugees came to Swansea, mainly in 1914 and 1915, where they united with a large, pre-existing Belgian community, mainly composed of the families of metal-workers, the first of whom had arrived in the town in the late 1840s, when they had brought their expertise, gained in the zinc works of Belgium, to help develop Swansea’s own newly-established spelter industry. The welcome and support which the Belgian refugees received in Swansea were generally very positive, especially when compared with the sometimes adverse experiences of refugees in other parts of the United Kingdom. The energies and dedication of Swansea Corporation – and especially of the Swansea Belgian Refugee Committee – made a large contribution to this success, but, as a visiting Belgian minister pointed out in 1916, the people of Swansea themselves also played their own vital part in ensuring that these less fortunate souls received a good welcome. As a consequence, links between Swansea and Belgium were maintained post-war and were re-affirmed during the Second World War, when an even larger contingent of Belgian refugees returned to the town. John Alban University of East Anglia Belgian artists finding refuge in Wales during the Great War The outbreak of the war in August 1914 brought an enormous influx of Belgian refugees on the move. Hundreds of thousands Belgians arrived in Britain, among them hundreds of architects and artists. The Belgians were warmly welcomed since Britain felt partly responsible for the agony of the Belgian population. In the UK the Belgians were housed, cared for and employed. The British cultural society offered many opportunities for the exiles, not only the people themselves were cared for, also the reconstruction of Belgium has been prepared and researched by many British and Belgian architects. A conference for this purpose only was held in 1915 in order to prepare the rebuilding of Belgium. Apart from this urbanization aspect many artists and architects stayed in Britain during the war and interacted with society. One must realize that because of the scattering events of the war a logical well conducted cultural policy is lacking, although the situation was very different in Wales. Yet, these refugees came aboard in Britain and were dispatched all over the country. Some thrived, some merely survived. In the many documents, archives, personal letters and artefacts significant cases can be found, and these cases can be used to illustrate the larger mechanisms and schemes of an exiled artistic community. This paper however will focus on the effects of this migration on the Belgian artists who were involved in interior architecture. An interesting example is the one of Valerius de Sadeleer and his daughter Elisabeth who by invitation of the Davies sisters of Aberystwyth made Rhydyfelin their home for several years during the Great War. When they returned to Belgium in 1922 they named, as a token of recognition, their new home in Tiegem ‘Tynlon’ after their Welsh home. More important Elisabeth and her father worked in the new Arts and Crafts centre in Aberystwyth. They were commissioned to do so by the Davies sisters, who were very keen on injecting Aberystwyth’s cultural life with renowned continental artists. Elisabeth trained in tapestry weaving in the William Morris tradition. When back in Belgium her tapestry firm grew to be one of the most important in the country in the inter-war period. Caterina Verdickt Antwerp University Soir héroïque: Belgian refugee musicians in Wales In October 1914, Gwendoline and Margaret Davies – heiress grand-daughters of the nineteenth-century industrialist David Davies, Llandinam – assisted a select group of Belgian refugees to settle in Powys and Ceredigion with the aim of raising cultural standards in Wales. A major retrospective exhibition of artworks produced during their time here by Valerius De Saedeleer, George Minne, Edgar Gevaert and Gustave van de Woestijne was held at National Museum Cardiff and the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent in 2002.