LLC Commons: Christopher Lewin and Elisa Vivaldi In brief Date - 12 February 2026Venue - Project Room 1.06, 50 George SquareSpeakers - Christopher Lewin (Celtic and Scottish Studies) and Elisa Vivaldi (PhD Candidate in Italian Studies)Theme - Heritage, Books and Identity About the eventJoin us for the inaugural event of the LLC Commons initiative!The session brings together research around the theme of 'Heritage, Books and Identity' and will feature two speakers, Christopher Lewin, Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow in Celtic and Scottish Studies, and Elisa Vivaldi, PhD Candidate in Italian Studies, followed by Q&A and general discussion. Stay on for an informal pub social after.This space is to build community across the six departments in the School and hold interdisciplinary conversations among research staff and students - so come along!'Could we but get such a thing as an Erse Dictionary’: the Manx Bible (1748–75) in a pan-Gaelic contextManx is the variety of Gaelic spoken in the Isle of Man, an autonomous British crown territory located off the south coast of Scotland, roughly equidistant between England and Ireland. Largely cut off from the wider Gaelic cultural sphere in the Late Middle Ages, the Manx developed a new literary tradition and English-based orthography for religious purposes from the seventeenth century, culminating in the publication of a complete Bible translation in sections between 1748 and 1775 – a quarter of a century before the completion of the Scottish Gaelic Bible (1767–1801).The translators and editors of the Manx Bible were well aware of the language’s Gaelic provenance. They consulted Irish and Scottish Gaelic versions of the Scriptures, expressed interest in Gaelic lexicography, collected Manx oral literature in response to the Ossianic mania of the 1760s, and corresponded with Gaelic scholars in Scotland and Ireland, most notably James McLagan, who visited the Isle of Man in 1771 and ‘assisted [...] in the recovery or the application of obsolete words’ (Kelly 1866: 89), as well as John Stuart of Luss, the main translator of the Scottish Gaelic Old Testament.Nevertheless, the Irish and Scottish Gaelic influence on the Manx translation (and vice versa) is remarkably slight. Only three words of external Gaelic origin have been detected in the final text of the Manx Bible, two traceable to the 1767 Scottish Gaelic New Testament and one likely to McLagan (Thomson 1961; Lewin 2023). Moreover, the orthography of Manx is famously very different from that of the broader Gaelic literate tradition, and the translation style, especially in the Old Testament, is quite distinct – much more interpretive and idiomatic – than that of the Irish and Scottish Gaelic Bibles.This talk will analyse the abovementioned inter-Gaelic contacts and consider why the Manx Bible is so different from its peers, despite the opportunity for exchange of influence and ideas.'I will burn my book (or will I?)': Crisis, Heritage and the Avant-gardeItalian Futurismo has come to pass as the most incendiary of Europe’s avantgardes, staging perhaps the fiercest contestation of cultural heritage in modern Europe through its polemical calls to destroy museums, burn libraries and flood historical cities.However, these gestures, often read as sheer iconoclasm, are here reconsidered as part of a broader negotiation of heritage and nationhood: as Ara Merjian has shown, Futurism’s polemics echoed wider perceptions of Italy as a ‘land of the dead’ (Lamartine) or ‘a man who lives by exhibiting his grandmother’s corpse’ (Joyce). By treating Futurismo as a case study, the talk explores how cultural heritage was mobilized in the construction of Italian identity in the late 19th century and how Italy’s first avant-garde responded, while situating the movement within a wider European dimension of cultural upheaval. Focusing on the decades following Italian unification through the First World War, the talk argues that concerns with heritage intensify during crises, when contemporary cultural infrastructures no longer answer present needs. This is explored by bridging heritage studies and crisis theory, drawing on Reinhart Koselleck’s understanding of crisis as inseparable from critique and Antonio Gramsci’s notion of interregnum, when the old is dead and the new struggles to be born.By distinguishing between historically situated definitions of heritage and the longer conceptual evolution of heritage-making, the paper uses contemporary frameworks to shed light on this cultural tension. Within this framework, Futurismo’s attacks on heritage are thus read not as rejection of the past, but as critique of a cultural system that grounded the idea of the nation in a supposedly pre-existent heritage and spirit. Through manifestos, polemical writings, and aesthetic innovation, the talk shows how Futurismo articulated a counter-heritage project renegotiating relations between past, present, and future.About the speakersChristopher Lewin is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow under the mentorship of Peadar Ó Muircheartaigh, working on the project ‘Emergent Linguistic Norms And Translated Religious Prose In Eighteenth-century Manx.' The project will build on previous work on the orthographical development of Manx in the sermon corpus, to examine wider processes of linguistic standardization and translation in eighteenth-century Manx, with a particular focus on the Bible translation project completed between the 1720s and 1770s.Elisa Vivaldi is a fourth-year PhD candidate in Italian, working in co-supervision with KU Leuven, Cultural Studies Research Unit, under the supervision of Professor Federica Pedriali (University of Edinburgh) and Professor Sascha Bru (KU Leuven). Her project explores how early 20th-century avant-garde groups critiqued traditional notions of European cultural heritage, how they reshaped it, and how this process informed modern sociopolitical challenges and processes of identity construction.How to attendThis event is free to attend, and open to all. No registration is required - just show up!About the seriesLLC Commons, coordinated by research colleagues and postgraduate research students, aims to embed work undertaken across the School’s six departments in a supportive seminar series. The initiative responds to calls from staff and students alike who have indicated that they would like more opportunities to share their work and invite feedback. The series aims to build a more integrated research culture among the School community, and to connect researchers across all its departments.Presentations might take a variety of formats: work in progress for conference papers or publications, outline plans for a chapter, a book proposal, or further research or grant plans. Tags Celtic and Scottish Studies European Languages and Cultures Italian Research Feb 12 2026 17.00 - 18.00 LLC Commons: Christopher Lewin and Elisa Vivaldi The inaugural event in the new LLC Commons cross-discipline and cross-departmental events series. It features Christopher Lewin (Celtic and Scottish Studies) and Elisa Vivaldi (PhD Candidate in Italian Studies) giving presentations around the theme of 'Heritage, Books and Identity'. Project Room 1.06 50 George Square University of Edinburgh EH8 9LH Find the venue: 50 George Square
LLC Commons: Christopher Lewin and Elisa Vivaldi In brief Date - 12 February 2026Venue - Project Room 1.06, 50 George SquareSpeakers - Christopher Lewin (Celtic and Scottish Studies) and Elisa Vivaldi (PhD Candidate in Italian Studies)Theme - Heritage, Books and Identity About the eventJoin us for the inaugural event of the LLC Commons initiative!The session brings together research around the theme of 'Heritage, Books and Identity' and will feature two speakers, Christopher Lewin, Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow in Celtic and Scottish Studies, and Elisa Vivaldi, PhD Candidate in Italian Studies, followed by Q&A and general discussion. Stay on for an informal pub social after.This space is to build community across the six departments in the School and hold interdisciplinary conversations among research staff and students - so come along!'Could we but get such a thing as an Erse Dictionary’: the Manx Bible (1748–75) in a pan-Gaelic contextManx is the variety of Gaelic spoken in the Isle of Man, an autonomous British crown territory located off the south coast of Scotland, roughly equidistant between England and Ireland. Largely cut off from the wider Gaelic cultural sphere in the Late Middle Ages, the Manx developed a new literary tradition and English-based orthography for religious purposes from the seventeenth century, culminating in the publication of a complete Bible translation in sections between 1748 and 1775 – a quarter of a century before the completion of the Scottish Gaelic Bible (1767–1801).The translators and editors of the Manx Bible were well aware of the language’s Gaelic provenance. They consulted Irish and Scottish Gaelic versions of the Scriptures, expressed interest in Gaelic lexicography, collected Manx oral literature in response to the Ossianic mania of the 1760s, and corresponded with Gaelic scholars in Scotland and Ireland, most notably James McLagan, who visited the Isle of Man in 1771 and ‘assisted [...] in the recovery or the application of obsolete words’ (Kelly 1866: 89), as well as John Stuart of Luss, the main translator of the Scottish Gaelic Old Testament.Nevertheless, the Irish and Scottish Gaelic influence on the Manx translation (and vice versa) is remarkably slight. Only three words of external Gaelic origin have been detected in the final text of the Manx Bible, two traceable to the 1767 Scottish Gaelic New Testament and one likely to McLagan (Thomson 1961; Lewin 2023). Moreover, the orthography of Manx is famously very different from that of the broader Gaelic literate tradition, and the translation style, especially in the Old Testament, is quite distinct – much more interpretive and idiomatic – than that of the Irish and Scottish Gaelic Bibles.This talk will analyse the abovementioned inter-Gaelic contacts and consider why the Manx Bible is so different from its peers, despite the opportunity for exchange of influence and ideas.'I will burn my book (or will I?)': Crisis, Heritage and the Avant-gardeItalian Futurismo has come to pass as the most incendiary of Europe’s avantgardes, staging perhaps the fiercest contestation of cultural heritage in modern Europe through its polemical calls to destroy museums, burn libraries and flood historical cities.However, these gestures, often read as sheer iconoclasm, are here reconsidered as part of a broader negotiation of heritage and nationhood: as Ara Merjian has shown, Futurism’s polemics echoed wider perceptions of Italy as a ‘land of the dead’ (Lamartine) or ‘a man who lives by exhibiting his grandmother’s corpse’ (Joyce). By treating Futurismo as a case study, the talk explores how cultural heritage was mobilized in the construction of Italian identity in the late 19th century and how Italy’s first avant-garde responded, while situating the movement within a wider European dimension of cultural upheaval. Focusing on the decades following Italian unification through the First World War, the talk argues that concerns with heritage intensify during crises, when contemporary cultural infrastructures no longer answer present needs. This is explored by bridging heritage studies and crisis theory, drawing on Reinhart Koselleck’s understanding of crisis as inseparable from critique and Antonio Gramsci’s notion of interregnum, when the old is dead and the new struggles to be born.By distinguishing between historically situated definitions of heritage and the longer conceptual evolution of heritage-making, the paper uses contemporary frameworks to shed light on this cultural tension. Within this framework, Futurismo’s attacks on heritage are thus read not as rejection of the past, but as critique of a cultural system that grounded the idea of the nation in a supposedly pre-existent heritage and spirit. Through manifestos, polemical writings, and aesthetic innovation, the talk shows how Futurismo articulated a counter-heritage project renegotiating relations between past, present, and future.About the speakersChristopher Lewin is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow under the mentorship of Peadar Ó Muircheartaigh, working on the project ‘Emergent Linguistic Norms And Translated Religious Prose In Eighteenth-century Manx.' The project will build on previous work on the orthographical development of Manx in the sermon corpus, to examine wider processes of linguistic standardization and translation in eighteenth-century Manx, with a particular focus on the Bible translation project completed between the 1720s and 1770s.Elisa Vivaldi is a fourth-year PhD candidate in Italian, working in co-supervision with KU Leuven, Cultural Studies Research Unit, under the supervision of Professor Federica Pedriali (University of Edinburgh) and Professor Sascha Bru (KU Leuven). Her project explores how early 20th-century avant-garde groups critiqued traditional notions of European cultural heritage, how they reshaped it, and how this process informed modern sociopolitical challenges and processes of identity construction.How to attendThis event is free to attend, and open to all. No registration is required - just show up!About the seriesLLC Commons, coordinated by research colleagues and postgraduate research students, aims to embed work undertaken across the School’s six departments in a supportive seminar series. The initiative responds to calls from staff and students alike who have indicated that they would like more opportunities to share their work and invite feedback. The series aims to build a more integrated research culture among the School community, and to connect researchers across all its departments.Presentations might take a variety of formats: work in progress for conference papers or publications, outline plans for a chapter, a book proposal, or further research or grant plans. Tags Celtic and Scottish Studies European Languages and Cultures Italian Research Feb 12 2026 17.00 - 18.00 LLC Commons: Christopher Lewin and Elisa Vivaldi The inaugural event in the new LLC Commons cross-discipline and cross-departmental events series. It features Christopher Lewin (Celtic and Scottish Studies) and Elisa Vivaldi (PhD Candidate in Italian Studies) giving presentations around the theme of 'Heritage, Books and Identity'. Project Room 1.06 50 George Square University of Edinburgh EH8 9LH Find the venue: 50 George Square
Feb 12 2026 17.00 - 18.00 LLC Commons: Christopher Lewin and Elisa Vivaldi The inaugural event in the new LLC Commons cross-discipline and cross-departmental events series. It features Christopher Lewin (Celtic and Scottish Studies) and Elisa Vivaldi (PhD Candidate in Italian Studies) giving presentations around the theme of 'Heritage, Books and Identity'.
