The Geopoetics Project

In his role as the recipient of the first HI~Arts International Fellowship award, PROFESSOR KENNETH WHITE delivered three lectures in the Highlands and Islands under the heading of ‘The Geopoetics Project’. Northings reflects on these important lectures.

THE AWARD OF the first HI~Arts International Fellowship to Kenneth White recognises his outstanding and sustained contribution to the study of Scottish culture in general and of the Highlands and Islands in particular.

He is the author of a very considerable body of work comprising poetry, prose narrative and essays. His first book, ‘The Cold Wind of Dawn’, was published by Jonathan Cape, London, in 1966. Among his recent books are: ‘Open World – Collected Poems’ (2003), ‘The Wanderer and his Charts’ (Essays, 2004), and Across the Territories (2004), all published by Polygon, Edinburgh.

He held the Chair of Twentieth Century Poetics at the Sorbonne Paris from 1983 to 1996, and is the founder-president of the International Institute of Geopoetics, as well as holding honorary doctorates from Glasgow and Edinburgh and the Open University.

Kenneth White said: “In these lectures, I’ll be talking about place, culture and world. The country is badly in need, not of yet another Renaissance, but of a thoroughgoing reconnaissance. A lot of the institutions haven’t a clue what culture means, they spend their time piling up secondary matter and fostering foutery schemes.

“I’ll be doing a re-reading of Scottish literature, Scottish history and Scottish culture. And I’ll be doing it from different places, always in touch with the particular place. Culture starts from where you are. And if your base, your centre, is right, you can move out from it in concentric circles. You don’t get embedded in regional couthiness. With a wider field of reference, you expand.”

Kenneth White’s lectures were delivered as follows:

‘North Atlantic Investigations’, Macphail Theatre, Ullapool, 29 October 2005.

‘Return to the Territory – A Highland Reconnaissance’, Beaufort Hotel, Inverness, 30 October 2005.

‘A Sense of High North’, Orkney College, Kirkwall, 31 October 2005.

Northings commissioned responses to two of his lectures, which can be read (and the audio from the lectures downloaded) at these links:

Georgina Coburn on ‘Return to the Territory’

John Aberdein on ‘A Sense of High North’

Peter Urpeth’s 2003 interview/essay on the work of Kenneth White

The annual HI-Arts Fellowship will enable a leading international academic and writer to engage with the theme of ‘Creativity and the North’, producing new work to encourage and inform understanding of the unique aspects of the creative life and culture of the Highlands and Islands. The HI~Arts International Fellowship is established with, and acknowledges financial assistance from, Scottish Arts Council and HIE.

Audio of Kenneth White’s full lecture, “North Atlantic Investigations”, is available to download here.

© HI~Arts, 2005