Call for Papers: “Roots and Networks” Evening Lecture Series

Roots are inseparable from networks. Ideas, things and people in a localised context cannot be isolated from broader connections or influences. The Devon and Exeter Institution was established as a local repository for local individuals in 1813, but it often depended on a broad range of relationships and influences outside its home city. 

This lecture series hopes to touch on conversations related not only to the roots of identity but also feelings of rootedness in the natural world. This broad theme is designed to encourage discussions surrounding the local and the global, and in so doing ties in with the Institution’s history as a space that was local in scale but global in scope. 

Some of the topics we would like to explore include:

• Home, transience and community

• Clubs, societies, or online subcultures

• Nature, environment and climate

• Travel or displacement

• Systems of science or technology

• Histories, heritage and futures

• Industry and infrastructure

• The local and the global

… or a suggested topic of your choosing.

Please submit an abstract of 250-300 words by Friday 21st August to our Library Assistant, Amber, via amberflood@devonandexeterinstitution.org

We welcome abstracts that interact with our arts, literature, and science collections as well as our local history collection.

Accepted papers will be presented in our monthly evening lecture series during the autumn and winter, which will be held in The Blue Room, our stunning Georgian space on the first floor.