illness

16d

“Ending badly from the beginning”: facing finitude with Robert Louis Stevenson
8 October, University of Edinburgh & online – free

What does it mean to live – and to write – well, through experiences of illness and in the shadow of death? An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar from Dr Shari Sabeti

@litstudies

https://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/event/dr-shari-sabeti-‘ending-badly-beginning’-facing-finitude-robert-louis-stevenson

#Scottish #literature #RobertLouisStevenson #Samoa #illness #culturalstudies #death

Event date: Wednesday 8 October
Time: 13:00-14:00
Location: Seminar room, 2 Hope Park Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9NW

An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Dr Shari Sabeti (Sabbatical Fellow, 2025)

‘Ending badly from the beginning’: facing finitude with Robert Louis Stevenson.

What does it mean to live - and to write - well, through experiences of illness and in the shadow of death? Is death the end, or the beginning of relationships? This presentation considers these questions through an exploration of the life, work, and legacy of the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson. It focuses on his last years, as both exile and settler colonial, in Sāmoa, a Pacific island he had travelled to in search of health. Drawing on Barthes’ concepts of the punctum and biographeme, as well as writing on illness (Sontag, Frank), the chapter blends ethnographic fieldwork, literary and photographic analysis, elements of biography and personal reflection. It argues that Stevenson’s relationship with Sāmoa and Samoans continues through to the present day in oral histories, school songs, grave-site rituals, and community narratives that position him within specifically Sāmoan frameworks of care, kinship, and place.

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