Prof Nigel Leask, Regius Professor of English Language and Literature, School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow.

‘Dr Johnson after Pennant: Exploring the Relationship Between their Scottish Tours’.

Although Dr Johnson barely mentioned the Thomas Pennant in his best-selling Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775), both the tour the he made with Boswell in 1773, and his published narrative, were indebted to Pennant’s two Tours in Scotland in 1769 and 1772. This lecture explores the complex relationship between the two great travel writers, contesting a common image of Pennant as a ‘friend to Scotland’ and Johnson as a Scotophobe.

Professor Murray Pittock, Bradley Professor of English Literature, School of Critical Studies, and Vice-Principal, University of Glasgow.

‘Tourist on Trial? Boswell’s Johnson and Johnson’s Scotland in Journey and A Tour’

Boswell’s version of the Scottish tour interrogates that of Johnson and is arguably as much a point of contestation of their relationship as the Life is one of-albeit hardly innocent-filial piety