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Robert Burns at 250:
Poetry, Politics & Performance

Symposium: February 24-25, 2009
Mumford Room, 6th Floor
James Madison Memorial Building
101 Independence Ave. , SE
Washington, DC

Oil painting of Robert Burns, by Alexander Nasmyth, 1787. This is the most well-known image of Burns and the source for many subsequent portraits. From the collections of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

To mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, in collaboration with the Scottish Government, presented a free public symposium on Burns’s life and work, as well as his impact on America and American culture.

Leading scholars, poets, and musicians from Scotland and the United States joined experts from the Library of Congress in the two-day event. The symposium was produced by the Library’s American Folklife Center, in cooperation with the Library’s Center for the Book, the Library's Poetry and Literature Center, and the Scottish Government as part of Homecoming Scotland 2009.