The “RESPYR” project, initiated by L. Roussillon-Constanty in 2021 aims to study the mountain landscape by crossing several approaches and several views and by proposing a dialogue between specialists of different eras and disciplines. The starting point of the project is anchored in the nineteenth century and focuses on the study of accounts, poems and drawings by British travellers in the Pyrenees and on the representation of the mountains by major writers of the time, such as John Ruskin. It also includes a translation of the travellers’ writings (English/French) and now develops in several directions through the collaboration of two researchers, Tracey Simpson and Laurence Roussillon-Constanty.

Its originality lies in the way it combines hands-on approaches to research – through translation seminars for Master students and field-trip to connect today’s landscapes with historical archives – and digital dissemination through the use of the academic platform, Cove. (https://studio.covecollective.org/)

The scientific challenge of this project is twofold: to carry out research on a very local scale on the British presence in the Pyrenees and to participate in larger-scale projects on the representations of the mountain landscape on a European scale in order to participate in the development of landscape studies in the field of Anglophone studies. 

In the seminar, the presentation will show how teaching and research have led to the study of several nineteenth-century figures and to the dissemination of their writing through student contributions and archive investigation.