Matthew Fitt, But N Ben A-Go-Go (2000),
2017
University of Wyoming
Matthew Fitt, But N Ben A-Go-Go (2000), Caroline Mccracken-Flesher
Studies in Scottish Literature
Puts forward Fitt's "challenging, haunting novel," "a dystopian, coming of age, scientific-detective-police procedural-medical romance," written in "lyrical/acerbic Scots," as "thrawn, readable, un-put-down-able," and a "darkly plotted challenge to family dynamics."
Scotland’S Top Ten & The Inadequacy Of A National Canon: Alasdair Gray’S Lanark (1981),
2017
Edinburgh Napier University
Scotland’S Top Ten & The Inadequacy Of A National Canon: Alasdair Gray’S Lanark (1981), Scott Lyall
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses the healthy overlap in the recent BBC Scotland poll on Scotland's Favourite Novel between popular appeal and critical recognition; judges Gray's Lanark as "Scotland's greatest modern novel," which "deserves to be much better known internationally," as "the outstanding postmodern challenge to the global conformism of capitalist hyper-individualism," laments that, despite their usefulness, such curated polls and lists are self-perpetuating, to the neglect of many distinctive Scottish novels, and concludes by asking "what would a truly uncurated top 30 look like?"
Robin Jenkins, The Thistle And The Grail (1954) With A Comment On Sunset Song,
2017
Virginia Commonwealth University
Robin Jenkins, The Thistle And The Grail (1954) With A Comment On Sunset Song, David E. Latane
Studies in Scottish Literature
Recommends Robin Jenkins's story of a Scottish football (soccer) team, Drumsagart Thistle, and its quest to win the Scottish Junior Cup, as "a marvelous compendium of Roy of the Rovers improbabilities, Our Town ethnography, critiques of gender relations, subtle and broad satire, and laugh outloud comedy."
Eric Linklater, Private Angelo (1946),
2017
University of St Andrews
Eric Linklater, Private Angelo (1946), Gill Plain
Studies in Scottish Literature
Recommends Linklater's novel about World War II in Italy as "a book that cherishes national difference while utterly condemning nationalism," "as much a book for 2017 as it was for 1946," and "a sharply observant satire dissecting the male vanity, national hubris and hypocrisy behind the 'logic' of war."
Willa Muir, Imagined Corners (1931),
2017
University of Aberdeen
Willa Muir, Imagined Corners (1931), Timothy C. Baker
Studies in Scottish Literature
Recommends Muir's novel (which came in 30th in the BBC poll), set in a small Scottish town and concerned with "'the ideology of Scotland,' and questions of class, religion, sexuality, politics, and education," as "indisputably a great novel, perhaps equalled in British fiction only by To the Lighthouse, and utterly unique in the Scottish canon,"
James Robertson, The Fanatic (2000),
2017
University of Konstanz
James Robertson, The Fanatic (2000), Silvia Mergenthal
Studies in Scottish Literature
Suggests that Robertson's first novel, chiefly concerned with 17th century Scotland, already shows the complex intertextual relationships with earlier Scottish works by Scott, Hogg, and Stevenson that marks his subsequent writing, and comments particularly on its question "What happens later?," in relation to the Scottish vote for political devolution in May 1997.
James Robertson, Joseph Knight (2003),
2017
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
James Robertson, Joseph Knight (2003), Ilka Schwittlinsky
Studies in Scottish Literature
Recommends Robertson's novel, based on the true story of the Jamaican slave who in 1778 successfully asserted his freedom in the Scottish Court of Session, and the intertwined story of John Wedderburn, the Scottish plantation owner whose slave he had been, as "an eminently enjoyable historical novel which tackles a difficult subject matter [Scotland’s complicity in slavery and the slave trade] with astonishing humanity."
Nan Shepherd, The Quarry Wood (1928),
2017
University of Edinburgh
Nan Shepherd, The Quarry Wood (1928), Carole Jones
Studies in Scottish Literature
Recommends Shepherd's novel about an independent woman in north-east Scotland as "vivid in delineating its female central character, its local language, and what is undoubtedly a radical engagement with sexual politics," that "examines closely issues of sexual identity and gender relations, and ... comes to its own thoughtful conclusions on women's place in the world."
Muriel Spark, The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie (1961),
2017
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg
Muriel Spark, The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), Katrin Berndt
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses Spark's well-known novel, recognizing its "curious amalgamation of acerbic humour, elegance of style, Calvinist spirit, and careful poignancy of plot development," but pointing also to "the pleasurable challenge" offered by its "charismatic" protagonist, Jean Brodie, "glamorous and romantic," "with a proud self-assurance rarely bestowed on female characters," which nonetheless "eludes everyone’s emotional grasp."
Writing On The Margins: Luke Sutherland, Venus As A Boy (2004),
2017
United Arab Emirates University
Writing On The Margins: Luke Sutherland, Venus As A Boy (2004), Manfred Malzahn
Studies in Scottish Literature
Recommends Sutherland's "epiphanic" short novel, which received rave reviews on publication, as a novel that should have been "an almost mandatory selection" for the BBC poll ballot, suggesting that it was excluded, not only because of length, explicit language, and violence, but because its island setting and depiction of "the fuzzy margins of sexual and racial identity" made it wrongly seem peripheral to the Scottish "mainland and mainstream."
Gavin Douglas's Aeneados: Caxton's English And 'Our Scottis Langage',
2017
Santa Clara University
Gavin Douglas's Aeneados: Caxton's English And 'Our Scottis Langage', Jacquelyn Hendricks
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses the Scots poet Gavin Douglas's translation of Virgil's Aeneid into Scots, and Douglas's treatment of his predecessor William Caxton's translation of Virgil into English, arguing that Douglas associates Caxton's English with a barbaric world of monsters and beasts, in contrast to Scots which is seen as expressing civilized classical values, and that Douglas's translation, by enhancing and showcasing the literary power of Scots for a wider audience, successfully resisted for at least forty years the linguistic standardization initiated by the burgeoning print industry.
Beattie's The Minstrel: A Missing Link In Scottish Poetry,
2017
University of South Carolina
Beattie's The Minstrel: A Missing Link In Scottish Poetry, Ian C. Robertson
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses the Scottish poet James Beattie's poetry, especially his major work The Minstrel, and his shorter poem in Scots, "To Mr Alexander Ross," in terms of his connections, role and influence within the Scottish poetry and culture of the mid- to late 18th century, arguing that without taking into account Beattie's complex relationship to Scottish, and specifically Aberdonian, culture, the development of 18th century Scottish poetry between Ramsay and Burns cannot be adequately understood.
The Scotch Bard And 'The Planting Line': New Documents On Burns And Jamaica,
2017
Centre for Robert Burns Studies, University of Glasgow
The Scotch Bard And 'The Planting Line': New Documents On Burns And Jamaica, Clark Mcginn
Studies in Scottish Literature
Based on newly-identified documents, reexamines Burns's plan in 1786 to emigrate to Jamaica to take a job on a Scottish-owned slave plantation, and the timing and circumstances of his eventual decision to stay in Scotland, concluding that Burns "kept his options open to the last moment," and that the new documents might mean Burns "sought to prosper from chattel slavery," and "only dropped the opportunity because a better offer came along, not because of any moral scruples."
Immigrant Communities, Cultural Conflicts, And Intermarriage In Ann Marie Di Mambro's Tally's Blood,
2017
Kingston University
Immigrant Communities, Cultural Conflicts, And Intermarriage In Ann Marie Di Mambro's Tally's Blood, Ian Brown
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses the stage history, structure and themes of Anne Marie Di Mambro’s play Tally’s Blood (1990), especially in terms of the cultural stresses on Italian immigrant families in Scotland in the 1930s and the impact on them of the Second World War.
An Ssl Research Symposium: Introduction: New Developments In Robert Burns Bibliography,
2017
University of Glasgow
An Ssl Research Symposium: Introduction: New Developments In Robert Burns Bibliography, Gerard Carruthers
Studies in Scottish Literature
Introduces four talks given at the National Library of Scotland on March 16, 2017, at a workshop on New Developments in Robert Burns Bibliography, jointly convened by Robert Betteridge of the National Library and by Prof. Carruthers, as general editor of the AHRC-funded project Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century, arguing that "every bit as much as literary criticism or textual editing, bibliographical studies need generational renewal."
Towards A New Bibliography Of Robert Burns,
2017
University of Glasgow
Towards A New Bibliography Of Robert Burns, Craig Lamont
Studies in Scottish Literature
Introduces and describes the first phase of a new, free on-line resource from the University of Glasgow, A Bibliography of Robert Burns for the 21st Century: 1786-1802, based on fresh examination of multiple copies in several Scottish libraries, as well as in collections in the US and Canada, providing significantly-expanded entries for the early book-publication of Burns's poetry, and so allowing textual editors a more complete record of the textual history of Burns's work.
'Not In Egerer'? (Some Of) What We Still Don't Know About Burns Bibliography,
2017
University of South Carolina - Columbia
'Not In Egerer'? (Some Of) What We Still Don't Know About Burns Bibliography, Patrick Scott
Studies in Scottish Literature
Briefly reviews developments in Burns bibliography since J.W. Egerer's Bibliography of Robert Burns (1964), examines the kinds of material that Egerer aimed to include and exclude, and presents a series of brief case-studies illustrating the desirability of additional research, especially on early publication in non-book formats, for obtaining a fuller picture of Burns's textual history and readership.
Burns And Chapbooks: A Bibliographer's Twilight Zone,
2017
University of Aberdeen
Burns And Chapbooks: A Bibliographer's Twilight Zone, Iain Beavan
Studies in Scottish Literature
Based on records for 358 chapbooks containing material by Robert Burns, published in Scotland, England and Ireland, between the 1780s and the 1880s, provides statistical information on their distribution by date and place of publication, and discusses some of the special research issues raised by this publication format, especially relating to the attribution (and misattribution) of authorship.
Robert Burns In Print At The National Library Of Scotland,
2017
National Library of Scotland
Robert Burns In Print At The National Library Of Scotland, Robert Betteridge
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses the early Burns editions now in the National Library of Scotland, compares the NLS holdings to those of other major UK research libraries, examines the limited role of the deposit privilege in bring early Burns editions to the Advocates' Library before the founding of the NLS, and provides examples of significant early editions that were subsequently acquired for the library by purchase and donation.
'Upon The Decaying Kirk': A Footnote To Ane Dialogue,
2017
University of Glasgow
'Upon The Decaying Kirk': A Footnote To Ane Dialogue, Jamie Reid Baxter
Studies in Scottish Literature
Prints a short Scottish verse-fragment from the 1630s, "Upon the Decaying Kirk," and discusses its relation to an earlier, longer workAne Dialogue (1619: see SSL 43:1) and to presbyterian protests in the Edinburgh High Kirk against the introduction of episcopalianism under King Charles I.
