Call for submissions: Moderns & Others: genre, gender, faith & form in noncanonical British literature
Deadline: 3 Nov 2023
To shift attention away from canonical categories (like modernism), the editors are keen to receive proposals for chapters that consider obscure, middlebrow or popular texts that are or have previously been excluded from processes of canonisation
Scottish Society for Northern Studies half-day conference – exploring literary cross-currents between Scotland & Scandinavia via the prism of crime fiction
cfp: DEVILS & JUSTIFIED SINNERS
24–25 Aug 2024
An online conference from Romancing the Gothic to mark the 200th anniversary of James Hogg’s THE PRIVATE MEMOIRS & CONFESSIONS OF A JUSTIFIED SINNER – seeking papers on
“Bad Harsk Speech & Lewit Barbar Tung”
THE BOTTLE IMP 26: Scottish literature & translation
Featuring:
🇩🇪 SUNSET SONG in the GDR
🇮🇹 THE BLACK ARROW on Italian TV
🏆 Scotland’s Nobel-nominated #Esperanto poet
🇫🇷 Franco-Scots poetry & postcolonialism
📚 Transcreating concrete poetry
Samuel Rutherford Crockett was born #OTD, 24 Sep. A prolific & – in his lifetime – very successful author of more than 60 novels, he fell from fashion after WW1 & his books were dismissed as sentimental nostalgia. But there is much more to him: #Tolkien credits Crockett as an inspiration; & he quite possibly wrote the first car chase in fiction…
Robert Burns & Ireland
The Burns Chronicle 132/2, 2023
Guest-edited by Carol Baraniuk – now online
“Robert Burns & his work have generated strong emotions in Ireland’s northernmost province of Ulster & in Irish society more widely ever since the 1790s…”
“What I know is this: if there is sich a thing as a Author, I’m his favourite chara’ter. He does me fathoms better’n he does you—fathoms, he does.”
—Long John Silver & Captain Smollett slip out between chapters of #TreasureIsland for a chat & a fly smoke in “The Persons of the Tale” – the first of #RobertLouisStevenson’s twenty FABLES, available as a free ebook from our website
Book Borrowing in Scotland, 1750–1830
Thurs 21 Sept, Edinburgh & online – free
Prof Katie Halsey will discuss some of the early research findings of the AHRC-funded research project “Books and Borrowing, 1750–1830: An Analysis of Scottish Borrowers’ Registers” with a particular focus on the #libraries & wider book culture of #Georgian#Edinburgh
Robin Jenkins (1912–2005), one of Scotland’s most prolific & acclaimed 20th-century novelists, was born #OTD, 11 Sept. In this paper from 2012, Dr Linden Bicket argues that Jenkins anticipates the urban realist fictions of Galloway, Kelman & Welsh
Exile & Expatriates in Robin Jenkins’ Novels
Études Écossaises 13 (2010)
Prof Bernard Sellin examines Robin Jenkins’ 9 novels & short story collections inspired by the author’s own experiences as a teacher in Afghanistan, Catalonia & Malaysia
Yorgos Lanthimos’s adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s novel POOR THINGS (1992) has won the Golden Lion at the 2023 La Biennale di Venezia. In a series of recordings made in the last year of his life, Gray talks about the novel & reads extracts – & discusses works which influenced him, from Thomas Love Peacock’s NIGHTMARE ABBEY (1818) to Mel Brooks’ YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974)
@bookstodon
“…the novel’s fizzing exuberance derives from the fun of watching Gray’s keen authorial intelligence finding layer upon layer of unexpected possibility in his one ingenious narrative conceit.”
—Jonathan Coe reviews Alasdair Gray’s POOR THINGS in the London Review of Books, 8 October 1992
“The power and control we are capable of exerting over one another has always fascinated me, and I think when you force your characters to make difficult decisions in heightened environments you see the worst but also the best of humanity.”
—Rachelle Atalla on dystopia, inspiration, & the difference between writing for page & screen
“I think the fact that Scotland has such a rich tradition of dark, macabre storytelling – back to the Gothic fiction of James Hogg and Robert Louis Stevenson and even further back to the ballads – gives crime writers a deep well of inspiration to draw on […] that Calvinist preoccupation with good and evil, with the cloven hoof beneath the spotless robe, has to be a significant factor.”
Susan Ferrier (1782–1854) was born #OTD, 7 Sept. Her 3 novels—Marriage, The Inheritance, & Destiny—are vivid & humorous accounts of Scottish society. Often compared to her contemporary #JaneAusten, Ferrier’s satires are much more vicious…
@litstudies
We republished Susan Ferrier’s MARRIAGE in 2020—using the text of the acid-sharp 1819 edition rather than the sentimentalised Victorian version of 1842. Read the first chapter free online here:
@litstudies
“the foibles of the Scottish characters are usually much less detestable than those of the English”
Untrammelled by Theory: Susan Ferrier’s Polyphonic Vision of Scotland & the Union in MARRIAGE
—Benjamine Toussaint, Scottish Literary Review 8/1, 2016 – on Open Access via Project MUSE
@litstudies
“Miss Ferrier avowedly made thumb-nail sketches,—as is proved in one of the few surviving letters to or from her,—out of which grew the merciless caricatures that created her fame”
An 1893 article in The Atlantic Magazine, contrasting the careers of Susan Ferrier & Jane Austen
@litstudies
“THE INHERITANCE is, then, a novel concerned with questions of morality and education, but also national identity, the differences between Scottish and English cultures, and the stereotypes within human nature that both divide and unite the two. It is also very funny”
—The Books & Borrowing 1750–1830 Project on Susan Ferrier’s second novel, THE INHERITANCE
The John Galt Society invites applications for a grant of up to ₤300 towards research into the works, life & influence of the Scottish novelist John Galt (1779-1839)
The programme for the 2023 NessBookFest is now online.
In keeping with NessBookFest’s ethos of #nobarriers, all events are free of charge. However donations are welcome should audience members feel inclined!
@bookstodon
“so much of the writing submitted (and selected) peeks through the cracks of doors, pushes boundaries, asks the reader to step out of the known and comfortable… these are haunted pages. There are many, many ghosts.”
—from the editors’ intro to NWS41