Academic literature on the topic 'Scottish authors'

The article analyses the contents and the significance of the Scottish governance system in the second half of the 18th century. The authors point out that English political elite had little interest in governing Scotland and draw attention to the role of the Scottish lobby in the Scottish governance as a tool of interaction between the centre and the periphery. The text reveals how the Scottish lobby distributed various amenities via the patronage in order to achieve political stability, as shown with the elections to the House of Commons. The article also demonstrates the role of Scottish managers as the representatives of Scottish interests in London. The authors conclude that the Scottish political system was different from the English one and note that there were no acute political crises in the second half of the 18th century, which indicates that in the midst of a rapid modernisation the Scottish governance system proved to be successful.

The article examines the main forms and socio-cultural features of the participation of Muslim youth in Scotland in non-institutional politics. As their research goal, the authors chose to identify the mechanisms through which political processes specific to the Scottish context (different from the general British or, for example, the English context) generate various forms of political participation of young adherents of Islam. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study was a significant layer of empirical data (mainly Scottish), comprehended through an interpretive paradigm, which allowed the authors to analyze the non-institutionalized political experience of young Muslims, finding patterns in how Muslim youth perceive and construct the social world around them. The result of the study was an understanding that the strengthening of the “Islamic factor” in the social and political life of Scotland is explained not only by the growth of the Muslim population, but also by the obvious support that the Scottish authorities provide to adherents of Islam. According to the authors, the issue of national and state independence, the specificity of Scottish nationalism, the attractiveness of the political platform of the Scottish National Party for ethno-confessional minorities became the most important primary factors that predetermined the active entry of Scottish Muslim youth into politics. The main conclusion in this article was the idea that the specific socio-political and sociocultural contexts of Scotland create appropriate forms of political participation of young Muslims. Despite the prevailing opinion that Scottish Muslim youth are interested mainly in international events, the authors show a clearly traceable institutional and non-institutional involvement of young Muslims in national and local political issues in Scotland. According to the authors, the non-institutional political participation of young Scottish followers of Islam is manifested in such forms as social movements, activism and charity, and volunteer work.

The article analyzes the contemporary manifestations of the political struggle for the acquisition of Scottish national independence. Attempting to reveal the specifics of the modern Scottish «nationalism», the authors conclude that the success of the political opposition to the British bourgeois neo-liberal etatism is largely dependent on the social and democratic and egalitarian orientation of the Scottish national idea.

Purpose In response to Scottish Government assertions that an ageing cohort explained increases in drug-related death (DRD), the previous research by the authors established that socio-economic inequalities were additional risk factors explaining the significant increases in DRD in Scotland. This paper aims to subject the drug policy narratives provided by Scottish Government in relation to the governance of drug and alcohol services to critical scrutiny and reveal the social consequences of the funding formula used to direct funding to services via NHS Scotland Boards, and Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADP). Design/methodology/approach The paper provides a narrative review in the context of the AUDIT Scotland reports “Drug and Alcohol Services in Scotland” from 2009 and follow-up report published in 2019. The authors refer to the recommendations made in the 2009 report on effectiveness of drug and alcohol services and subject Scottish Government funding processes, and governance of drug and alcohol services to critical scrutiny. Findings This analysis provides robust evidence that Scottish Government funding processes and governance of drug and alcohol services increased risk to vulnerable drug users and document evidence that link these risk factors to increased DRD. Research limitations/implications The authors have focused on Scottish drug policy and drug services funding. Alcohol services funding is not subject to critical analysis due to limitations of time and resources. Practical implications This case study investigates AUDIT Scotland’s recommendations in 2009 to Scottish Government to provide researchers, government policy advisors and media with robust critical analysis that links drug policy decisions to increased DRD. Social implications Drug policy governance by the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland since 2009 have disproportionately affected communities of interest and communities of place already experiencing stark inequalities. These budget decisions have resulted in widening inequalities, and increased DRD within communities in Scotland. The authors conclude that in diverging politically and ideologically from Public Health England, and the Westminster Parliament, Scottish Government drug policy and financial governance of drugs services contributes to increased risk factors explaining DRD within deprived communities. Originality/value The 2009 AUDIT Scotland recommendations to Scottish Government subject their governance of drug services to critical scrutiny. This analysis provides a counterpoint to the explanations that rising DRD are unconnected to drug policy and drug services governance.

Using data from the 1992 Scottish and British Election Surveys, the authors examine various models which might explain the changes in the level and type of Scottish National Party voting. In the analysis they are also concerned with voters for other parties who support the central SNP policy: independence, for Scotland. The protest, relative deprivation, identity, and new social movement models are stated and explored. The authors conclude that a major problem for the SNP is that the basic Scottish identity, to which the Nationalists want to appeal, is felt almost as strongly by Labour voters as by those who choose the SNP. The SNP has not been able to establish a reputation as a credible party of government which could take over the role of the spokesperson for the national community. At the same time, it is not likely to disappear as the major challenger in Scottish politics.

The article considers the identity of Scottish Muslims as a non-traditional for Scotland sociocultural manifestation of globalization of regional socio-political processes. The relevance of this topic is determined by the fact that the number of Muslims as a part of population of Scotland has been growing rapidly over the past decade. In this regard, the range of questions about the future national sovereignty of Scotland is significantly expanding, requiring the search for scientific, theoretical and practical answers. The research goal of the article is to analyze the influence of Islamic identity on domestic political processes in Scotland. To achieve this goal, the authors rely on general logic, institutional, stating factual and comparative methods used in political science. In addition, the article uses the data of socio-anthropological and psychological research conducted on the subject by foreign colleagues. As a result of the research, the authors identified the activation the Scottish authorities’ activities, who are forced (within the framework of internal policy) to develop comprehensive measures aimed at Scots who confess Islam. The article deals with the issues of political participation of Muslims, Islamic extremism and others, the practical solution of which, according to the authors, is connected with the problem of Muslims integration into the Scottish society (traditionally Christian). In this regard, the authors attach particular importance to the peculiarities of Islamic identity in the modern Scottish society. The authors come to the conclusion that this identity is a socio-cultural manifestation of global civilizational processes and it contains plenty of internal contradictions caused by a number of objective reasons, the main of which is the discrepancy between two civilizational codes: the traditional (native Scottish, Christian, European) and the non-traditional (brought from the outside, Muslim, Asian).

Purpose Critical literacy foregrounds the relationship between language and power by focusing on how texts work and in whose interests (Luke, 2012, p. 5). It is highlighted as an “important skill” within Scotland’s national educational framework for 3-18 year olds, the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), yet, as this paper aims to show, what the concept means is far from clear for policy users (Scottish Government, 2009e). Design/methodology/approach Using a lens that draws from critical discourse analysis, critical content analysis (Luke, 2001; Beach et al., 2009; Fairclough, 2010) and Ball’s method of policy analysis (2015), the authors find that the term “critical literacy” has been applied incoherently within key CfE documentation, including the frequent conflation of critical literacy with critical reading and critical thinking. Findings The authors argue that the CfE’s use of “critical literacy” is a misnomer, given that the version presented is an amalgamation of literacy-related competences drawing largely from psychological and not socio-political perspectives of literacy. Social implications This is a missed opportunity, given the Scottish Government’s stated commitment to social justice in policy terms (Scottish Executive, 2000; Scottish Government, 2016), not forgetting the powerful benefits that a critically literate stance could bring to Scotland’s learners at this time of communicative change and challenge. Originality/value While the authors offer a contextualized view of the ways in which the term “critical literacy” has been incorporated into Scottish educational policy, they propose that its implications go beyond national boundaries.

This statement notes the contribution made by Lisa Mackenzie to the 2019 article ‘Losing sight of women's rights: the unregulated introduction of gender self-identification as a case study of policy capture in Scotland’ in Scottish Affairs, 28 (3).

Abstract The anglicisation of Scottish writing, a development in which the features of the previously high-status Scots language variety became marginalised and proscribed in favour of prestige Standard English variants, is typically dated by scholars to the sixteenth through eighteenth century. The effect of anglicisation on upper- and middle-class Scottish authors’ written language has been attested in numerous studies; however, how the metalinguistic ideologies of the time affected the language of the Scottish lower classes has long remained underinvestigated. This study makes use of the recent publication of a corpus of lower-class Scottish writing from the nineteenth century – the Corpus of Scottish Pauper Petitions – to investigate the effect of prescriptivism on lower-class Scottish writing as documented in nineteenth-century pauper petitions. The materials are placed side-by-side with the writings of upper- and middle-class Scottish people during this period, taken from the Corpus of Modern Scottish Writing. This study, which investigates both overt and covert Scotticisms by drawing respectively on usage guides by contemporaneous prescriptivists and works by modern linguists, takes a ‘from below’ approach to Scotland’s linguistic history and represents a new step in our understanding of the development of historical Scottish writing.

AbstractHill and Montag’s The Other Adam Smith confirms many of the Left’s established positions on Adam Smith, but does so by framing the philosopher as a standard-bearer of the Scottish Enlightenment, and not just as an arch-capitalist and proto-Hayekian. The book makes a strong case, but also strong-arms its readers into choosing between the Scottish Enlighteners and the Spinozism that its authors prefer.

Since devolution there has been a wealth of stimulating and exciting literary works by Welsh and Scottish women writers, produced as the boundaries of nationality were being dismantled and ideas of nationhood transformed. This comparative study brings together, for the first time, Scottish and Welsh women writers’ literary responses to these historic political and cultural developments. Chapter one situates the thesis in a historical context and discusses some of the connections between Wales and Scotland in terms of their relationship with ‘Britain’ and England. Chapter two focuses on the theoretical context and argues that postcolonial and feminist theories are the most appropriate frameworks in which to understand both Welsh and Scottish women’s writing in English, and their preoccupations with gendered inequalities and language during the pre- and post-devolutionary period. The third chapter examines Welsh and Scottish women’s writing from the first failed referendum (1979) to the second successful one (1997) to provide a sense of progression towards devolution. Since the process of devolution began there has been an important repositioning of Scottish and Welsh people’s perception of their culture and their place within it; the subsequent chapters – four, five, six and seven – analyse a diverse body of work from the symbolic transference of powers in 1999 to 2008. The writers discussed range from established authors such as Stevie Davies to first-time novelists such as Leela Soma. Through close comparative readings focusing on a range of issues such as marginalised identities and the politics of home and belonging, these chapters uncover and assess Welsh and Scottish women writers’ shared literary assertions, strategies and concerns as well as local and national differences. The conclusions drawn from this thesis suggest that, as a consequence of a history of sustained internal and external marginalization, post-devolution Welsh and Scottish women’s writing share important similarities regarding the politics of representation. The authors discussed in this study are resisting writers who textually illustrate the necessity of constantly rewriting national narratives and in so doing enable their audience to read the two nations and their peoples in fresh, innovative and divergent ways.

This dissertation shows how beneficial the ideas of the Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin are when used to investigate both classical and more recent Scottish writing. An exploration of how a desire for a Scottish literary identity early in this century became inextricably bound up with a sense of historical necessity and psychological division, known as the Caledonian Antisyzygy, forms the basis for the first section of this work. The limitations of this mode of thinking and its failure as a 'theory' are then exposed and compared with the greater benefits of Bakhtinian thought. Succeeding chapters lead the reader from the vision of an historically centered and 'fixed' perception of Scottish literature that dominated the early decades of this century, to one which offers the possibility of endless interpretation. Close analysis of works by Robert Burns, James Hogg, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Hugh MacDiarmid investigate how useful Bakhtin's theories are for reinterpreting classic Scottish texts. The remaining chapters analyze works by a selection of contemporary Scottish poets and novelists (Alasdair Gray, James Kelman, Tom Leonard, Edwin Morgan, Liz Lochhead, and Muriel Spark) in an effort to display both the continuity of a literary tradition and the applicability of Bakhtin's ideas of dialogic interaction and carnival response to recent fiction and poetry that is concerned with the preservation of unique yet pluralistic community identities. It will be shown how Bakhtin's work lends itself to the project of freeing cultural identity from the bonds of a linguistic, historical, and geographical determination that is based on sterile oppositional constructs.

This thesis argues that the term Kailyard is not a body of literature or cultural discourse, but a critical concept which has helped to construct controlling parameters for the discussion of literature and culture in Scotland. By offering an in-depth reading of the fiction of J.M. Barrie - the writer who is most usually and misleadingly associated with the term - and by tracing the writing career of Ian Maclaren, I argue for the need to reject the term and the critical assumptions it breeds. The introduction maps the various ways Kailyard has been employed in literary and cultural debates and shows how it promotes a critical approach to Scottish culture which focuses on the way individual writers, texts and images represent Scotland. Chapter 1 considers why this critical concern arose by showing how images of national identity and national literary distinctiveness were validated as the meaning of Scotland throughout the nineteenth century. Chapters 2-5 seek to overturn various assumptions bred by the term Kailyard. Chapter 2 discusses the early fiction of J.M. Barrie in the context of late nineteenth-century regionalism, showing how his work does not aim to depict social reality but is deliberately artificial in design. Chapter 3 discusses late Victorian debates over realism in fiction and shows how Barrie and Maclaren appealed to the reading public because of their treatment of established Victorian ideas of sympathy and the sentimental. Chapter 4 discusses Barrie's four longer novels - the works most constrained by the Kailyard term - and chapter 5 reconsiders the relationship between Maclaren's work and debates over popular culture. Chapter 6 analyses the use of the term Kailyard in twentieth-century Scottish cultural criticism. Discussing the criticism of Hugh MacDiarmid, the writing of literary histories and studies of Scottish film, history and politics, I argue for the need to reject the Kailyard term as a critical concept in the discussion of Scottish culture.

This study will explore the role of female authors and their female protagonists in contemporary Scottish and Nordic crime fiction. Authors including Val McDermid, Denise Mina, Lin Anderson and Liza Marklund are just a few of the women who have challenged the expectation of gender in the crime fiction genre. By setting their novels in contemporary society, they reflect a range of social and political issues through the lens of a female protagonist. By closely examining the female characters, all journalists, in Val McDermid’s Lindsay Gordon series; Denise Mina’s Paddy Meehan series; Anna Smith’s books about Rosie Gilmour; and Liza Marklund’s books about Annika Bengzton, I explore the issue of gender through these writers’ perspectives and also draw parallels between their societies. I document the influence of these writers on my own practice-based research, a novel, The Invisible Chains, set in post-Referendum Scotland. The thesis will examine and define the role of the female protagonist, offer a feminist reading of contemporary crime fiction, and investigate how the rise of human trafficking, the problem of domestic abuse in Scotland and society’s changing attitudes and values are reflected in contemporary crime novels, before discussing the narrative structures and techniques employed in the writing of The Invisible Chains. This novel allows us to consider the role of women in a contemporary and progressive society where women hold many senior positions in public life and examine whether they manage successfully to challenge traditional patriarchal hierarchies. The narrative is split between journalist Megan Ross, The Girl, a victim of human trafficking, and Trudy, who is being domestically abused, thus pulling together the themes of the critical genesis in the creative work. By focusing on the protagonist, the victims and raising awareness of human trafficking and domestic abuse, The Invisible Chains, an original creative work, reflects a contemporary society’s changing attitudes, problems and values.

My doctoral thesis focuses on the twentieth-century Scottish writer, Jessie Kesson, examining the effects of the cultural construction of gender from a feminist psychoanalytic perspective. Although my primary focus is on the detrimental effects traditional gender roles have on girls and women, recently published studies claiming that 'masculinity' is in a state of crisis are of particular value to my work. The reasons contemporary critics offer for this 'crisis in masculinity' vary widely. There are those who are convinced that women are to blame for abandoning their traditional roles as wives and mothers and moving too far into areas of society that are traditionally 'male'. This, they believe, results in a 'feminised' society that has an adverse effect on the development and well-being of boys and men. Those who support this argument generally believe that social, emotional and psychological distinctions between the genders are biologically inherent rather than socially constructed, and would prefer to see gender positions polarised rather than assimilated. At the other end of the scale are those who believe that the behaviours associated with traditional 'masculinity' are outmoded, fostering a form of emotional distrophy that is responsible for the increase in male suicide and autistic-like behaviours. Those who support this argument believe that males should develop a new set of behavioural traits more closely aligned to those traditionally thought of as 'feminine': traits like spontaneity, expressiveness, empathy and compassion. I have found the latter arguments exciting on two counts: firstly because an increasing number of male critics are joining female critics in acknowledging that many of the traits and behaviours traditionally associated with 'masculinity' are life-denying for both sexes; secondly, and most importantly, because these critics are echoing the findings of the feminist psychoanalytic critic, Jessica Benjamin, whose work I have found so stimulating. But, where critics have pointed to the problem ('masculine' behaviour) and recommended that it be modified to something more closely resembling 'feminine' behaviour, Benjamin has not only identified the source of the problem, she has developed a revised theory of human development, 'Intersubjectivity', which offers a positive and transformative approach to human behaviour. I examine Benjamin�s theory closely in Chapter Two, and make use of it in succeeding chapters. In May 2000, financed by the Bamforth Scholarship fund (with help from the Humanities Division of the University of Otago), I attended a conference at the University of St Andrews entitled 'Scotland: The Gendered Nation', which gave me a wider view of the concerns of contemporary Scottish writers and scholars. The paper I presented at the conference, "That great brute of a bunion!": the construction of masculinity in Jessie Kesson�s Glitter of Mica�, was published in the Spring 2001 issue of Scottish Studies Review. Following the conference I spent the rest of May in Scotland finding out more about Kesson and her writing under the generous tutelage of Kesson�s biographer, Dr Isobel (Tait) Murray, from the University of Aberdeen. Kesson wrote many plays for the BBC, and I was able to read Dr Murray�s copies of some of these unpublished works in the security of the Kings College Library, along with back copies of North-East Review to which Kesson contributed. In Edinburgh I visited the National Library of Scotland which holds back copies of The Scots Magazine containing pertinent articles by Kesson and her contemporaries. Then I travelled to those parts of North-East Scotland which feature most precisely in Kesson�s life and writing. My Scottish month was invaluable for its insight into the critical literary climate of Scotland, and for allowing me to reach Jessie Kesson imaginatively: through the boarded-up windows of the Orphanage at Skene; by the ruined Cathedral at Elgin; at the top of Our Lady�s Lane; and on the steps of her cottar house at Westertown Farm. [SEE FOOTNOTE] It was a privilege to trace Kesson�s footsteps and then to return to the other side of the world with a much keener sense of her 'place'. I would like to think this has carried over into my work, the structure of which is as follows: Chapter One gives a brief history of Jessie Kesson�s life and writing. Chapter Two focuses on Jessica Benjamin the feminist psychoanalytic critic whose work provides the main theoretical framework for my thesis. Chapter Three considers the expression of female sexuality in the novella Where the Apple Ripens, and the way society conspires to have it diminish rather than enhance a sense of female self-hood. Where the Apple Ripens is not Kesson�s first published work but, because it introduces the central concerns of my thesis through the experiences of an adolescent girl, I have chosen to begin with it rather than with The White Bird Passes and to work towards increasingly complex gender relations in succeeding chapters. In Chapter Four, The White Bird Passes, I look at the way Kesson depicts girls and women as instruments of male sexuality, controlled by a nervous patriarchy whose institutions (family, education, church) take away the promise of her female characters. Chapter Five is centred on The Glitter of Mica, and considers the consequences of a masculinity constructed around the destruction of 'the Mother'. Chapter Six considers the fate of the anonymous young woman in Another Time, Another Place, and examines the conventions of the social order that deny her self-definition. Chapter Seven also examines the social conventions that shape and limit the lives of Kesson�s female characters - this time in a selection of Kesson�s short stories and poems. In Chapter Eight I look at selected writers from the eighteenth to the twentieth-century whose work, in diverse and often contradictory ways, has contributed to an interrogation of gender in Scottish literature. This is not an historical and systematic survey of gender relations in Scotland; it is not even an historical and systematic survey of gender questions in Scottish literature. Rather, it is an impressionistic account of such matters in some selected Scottish literature - selected in part to cover some highly influential figures, and in part from Jessie Kesson�s more immediate context: feminine, rural, the North East. There is a place for such historical and systematic work, of course, and I hope that someone will do it. All I can hope for is that I may have provided some beginning but more importantly, that my work in this chapter will sharpen, further, an understanding of Jessie Kesson. I begin with the life and work of the poet, Robert Burns. As well as featuring in Kesson�s Glitter of Mica, Burns and his legacy are matters of influence in the gendered ideal of 'Scottishness' for both laymen and writers at home and abroad. Following Burns, I contrast the unconscious gender ideology which permeates Neil Gunn�s writing with the progressive awareness of gender issues that characterises the work of Lewis Grassic Gibbon and aligns the latter with Kesson�s. I then examine the idealised landscapes and sentimentalised characters of the Kailyard era and the hostile response of the anti-Kailyard writers. This leads into an examination of Hugh MacDiarmid�s poem, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle. MacDiarmid, like Burns, was monumental on the Scottish literary scene and his efforts to rekindle the spirit of the primitive Scot through literature have made him influential with a smaller but equally significant group. What is of particular relevance to my work is that the ideal of 'Scottishness' fostered by writers such as Burns and MacDiarmid is heavily dependent on prescribed gender positions which promote the exploitation of women while rendering them subservient to men and politically powerless. It is from within this environment of gender-based Scottishness that Jessie Kesson and other women writers, were writing and arguing. Therefore, lastly, in Chapter Eight, I concentrate on those women writers whose work has the most relevance to the time, place and ideological content of Kesson�s writing: Violet Jacob, Catherine Carswell, Lorna Moon, Willa Muir and Nan Shepherd. The writing of all of these women is concerned with psychic well-being centred on human relations and/or self-determination and, of the five, the writings of Willa Muir and Nan Shepherd are considered more fully because of the particular contribution they make to my examination of Jessie Kesson: Willa Muir commented, both directly and indirectly, on gender matters. Nan Shepherd, quite apart from being a friend of many years to Jessie Kesson, wrote novels in which gender issues are entirely central. FOOTNOTE: I am indebted to Sir Maitland Mackie for giving me a guided tour of Westertown Farm, the setting for Darklands in The Glitter of Mica.

The decades before the Scottish Reformation Parliament of 1560 witnessed the unprecedented use of a range of different media to disseminate the Protestant message and to shape beliefs and attitudes. By placing these works within their historical context, this thesis explores the ways in which various media – academic discourse, courtly entertainments, printed poetry, public performances, preaching and pedagogical tools – were employed by evangelical and Protestant reformers to persuade and/or educate different audiences within sixteenth-century Scottish society. The thematic approach examines not only how the reformist message was packaged, but how the movement itself and its persuasive agenda developed, revealing the ways in which it appealed to ever broader circles of Scottish society. In their efforts to bring about religious change, the reformers capitalised on a number of traditional media, while using different media to address different audiences. Hoping to initiate reform from within Church institutions, the reformers first addressed their appeals to the kingdom's educated elite. When their attempts at reasoned academic discourse met with resistance, they turned their attention to the monarch, James V, and the royal court. Reformers within the court utilised courtly entertainments intended to amuse the royal circle and to influence the young king to oversee the reformation of religion within his realm. When, following James's untimely death in 1542, the throne passed to his infant daughter, the reformers took advantage of the period of uncertainty that accompanied the minority. Through the relatively new technology of print, David Lindsay's poetry and English propaganda presented the reformist message to audiences beyond the kingdom's elite. Lindsay and other reformers also exploited the oral media of religious theatre in public spaces, while preaching was one of the most theologically significant, though under-researched, means of disseminating the reformist message. In addition to works intended to convert, the reformers also recognised the need for literature to edify the already converted. To this end, they produced pedagogical tools for use in individual and group devotions. Through the examination of these various media of persuasion, this study contributes to our understanding of the means by which reformed ideas were disseminated in Scotland, as well as the development of the reformist movement before 1560.

This thesis addresses critical conceptions of Scottish literary development in the twentieth-century which inscribe realism as both the authenticating tradition and necessary telos of modern Scottish writing. To this end I identify and explore a Scottish ‘counter-tradition’ of modern uncanny fiction. Drawing critical attention to techniques of modal disruption in the works of a number of post-1970s Scottish writers gives cause to reconsider that realist teleology while positing a range of other continuities and tensions across modern Scottish literary history. The thesis initially defines the critical context for the project, considering how realism has come to be regarded as a medium of national literary representation. I go on to explore techniques of modal disruption and uncanny in texts by five Scottish writers, contesting ways in which habitual recourse to the realist tradition has obscured important aspects of their work. Chapter One investigates Ali Smith’s reimagining of ‘the uncanny guest’. While this trope has been employed by earlier Scottish writers, Smith redesigns it as part of a wider interrogation of the hyperreal twenty-first-century. Chapter Two considers two texts by James Robertson, each of which, I argue, invokes uncanny techniques familiar to readers of James Hogg and Robert Louis Stevenson in a way intended specifically to suggest concepts of national continuity and literary inheritance. Chapter Three argues that James Kelman’s political stance necessitates modal disruption as a means of relating intimate individual experience. Re-envisaging Kelman as a writer of the uncanny makes his central assimilation into the teleology of Scottish realism untenable, complicating the way his work has been positioned in the Scottish canon. Chapter Four analyses A.L. Kennedy’s So I Am Glad, delineating a similarity in the processes of repetition which result in both uncanny effects and the phenomenon of tradition, leading to Kennedy’s identification of an uncanny dimension in the concept of national tradition itself. Chapter Five considers the work of Alan Warner, in which the uncanny appears as an unsettling sense of significance embedded within the banal everyday, reflecting an existentialism which reaches beyond the national. In this way, I argue that habitual recourse to an inscribed realist tradition tends to obscure the range, complexity and instability of the realist techniques employed by the writers at issue, demonstrating how national continuities can be productively accommodated within wider, pluralistic analytical approaches.

This thesis examines the relationships between different nations and cultures in Ivanhoe, The Talisman, Quentin Durward, Anne of Geierstein and Count Robert of Paris using Post-colonial theory. An analysis of Scott’s conception of society in general shows that 18th century Scottish historiography is fundamental to his vision of the world because it forms the basis of his systematization of history, social development and interaction between communities. It also profoundly influences his imagery and descriptions, as well as providing him with a range of stereotypes that he manipulates so skilfully that his great dependence upon them is occulted. Contemporary ideas and his own attitude to the Union of Scotland and England lead him to conceive of nation formation in terms of descent and hybridity. In part, he sees the nation as a community of blood. Yet, his acceptance of the Union means that he also considers it to be a body of different ethnic elements that live together. His use of the 18th century metaphor of family to figure the nation allows him to incorporate heredity and miscegenation into his analysis of national development through father-daughter couples. The father represents traditional culture, and the daughter, the nation’s present and future; her marriage to a foreigner signifying that people of differing descent can cross the nation’s porous borders. Religion is the final frontier: Christian nations cannot absorb non-Christians. Scott sees dominance and subordination as a complex part of human relationships. Apparently-subordinate subjects possess occulted power because their support of the hegemonic is often essential if the latter is to maintain its superiority. While his conception of society in patriarchal terms means that his female characters cannot offer violence to men, he shows that passive resistance is very effective. Through mimicry, the subordinate threatens the power and identity of the dominant. Power is not only conceived of in political terms. In Ivanhoe, Scott reveals the importance of moral stature which allows Rebecca to dominate the work although she is at the bottom of the political and racial hierarchy that structures English society. Scott’s conception of time is fundamental to the manner in which he conceives of the nation. Historical cultural forms are physicalised through chronotopes. Politically subordinate cultures base their actions in the present on pedagogic time, while the dominant ignore their past and live only in the present and the future. He also expresses dominant-subordinate relationships through speed, with time moving quickly for the powerful and slowly for the weak. Time, whether in the form of history, the characters’ perception of it or speed amalgamates all the various elements of Scott’s conception of nationhood into a seamless whole.<p><p>Cette thèse analyse par le biais la théorie post-coloniale les relations internationales dans Ivanhoe, Quentin Durward, Anne of Geierstein et Count Robert of Paris. Les théories historiques élaborées en Écosse au XVIIIème siècle sont fondamentales dans la vision scottienne parce qu’elles forment la base de la systematisation de l’histoire, du développement sociale et, par conséquent, des relations entre les différentes communités. Ces théories influencent profondement les images qu’il utilise et la façon dont il décrit les caractères et les scènes. De plus, elles lui fournissent une gamme de stéréotypes qu’il manipule très adroitement. Sa conception de la manière dont se forment les nations vient des idées contemporaines et de sa propre expérience de l’union politique de l’Angleterre et de l’Écosse. Il considère la nation comme une communauté fondée sur l’ascendance par le sang mais aussi comme un groupe d’ethnies différentes qui vivent ensemble. Sa description de la nation emprunte à la métaphore de la famille courante au XVIIIième. Celle-ci lui permet d’inclure dans son analyse l’héridité et la mixité au moyen des couples formés par un père et sa fille. Le père représente la culture traditionelle, et la fille, le présent et le futur national. Son marriage avec un étranger signifie que les gens d’ascendance différente peuvent traverser les frontières perméables d’une nation. La religion est la frontière ultime: les nations chrétiennes ne peuvent absorber de non-chrétiens. Scott considère que la domination et la sujetion forment une partie complexe des relations humaines. Les sujets qui paraissent subordonnés possèdent en fait un pouvoir occulte, le dominant ayant besoin de leur soutien pour maintenir sa position. Bien que sa conception patriarcale de la société fasse que les caractères feminins ne manifestent pas d’agression envers les hommes, il montre que la résistance passive est très efficace. En imitant le sujet dominant, le sujet subordonné menace le pouvoir et l’identité de ce dernier. Le pouvoir ne s’exprime pas seulement dans la politique. Rebecca dans Ivanhoe revèle l’importance que revêtent le caractère et la moralité. Bien qu’elle soit au bas de la hiérarchie structurante de la société anglaise, elle domine le roman. <p>La conception que Scott se fait du temps est fondamentale à celle de la nation et de la culture. Au moyen du chronotope, les cultures historiques prennent des formes physiques. Les cultures qui sont subordonnées politiquement basent leur action au présent sur le “temps pédagogique”. Au contraire, le dominant rejette son passé et ne vit qu’au présent et au futur. Les relations entre le pouvoir dominant et le subordonné s’expriment aussi par la vitesse: le temps passe vite pour les puissants, mais lentement pour les faibles. En définitive, tous les éléments de la conception scottienne de la nation sont liés au temps, qu’il s’agisse de l’histoire, de perception par les caractères, ou de la vitesse.<p><br>Doctorat en philosophie et lettres, Orientation langue et littérature<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

AbstractHebridean rye (Secale cereale), a high-yield landrace grown by crofters in Scotland’s Highlands and Islands, has traditionally been used as livestock feed. This multi-author study presents and analyses findings into the crop’s potential as the raw material for locally produced flour, bread and beer, offering new opportunities in sustainable seed saving, small-scale agriculture, food production and eco-enterprise. The authors—part of the project’s multidisciplinary team of researchers, artisanal food producers and crofters—explicate aspects of the pioneering project, from conditions on Uist’s coastal machair where the rye originates, to testing seasonal varieties in mainland Lochaber and assessing nutritional qualities and consumer acceptance of novel products. They conclude that Hebridean rye, with its potential for crofters in remote locales and local businesses, could help in preserving agrobiodiversity, traditional knolwedge and practices, crofting culture and economic resilience in the north and north-west of Scotland.

It is currently unclear to what extent Older Scots features continued in correspondence during the early eighteenth century (Millar 2020: 100). To explore this, the digitised letters of politically-involved Scottish writers active during this time were compiled into a purpose-built corpus, and searched for the Scots feature . The focus was on three authors in particular who were selected for close-up analysis. Their correspondence was quantitatively analysed to determine the frequency of across author and word-type, which was then compared to the general dataset. Inter- and intra-writer variation was evaluated in relation to possible macrosocial influences. Results suggest that, contrary to earlier findings (Macqueen 1957; van Eyndhoven &amp; Clark 2019), had not completely disappeared, but its persistence was largely conditioned by its use in abbreviations for highly frequent function words. The professional background of the author, however, is also shown to influence usage.

AbstractThis introduction provides a brief survey of the evolution of data visualization from its eighteenth-century beginnings, when the Scottish engineer and political scientist William Playfair created the first statistical graphs, to its present-day developments and use in period-related digital humanities projects. The author highlights the growing use of data visualization in major institutional projects, provides a literature review of representative works that employ data visualizations as a methodological tool, and highlights the contribution that this collection makes to digital humanities and the Enlightenment studies. Addressing essential period-related themes—from issues of canonicity, intellectual history, and book trade practices to canonical authors and texts, gender roles, and public sphere dynamics—, this collection also makes a broader argument about the necessity of expanding the very notion of “Enlightenment” not only spatially but also conceptually, by revisiting its tenets in light of new data. When translating the new findings afforded by the digital in suggestive visualizations, we can unveil unforeseen patterns, trends, connections, or networks of influence that could potentially revise existing master narratives about the period and the ideological structures at the core of the Enlightenment.

In the introduction to his 2001 anthology of ‘New Scottish Gothic Fiction’, Alan Bissett argues that Gothic ‘has always acted as a way of re-examining the past, and the past is the place where Scotland, a country obsessed with re-examining itself, can view itself whole, vibrant, mythic’ (2001: 6). While virtually every contemporary Scottish author has made use of Gothic elements or tropes in some part of their work, many of the most important recent texts to be labelled ‘Scottish Gothic’ are centrally concerned with such a re-examination of the past. For many authors, however, the past is not to be found in historical events or cultural contexts, but specifically in the interrelation between established Scottish and Gothic literary traditions. Beginning with Emma Tennant’s The Bad Sister (1978), one of numerous twentieth-century reworkings of James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824), many contemporary Gothic novels have explicitly relied on earlier texts; adapting the work of Hogg, Stevenson or even Shelley becomes a way of challenging preconceived notions of stable national and individual identities.

While scholars are certainly indebted to Ellen Moers’s pioneering work on women’s writing, it would be difficult to agree, with almost four decades of Gothic criticism behind us, that ‘Female Gothic is easily defined’ (1977: 90). The topic has been the subject of contested definitions and critical revisions informed by both the contentious boundaries of the critical category in question, and the changing perspectives in feminist and gender studies (Fitzgerald 2009). While the link between Female Gothic and the biological sex of its authors has been frequently challenged, in one of the most recent works, we are also reminded that ‘Gothic and feminist categories now demand a self-criticism with respect to their totalising gestures and assumptions’ (Brabon and Genz 2007: 7).

Oft-times, Lowland Scots wrote of death in the eighteenth century without engaging in what we now call ‘Scottish Gothic’. Witness Robert Blair, above, Edinburgh-born, as he brings the adverb ‘complexionally’ to an otherwise straightforward example of the ancient and melancholy ubi sunt trope.1 Blair’s melancholy is here expressed in a fantastically influential poem called The Grave (1743). Blair’s fascinating poem, to which this chapter will return at its conclusion, is rightly held to be foundational for the study of what until recently was thought of as a pan-British ‘Graveyard School’ of poetry. That label describes an extremely loose collection of mid-eighteenth-century authors whose poems were written in a more or less ‘standard’ English, and often troped the graveyard. The category invokes such disparate poets as the English-born Thomas Gray and Edward Young or the Scottish-born James Thomson and James Beattie.

Abstract This chapter explores philosophical debates about slavery and race in eighteenth-century Scotland by focusing on eight particularly important authors: Gershom Carmichael, Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Adam Ferguson, George Wallace, James Beattie, James Dunbar, and James Ramsay. The last four of these authors discuss transatlantic slavery in depth and provide innovative and compelling arguments against it. In contrast, the first four authors mention it only in passing but theorize about slavery in general—and in some cases about race—in notable ways. David Hume is important for an additional reason: he expresses deeply racist ideas that had a significant impact on the history of racism.

Abstract Subsea export power transmission cables for offshore wind farms are being installed more extensively year-on-year due to the increasing demands for power output from renewable sources. With the increasing number of installations, the number of cable failures during installation has increased. One failure mode involves the temporary or permanent radial deformation of armour wires otherwise known as armour wire bird caging which occurs from a combination of twist, bending and compression loads which build up in a cable. This failure mode can lead to significant remediation costs and schedule delays for projects affected. In this paper, the authors present a method for predicting armour wire bird caging for generic installation configurations based on a review of the root causes from several historical bird caging failure instances. Various numerical models and analyses which simulate the installation conditions are described. The models simulate key response mechanisms including bending-induced twist and inter-layer separation within a cable. Cable loading conditions are compared with cable bird caging limits and the parameters which influence the onset of bird caging are identified. Based on a range of sensitivity analyses, handling curves to assist with installation are developed and a full-scale test validation programme is proposed. This work was performed for a project which received financial and technical support from The Carbon Trust’s Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA), a collaborative R&amp;D programme funded by nine leading offshore wind developers (EnBW, Equinor, Innogy, Ørsted, RWE, SPR, Shell, SSE, Vattenfall) and the Scottish Government.

Abstract: The proposed theme of this paper is how "Arts" and "Science," with the inclusion of the topic of "Health", can be combined through a story based on research about innovation in the Past. The goal of this paper is threefold. First, to present a research-based story about Jacob Bruce (1669–1735), a scholar of Scottish descent born in Moscow, and his innovation – the prototype of Artificial Intelligence, humanoid robot. Second, to illustrate the new experimental interdisciplinary method of storytelling - SMS (Stories based on Music about Scientists), a novel approach that integrates Arts (Music, Poem, Digital images), Science (Historical Research about Innovations of the Past), and Culture (cultural heritage with metaphor of a philosophical soul development). Third, to explain how this method can be applied. SMS method created in 2012 uses the Avant-garde genre of Music with the integration of interdisciplinary knowledge, holistic approach, and implies a deeper level of integration of various disciplines. The theme of this SMS is a song-story about the beautiful humanoid girl-robot (but with a different technology of the 17th century), which serves as a prototype of the modern homunculus or AI created by Jacob Bruce. AI humanoid already resembled a natural human being by the end of the 17th century. The author explains and discusses how and why SMS can be used as an Innovative Teaching and Learning method, related to Science and Arts (similar to STEAM approach), with the power of Lifelong Learning (LLL), and pedagogical didactics across branches of sciences, thus stimulating innovations and discoveries. Keywords: Arts and Science; Innovations; STEAM/SMS (Stories based on Music about Scientists) method; Jacob Bruce (1669–1735); Innovative Teaching and Learning; Health

English is one of the most spoken languages in the world. A global language communication is inherent in him. This language is also distinguished by a significant diversity of dialects and speech. It appeared in the early Middle Ages as the spoken language of the Anglo-Saxons. The formation of the British Empire and its expansion led to the widespread English language in Asia, Africa, North America and Australia. As a result, the Metropolitan language became the main communication language in the English colonies, and after independence it became State (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) and official (India, Nigeria, Singapore). Being one of the 6 Official Languages of the UN, it is studied as a foreign language in educational institutions of many countries in the modern time [1, 2, s. 12-14]. Despite the dozens of varieties of English, the American (American English) version, which appeared on the territory of the United States, is one of the most widespread. More than 80 per cent of the population in this country knows the American version of the British language as its native language. Although the American version of the British language is not defined as the official language in the US Federal Constitution, it acts with features and standards reinforced in the lexical sphere, the media and the education system. The growing political and economic power of the United States after World War II also had a significant impact on the expansion of the American version of the British language [3]. Currently, this language version has become one of the main topics of scientific research in the field of linguistics, philology and other similar spheres. It should also be emphasized that the American version of the British language paved the way for the creation of thousands of words and expressions, took its place in the general language of English and the world lexicon. “Okay”, “teenager”, “hitchhike”, “landslide” and other words can be shown in this row. The impact of differences in the life and life of colonists in the United States and Great Britain on this language was not significant either. The role of Nature, Climate, Environment and lifestyle should also be appreciated here. There is no officially confirmed language accent in the United States. However, most speakers of national media and, first of all, the CNN channel use the dialect “general American accent”. Here, the main accent of “mid Pppemestern” has been guided. It should also be noted that this accent is inherent in a very small part of the U.S. population, especially in Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. But now all Americans easily understand and speak about it. As for the current state of the American version of the British language, we can say that there are some hypotheses in this area. A number of researchers perceive it as an independent language, others-as an English variant. The founder of American spelling, American and British lexicographer, linguist Noah Pondebster treats him as an independent language. He also tried to justify this in his work “the American Dictionary of English” written in 1828 [4]. This position was expressed by a Scottish-born English philologist, one of the authors of the “American English Dictionary”Sir Alexander Craigie, American linguist Raven ioor McDavid Jr. and others also confirm [5]. The second is the American linguist Leonard Bloomfield, one of the creators of the descriptive direction of structural linguistics, and other American linguists Edward Sapir and Charles Francis Hockett. There is also another group of “third parties” that accept American English as a regional dialect [5, 6]. A number of researchers [2] have shown that the accent or dialect in the US on the person contains significantly less data in itself than in the UK. In Great Britain, a dialect speaker is viewed as a person with a low social environment or a low education. It is difficult to perceive this reality in the US environment. That is, a person's speech in the American version of the British language makes it difficult to express his social background. On the other hand, the American version of the British language is distinguished by its faster pace [7, 8]. One of the main characteristic features of the American language array is associated with the emphasis on a number of letters and, in particular, the pronunciation of the letter “R”. Thus, in British English words like “port”, “more”, “dinner” the letter “R” is not pronounced at all. Another trend is related to the clear pronunciation of individual syllables in American English. Unlike them, the Britons “absorb”such syllables in a number of similar words [8]. Despite all these differences, an analysis of facts and theoretical knowledge shows that the emergence and formation of the American version of the British language was not an accidental and chaotic process. The reality is that the life of the colonialists had a huge impact on American English. These processes were further deepened by the growing migration trends at the later historical stage. Thus, the language of the English-speaking migrants in America has been developed due to historical conditions, adapted to the existing living environment and new life realities. On the other hand, the formation of this independent language was also reflected in the purposeful policy of the newly formed US state. Thus, the original British words were modified and acquired a fundamentally new meaning. Another point here was that the British acharism, which had long been out of use, gained a new breath and actively entered the speech circulation in the United States. Thus, the analysis shows that the American version of the British language has specific features. It was formed and developed as a result of colonization and expansion. This development is still ongoing and is one of the languages of millions of US states and people, as well as audiences of millions of people. Keywords: American English, English, linguistics, accent.

The authors assessed and evaluated how the first GBP 1 million of Scottish government funding was disseminated and used, in the form of small grants for locally led action, and how this can inform the operationalization of both the L&amp;D fund and L&amp;D finance more broadly, in time for discussions at the 28th UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP28) on climate change. Vulnerable countries and communities already face losses and damages as a result of climate change, and they urgently need financial support to enable recovery from trauma and lost homes, lives and livelihoods. At the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of Parties in Glasgow (COP26), Scotland made history as the first Global North country to pledge bilateral finance specifically for addressing climate-related loss and damage (L&amp;D). This report gathers 16 lessons under six overarching themes, from the dissemination of L&amp;D funding through the Climate Justice Resilience Fund (CJRF). Included are recommendations for L&amp;D finance, as well as for climate negotiators who will discuss how the new L&amp;D Fund will be operationalized at COP28, beginning at the end of November in Dubai. These findings shed light on the benefits and limitations of small grants for locally led action, what trade-offs might manifest when implementing locally led approaches, and how L&amp;D finance can be used in a manner that can reach and serve vulnerable and affected groups.

Robert Duncan Milne (1844-99), from Cupar, Fife, was a pioneering author of science fiction stories, most of which appeared in San Francisco’s Argonaut magazine in the 1880s and ’90s. SF historian Sam Moskowitz credits Milne with being the first full-time SF writer, and his contribution to the genre is arguably greater than anyone else including Stevenson and Conan Doyle, yet it has all but disappeared into oblivion. Milne was fascinated by science. He drew on the work of Scottish physicists and inventors such as James Clark Maxwell and Alexander Graham Bell into the possibilities of electromagnetic forces and new communications media to overcome distances in space and time. Milne wrote about visual time-travelling long before H.G. Wells. He foresaw virtual ‘tele-presencing’, remote surveillance, mobile phones and worldwide satellite communications – not to mention climate change, scientific terrorism and drone warfare, cryogenics and molecular reengineering. Milne also wrote on alien life forms, artificial immortality, identity theft and personality exchange, lost worlds and the rediscovery of extinct species. ‘A New Palingenesis’, originally published in The Argonaut on July 7th 1883, and adapted in this comic, is a secular version of the resurrection myth. Mary Shelley was the first scientiser of the occult to rework the supernatural idea of reanimating the dead through the mysterious powers of electricity in Frankenstein (1818). In Milne’s story, in which Doctor S- dissolves his terminally ill wife’s body in order to bring her back to life in restored health, is a striking, further modernisation of Frankenstein, to reflect late-nineteenth century interest in electromagnetic science and spiritualism. In particular, it is a retelling of Shelley’s narrative strand about Frankenstein’s aborted attempt to shape a female mate for his creature, but also his misogynistic ambition to bypass the sexual principle in reproducing life altogether. By doing so, Milne interfused Shelley’s updating of the Promethean myth with others. ‘A New Palingenesis’ is also a version of Pygmalion and his male-ordered, wish-fulfilling desire to animate his idealised female sculpture, Galatea from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, perhaps giving a positive twist to Orpheus’s attempt to bring his corpse-bride Eurydice back from the underworld as well? With its basis in spiritualist ideas about the soul as a kind of electrical intelligence, detachable from the body but a material entity nonetheless, Doctor S- treats his wife as an ‘intelligent battery’. He is thus able to preserve her personality after death and renew her body simultaneously because that captured electrical intelligence also carries a DNA-like code for rebuilding the individual organism itself from its chemical constituents. The descriptions of the experiment and the body’s gradual re-materialisation are among Milne’s most visually impressive, anticipating the X-raylike anatomisation and reversal of Griffin’s disappearance process in Wells’s The Invisible Man (1897). In the context of the 1880s, it must have been a compelling scientisation of the paranormal, combining highly technical descriptions of the Doctor’s system of electrically linked glass coffins with ghostly imagery. It is both dramatic and highly visual, even cinematic in its descriptions, and is here brought to life in the form of a comic.