The ASL Occasional Papers series publishes scholarly essays on a range of subjects related to Scottish literature and language.
Writing Scottishness
ed. Ian Brown and Clarisse Godard Desmarest
ASL Occasional Papers series No. 26
Scotland’s sense of national identity and cultural distinctiveness has long been articulated through its literature. These fourteen essays explore literary manifestations of Scottishness and examine the political, religious and cultural complexities, as well as the cross-national transfer of ideas, that have shaped Scottish writing and performance through the centuries.
Christianity in Scottish Literature
ed. John Patrick Pazdziora
ASL Occasional Papers series No. 25
The experiences of being Christian and living amid a culture shaped by various iterations of Christianity are long-standing concerns of Scottish literature. This volume moves through Scotland’s literary history, from the early medieval era to the twenty-first century, to explore how Christianity has provided Scottish writers with a framework on which to build their manifold literary selves.
The Crooked Dividend
Essays on Muriel Spark
ed. Gerard Carruthers & Helen Stoddart
ASLS Occasional Papers series No. 24
This volume of fourteen essays offers fresh insight into the life and work of Muriel Spark (1918–2006), one of Scotland’s most internationally celebrated writers. Looking at the cultural, literary, religious and personal frameworks that shaped her writing, The Crooked Dividend provides a comprehensive overview of Spark’s multifaceted work through the examination of her publications, archive material, and colourful career.
The Land of Story-Books
Scottish Children’s Literature in the Long Nineteenth Century
ed. Sarah Dunnigan & Shu-Fang Lai
ASLS Occasional Papers series No. 23
This collection of twenty essays reveals the richness and diversity of writing for children in this period. Exploring many different works, from much-loved authors as well as from marginal and forgotten voices, The Land of Story-Books places the traditions of children’s writing at the heart of Scottish literary history.
Empires and Revolutions
Cunninghame Graham and His Contemporaries
ed. Carla Sassi & Silke Stroh
ASLS Occasional Papers series No. 22
The European age of empires began the process of globalisation. It is also inextricably linked with revolutionary discourses: the quest for emancipation, political independence, and economic equality. These essays explore the expression of these ideas in the works of R. B. Cunninghame Graham (1852–1936) and of other Scottish writers of the period.
Taking Liberties
Scottish Literature and Expressions of Freedom
ed. Ian Brown, David Clark & Rubén Jarazo-Álvarez
ASLS Occasional Papers series No. 21
The notion of “freedom” has long been associated with a number of perceptions deemed fundamental to an understanding of Scotland and the Scots. Key Scottish texts have the concept of liberty at their core, and Scottish thinkers have written extensively on the philosophies of freedom. These essays examine the question of “freedom”, its representations and its interpretations within the literatures of Scotland.
Gael and Lowlander in Scottish Literature
Cross-currents in Scottish writing in the nineteenth century
ed. Christopher MacLachlan & Ronald W. Renton
ASLS Occasional Papers series No. 20
Gael and Lowlander in Scottish Literature explores the interactions between Highland and Lowland poetry, prose, drama and song, in English, Scots and Gaelic. Ranging from Sir Walter Scott to the writers of the fin de siècle Celtic Revival, fourteen essays show how the crossing of the Highland Line shaped Scottish literature in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Roots and Fruits of Scottish Culture
Scottish Identities, History & Contemporary Literature
ed. Ian Brown & Jean Berton
ASLS Occasional Papers series No. 19
Scotland’s culture is vigorous and vibrant, energised by questions of history and identity, by interpretations of the past and by the possibilities for the future. These eleven essays show how the multifarious roots embedded in contemporary Scottish life and letters bear fruit – often in surprising ways – and how the re-creation and reimagination of Scottish culture, its identities and its tropes, are being developed by a range of leading Scottish writers.
Gateway to the Modern
Resituating J. M. Barrie
ed. Valentina Bold & Andrew Nash
ASLS Occasional Papers series No. 18
J. M. Barrie is today known almost exclusively for one work: Peter Pan. Yet he was the most successful British playwright of the early twentieth century, and his novels were once thought equal to those of George Meredith and Thomas Hardy. Gateway to the Modern attempts to do justice to the extraordinary range of his literary achievement.
Rethinking George MacDonald
Contexts and Contemporaries
ed. Christopher MacLachlan, John Patrick Pazdziora & Ginger Stelle
ASLS Occasional Papers series No. 17
George MacDonald is the acknowledged forefather of later fantasy writers such as C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. This collection of sixteen essays examines MacDonald’s place in the Victorian literary scene, his engagement with his contemporaries and his interactions with the social, political, and theological movements of his age.
Literary Tourism, The Trossachs and Walter Scott
ed. Ian Brown
ASLS Occasional Papers series No. 16
Eleven essays examining tourism in the Trossachs both before and after 1810, surveying the indigenous Gaelic culture of the area, exploring how Sir Walter’s writings responded to the landscape, history and literature of the region, and tracing his impact on the tourists, authors and artists who thronged in his wake.
Scottish & International Modernisms
Relationships and Reconfigurations
ed. Emma Dymock & Margery Palmer McCulloch
ASLS Occasional Papers series No. 15
This collection of essays illustrates the strongly international and modernist dimension of Scotland’s interwar revival, and illuminates the relationships between Scottish and non-Scottish writers and contexts. It also includes two chapters on the contribution made to this revival by Scottish visual art and music.
Crossing the Highland Line
Cross-Currents in Eighteenth-Century Scottish Writing
ed. Christopher MacLachlan
ASLS Occasional Papers series No. 14
These essays, from fourteen leading scholars, show that the whole of Scotland – Highland and Lowland, high culture and low – participated in the Scottish literary and cultural explosion of the eighteenth century. The Highland Line does not divide.
A Flame in the Mearns
Lewis Grassic Gibbon: a Centenary Celebration
ed. Margery Palmer McCulloch & Sarah M. Dunnigan
ASLS Occasional Papers series No. 13
A collection of papers discussing Gibbon’s fiction (including works written as James Leslie Mitchell), his essays and his poetry, together with analyses of his language and politics. It is essential for all students and existing admirers as well as new readers of this important Scottish writer.