Burns book wins Saltire Prize
The 2010 National Library of Scotland's Scottish Research Book of the Year has been awarded jointly to Robert Burns and Pastoral, Poetry and Improvement in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland by Nigel Leask, published by Oxford University Press; and Adam Smith, an Enlightened Life by Nicholas Phillipson, published by Penguin.Martyn Wade, the National Librarian and chief executive of the National Library of Scotland, said:
“NLS is delighted that the standard of the shortlist was so high that we have joint winners of the Research Book award. The work by Nicholas Phillipson is a masterly re-telling of the life of Scotland’s great economist, Adam Smith, illuminating his fame by examining his philosophical thought. And the book by Nigel Leask presents a major rethink of Burns, placing him firmly within the Scottish and European Enlightenments and providing a fresh view on all the main poems.”
Robert Burns and Pastoral is a full-scale reassessment of Scotland’s national poet, offering fresh interpretations of all his major poems, and a selection of the songs, the first to do so since Thomas Crawford’s 1960 study. Although widely celebrated in Scotland, Burns has been marginalised in literary studies worldwide, due to a mistaken view that his poetry is linguistically incomprehensible and of interest to Scottish readers only.
Professor Leask's book sets out to challenge this view by interpreting Burns’s poetry as an original and critical engagement with the experience of rural modernity, namely the revolutionary transformation of Scottish agriculture and society in the later decades of the 18th century, a major practical preoccupation of the Scottish and European enlightenment. The ‘Scots Pastoral’ tradition that Burns inherited from Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson is shown to be vital to the style and content of his verse, which also draws widely on modern English and European literature, as well as (perhaps surprisingly) that of Classical Greece and Rome. Individual chapters focus on Scots language, identity, and drink; politics, religion and poverty; the agricultural and animal world, and the unexpected links between his later career as an Exciseman, and his love of Scottish popular culture and song. Detailed study of the literary, social and historical contexts of Burns’s poetry show the poet’s artfulness and acumen as a social observer, as well as casting new light on his influence on British Romanticism.
Professor Leask, Head of the School of Critical Studies at the University of Glasgow said: "I’m over the moon about being joint winner of the 2010 NLS/Saltire Prize for the Best Research Book of the Year. Although published the year after the 250th anniversary of the poet’s birth, Burns and Pastoral greatly benefited from the many international seminars, conferences and celebrations that I attended in 2009, evidence of a healthy revival in Burns and Scottish literary studies.
"I’d started research on Burns before being appointed to Glasgow’s Regius Chair in English in 2004, but writing the book became part of my personal reorientation in the Scotland that I’d left back in 1977. Although published by Oxford and to some extent aimed at an international readership, I’m delighted that Burns and Pastoral has been so well received here in Scotland. I’m looking forward to developing the themes of the book in further research collaboration with my Glasgow co-editors on the new Oxford Collected Works of Robert Burns, based in the School of Critical Studies."
Further information:
Martin Shannon, Senior Media Relations Officer
University of Glasgow Tel: 0141 330 8593
The Saltire Society
Established in the 1930s, to celebrate the rich culture, history and environment of Scotland. The name Saltire is taken from the saltire, the heraldic name of the Cross of St. Andrew.
News
Kei Miller shortlisted for major writing award
Kei Miller, lecturer on the Creative Writing programme, has been shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 2010 for his collection of poetry, A Light Song of Light (Carcanet, 2010).
Kei is up against competition from works by 5 other writers, with three debut titles among them. The winner will be announced on 23 November at a ceremony at the Century Club, in London. A Light Song of Light is Kei’s third collection of poetry, after his debut, Kingdom of Empty Bellies, was published in 2006, followed by There Is an Anger That Moves in 2007. His current collection grapples with the recent economic recession, family tragedy and how to continue making art in dark times. It is described by his publisher as "sing(ing) the rhythms of ritual and folktale, praise songs and anecdotes, blending lyricism with a cool wit, finding the languages in which poetry can sing in dark times."
Creative Writing students win Poetry awards
Paul Deaton, currently studying for the MLitt in Creative Writing (FT) won second prize and a cheque for £2,500 in the Arvon Foundation International Poetry Competition 2010 for his poem Sea Bream Dinner. Founded by Ted Hughes in 1980, the biennial competition – which has a reputation for discovering and launching the poetic talent of the future – is the UK’s only international poetry competition. This year’s competition attracted thousands of entries from more than 43 countries. Carol Ann Duffy chaired the judging panel.
Nick Boreham, in his second-year of the part-time MLitt programme, was a finalist in in the 2010 Aesthetica Poetry Competition, out of 4,000 entries, for his poem Surf Orphan. He also won third prize in the Stirling Book Festival 2010 poetry competition for another poem, Texting.
Creative Writing Anthology launched
Sushirexia, the latest anthology from students of the MLitt in Creative Writing was launched at Watersone's on Sauchiehall Street on Thursday June 24th. Please contact Rob Smith for further information. Available to purchase at major book retailers.
'What is Difficult about English Studies or Creative Writing?’
Second-year undergraduate Phoebe Bown has won the highly prized English Subject Centre Student Competition for an essay she wrote on the topic of ‘What is Difficult about English Studies or Creative Writing?’. For further information and to read Phoebe's essay, see the GU News webpage.
Tom Leonard wins Poetry Prize
Tom Leonard, who retired as Glasgow's Professor of Creative Writing in September last year, has been awarded the prestigious poetry prize at the Scottish Book of the Year 2010 awards. 'Outside the Narrative' (Word Power/Etruscan Books), the collection of poems that won Tom the poetry prize, has also been shortlisted for the book of the year prize at the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards. The title, which carries prize money of £25,000, will be announced at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose on 18 June.
'Outside the Narrative' contains the majority of Tom Leonard's published poems between 1965 and 2009, alongside prose pieces, such as 'Honest' and 'A Night at the Pictures'. Described by Paul Batchelor of the Guardian as "a unique body of work: terse, funny, unyielding and necessary", the collection gives a comprehensive overview of Tom Leonard’s literary career to date.
Speaking about Tom Leonard’s work, Roderick Watson, Professor of English Literature at the University of Stirling and Head of the Stirling Centre for Scottish Studies said:
"Tom Leonard has made a radical commitment to the music of the spoken voice and to how people really speak (and live) in the streets of our big cities…Leonard's writing has been immensely influential as a harbinger of critical change in how we think about poetry and about how literature is taught and used in schools and universities throughout the country. Leonard's own poems are popular and challenging - satirical, experimental or even surreal. Wildly funny, or savagely disturbing, his work speaks for human compassion…in a world that is saturated with sound bites, social inequality and corporate flannel".
New Journal established
Journal of the Northern Renaissance, an open access, peer-reviewed publication, was set up by graduate students and staff at the Universities of Glasgow, Stirling and Strathclyde in 2009. The second issue, "Recollecting the Renaissance," went online in May 2010. To make a submission to the journal, which publishes both essays and reviews, please contact the editors.
Dr. Chris Gair at Yale University
Dr Chris Gair has been appointed Visiting Fellow in English and American Studies at Yale University from October to December 2009, to conduct research on his monograph, Writing Americans: the White City and the Invention of National Culture, 1893-1917. The project is part-funded by a Scottish Government Arts and Humanities Small Grant, and he is pictured at the Royal Society of Edinburgh Research Awards Reception with the President of the RSE, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn.
Burns Club of London - William Will Memorial Lecture
Professor Murray Pittock gave the William Will Memorial Lecture at Portcullis House, House of Commons on 2 March 2009 on the subject of 'Robert Burns and Global Culture'. The event was hosted by Andrew Mitchell MP, Shadow Secretary of State for International Development'. For tickets and further information see the Burns Club London leaflet
Creative Writing graduate Jen Hadfield wins 2008 T S Eliot Prize
Former Glasgow Creative Writing MLitt student Jen Hadfield has won the 2008 T. S. Eliot Prize for poetry for her stunning second collection Nigh-No-Place (Bloodaxe, 2008).
Judges’ chairman and Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion called Jen “a remarkably original poet”. She was presented with a cheque for £15,000 at a ceremony at the Skinner's Hall in London.
RAE 2008
The School of English and Scottish Language and Literature is delighted with our excellent results in RAE 2008. Not only did we return the largest number of active researchers in Scotland -- we submitted all our staff -- and the third largest in the UK, but 70% of our research was rated as either "world-leading" (35%) or"internationally excellent" (35%). Using various measures of research achievement, we are ranked between third and eighth in the UK. This result demonstrates our status as a major institution for the study of English and Scottish language and literature, and builds on our achievement of a 5*-rating in RAE 2001.
Full details of the results are available on the RAE website.
Bestseller launched in Catalonia
Murray Pittock's The Road to Independence? was launched in its Catalan translation (El camí cap a la independencia) at Port Olimpic, Barcelona by the First Minister, Rt Hon Alex Salmond MP MSP on 14 December. The event was covered by El Pais, La Vanguardia, El Mundo, El Punt, TV3 and many other Spanish and Catalan newspapers and TV stations. Since its appearance in March, The Road to Independence? has been on bestseller and recommended lists in Scotland, Canada, Japan and the USA (reaching No.1 academic title in Edinburgh), and has been the subject of a Radio 4 programme. It was nominated for Saltire Book and Research Book of the Year in 2008, and featured at Aye Write!, the Edinburgh Book Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as well as being a Borders, Amazon and Bookseller featured book choice.
Glasgow Conference to be held on Eighteenth-Century Scholarly Editing
University of Glasgow, 27-29 August 2009
Recent years have seen the inception of numerous large-scale editorial projects within eighteenth-century literary and related studies, whether already completed or still under way. There is wide agreement that this kind of well-resourced and up-to-date editorial work on major authors is of durable benefit to the scholarly world, and there is a general awareness of new prospects being opened up for the preparation and dissemination of such work through IT (eg full-text databases and hypertext editions). Yet there has been little scholarly discussion of this phenomenon as a whole, or of its future.
This conference seeks to bring together 'representatives' from ongoing editions, as well as other scholars with interests and expertise in eighteenth-century editing and bibliography, to open up discussion of the topic and of future possibilities. It is expected to have a considerable impact on work in the area by establishing contacts between scholars involved in eighteenth-century editing, and by identifying priorities and prospects for the next generation of editors/editions.
For further information, contact Stuart Gillespie or David Shuttleton.
Members of the Department included in Hundred Best Shakespeare Sources
Studies published by members of the Department of English Literature have been included in a list of the top hundred books on Shakespeare.
Out of the many thousands of works devoted to the Bard, Dr Stuart Gillespie's Shakespeare's Books (2001) and Dr Robert Maslen's Shakespeare and Comedy (2005) have been named as two of the Hundred Best Shakespeare Sources in a list compiled for the Modern Library by Professor Jonathan Bate.
Dr Gillespie's work is a comprehensive A-Z Guide to Shakespeare's reading, while Dr Maslen's monograph sets the Elizabethan comedies in the context of both theatrical traditions and anti-stage polemic.
See the publisher Random House website.