School of Critical Studies

Modernism, Modern Literature and Critical Theory Research Review 2010-11

A vibrant culture of research activity includes regular research seminars and guest lectures (recent speakers include Alain Badiou, W. J. T. Mitchell, Jean Michel-Rabaté and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak); through organizing and participating in international conferences, held within the University (see below); informal reading groups, attracting staff and students from across the university and beyond – these include the Finnegans Wake and Proust Reading Groups (John Coyle) and the Theory Reading Group (the latter organized by postgraduate students, but closely linked to the Modernities MLitt.); and through its ongoing and central involvement with the Scottish Network of Modernist Studies (SNoMS). Established in 2008 (Bryony Randall, Matthew Creasy, Vassiliki Kolocotroni, Jane Goldman) in concert with colleagues at Edinburgh University, this network holds three yearly one-day events involving colleagues from across Scotland. In 2010 SNOMS held the ‘December 1910 Centenary Conference’ which functioned simultaneously as the inaugural conference for the British Association of Modernism Studies (BAMS). Ongoing involvement with BAMS is one way in which the School sustains links with Modernist studies at a national level: for example, a small surplus from the ‘December 1910’ conference budget was used to fund postgraduate students to attend and speak at a BAMS event in London on 3 December 2011.

In addition to the external funding drawn to the university through AHRC, Carnegie and ORSAS via PG students, modernism and the study of modern literature continues to be a strong source of grant capture through research grants to individual staff members and collaborative projects. Irish studies (Paddy Lyons, Willy Maley, John Coyle, Matthew Creasy, Matt McGuire, Gerry Carruthers) with particular reference to the Scottish-Irish axis, and overlapping with colonial, postcolonial and diaspora research, is a cross-period theme for much of the School’s work, connecting in particular with the Modernist and Victorian groupings, and building on the success of the 2009 International Association for the Study of Irish Literature held at Glasgow. In Nov 2011 the University presented an Honorary Degree to the distinguished playwright Brien Friel, whom we were delighted to welcome to the School in an informal meeting with staff and PG students.

These activities are also a strong source of Impact within the School: for example, the ‘Contradictory Woolf’ conference (Jane Goldman, Bryony Randall) involved liaison with Glasgow Women's Library, including exhibition of commissioned works in the Round Reading Room, the ‘December 1910 Conference’ included a public event relating to early cinema at the Glasgow Film Theatre that attracted over 100 people (including 25 members of the general public); and staff have participated in associated public events, such as the launch of Cambridge University Press’ edition of the Works of Virginia Woolf (Gen Eds. Jane Goldman and Susan Sellars) at Senate House, London, (Feb 2011), with Dame Prof Gillian Beer, Prof Rachel Bowlby, and Ali Smith. The School also hosted the ‘The Edwardian Ford Madox Ford Conference’ (convener John Coyle) in September 2011 with a plenary lecture by Michael Schmidt. Willy Maley chaired or presented at 10 events (including two plenaries), and curated a one-day event on the Spanish Civil War at The Mitchell Library. He also gave a paper at a teach-in organised by the Centre for the Study of Socialist Theory and Movements. As well as co-editing the Edinburgh Companion to Muriel Spark, he delivered the Muriel Spark Society Annual Lecture at the NLS. A BA small research grant award of £7K (PI: Kirsteen McCue) allowed Linden Bicket (Ph.D. Dec 2011) to undertake work on ‘George Mackay Brown: A literary Executor’s Archive’, 2011-12. Alan Riach’s continuing work on Modern Scottish poetry continues to develop close links with research interests of the Glasgow School of Art. Along with Ken Neil at GSA he has been awarded a RSE Research award (£10k) for a project entitled: ‘Vision and Language: Alasdair Gray’s Visual and Literary Archive’. Also worthy of note are major publications in the area of Scottish Modernism in 2011 by Margery Palmer McCulloch, Scottish Literature Research Fellow, who co-edited the Edinburgh Companion to Hugh MacDiarmid with Scott Lyall, and who co-edited the ASLS Scottish and International Modernisms.

In October Ecoart Scotland presented ‘Anthrop-scene Evolution’ at AHM's State of Play symposium in Dundee. This event was inspired by the AHRC ‘Values of Environmental Research’ Network co-convened by Alex Benchimol, Rhian Williams and Hayden Lorimer (Geography). In June, Chris Gair directed the 8th Biennial Symbiosis Conference, at the University of Glasgow. He also completed his fifteenth year as editor of Symbiosis: a Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations. In November 2010, he appeared on BBC Radio Scotland to discuss Mark Twain’s Autobiography. To commemorate Mervyn Peake’s Centenary in 2011 Rob Maslen published an edition of Complete Nonsense and lectured to the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow, the Peake Centenary Conference in Chichester, and at the British Library.