University of Glasgow - Colleges - College of Arts & Humanities - Partnership Development

Language, Literature and Culture Case Studies

Glaschu: Transforming Glasgow’s relationship with the Gaelic language, enriching cultural and artistic use through partnership with local government

Along-standing belief in Glasgow that Gaelic ‘was never spoken here’ has been debunkedby UofG research into the city’s placenames, establishing Glasgow’s deep, centuries-old connection with Gaelic. The research led to an increased range of opportunities for using Gaelic, a joint aim with strategic partner Glasgow City Council, as well as improving learning material and stimulating cultural and artistic outputs. Through research-based contributions to a bilingual website, an exhibition, a library portal for Gaelic-language resources, and a programme of activities including renowned Scottish artists taking place around the Mòd in Glasgow, 2019, the research has improved and increased the sustainability and vitality of Gaelic in Glasgow.

Academic: Prof Katherine Forsyth

Partner: Glasgow City Council

To learn more about this project or to discuss developing a partnership with the College of Arts please contact Dr Fraser Rowan the College of Arts Knowledge Exchange and Impact manager by email or phone (0141 330 3885).

Transforming Gaelic language policy and resource development for the 21st century based on the needs of Gaelic-speaking communities and professionals

UofG-led research, commissioned by Scotland’s statutory Gaelic development agency, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, has produced authoritative grammatical and lexicographic resources necessary for effective corpus planning. These resources underpin and facilitate the increased formal use of Gaelic in areas such as education, publishing and broadcasting. UofG research also led to the establishment of a national ‘Gaelic Language Academy’, the Comataidh Comhairleachadh Cànain (CCC), and shaped its structure, priorities and policies. As a result, Scotland’s minority Gaelic-speaking community is now supported by the linguistic framework and resources needed to maintain and encourage the growth of their language.

Academic: Prof Roibeard O'Maolalaigh, Dr Mark McConville

Partners: Bòrd na Gàidhlig, Comataidh Comhairleachadh Cànain

Use of photography by Mexican state Government’s secretariat for migration (SEZAMI) to create new competition programme to support Mexican migrants

Migration from Mexico to the USA in pursuit of a better life has been happening for over 140 years, and almost half of people from the Mexican state of Zacatecas reside in the US. Gardner’s research into how photography can counter the ‘invisibility’ of marginalised groups has helped shape inclusion activities of SEZAMI, a government agency in Zacatecas that has supported migrants from and back to the region since 1999. Based on his advice, SEZAMI expanded its arts programme to include adult migrants, launching an online competition allowing migrant photographers to self-represent. This competition helped counter feelings of invisibility, and reconnected participants and exhibition viewers to Zacatecan traditions and community.

Academic: Dr Nathanial Gardner

Partner: SEZAMI

Challenging the continuation of censorship under Franco’s regime

College of Arts research has demonstrated that the impact of censorship imposed under the Franco regime in Spain from 1939–1976 extends well into the current day, because publishers are still reissuing works expurgated by the censors more than 60 years ago. These findings sparked intense media coverage and public debate in Spain and elsewhere, and within the international literary and human rights communities. As a direct result of Cornellà-Detrell’s work, publishers of Spanish-language texts have to date reviewed, amended or commissioned new translations of 12 seminal works by Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, James Baldwin, Ian Fleming and others.

Academic: Dr Jordi Cornellà-Detrell

Partner: Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory

Advancing the status of comics as a cultural and educational asset

Through his research into bandes dessinées Grove has increased recognition of the status and
utility of comics as a cultural and educational asset. This work has:

Increased awareness of both the importance of Scottish contributions to early comics, and of the ubiquity and accessibility of the culture of comics, through public exhibitions and outreach activities including invited lectures and broadcasts. These have appealed to a younger demographic than normally reached by museums.
Established comics as a powerful aid to learning and teaching, through the exhibitions, increased academic recognition, and an Astérix resource for schools delivered through Education Scotland.

Academic: Prof Laurence Grove

Partner: Glasgow Life, The Hunterian, Clydebank Museum & Art Gallery, Education Scotland

Combating Russia’s ‘Memory War’ on the Gulag experience

Between 1918−1987, at least 20 million detainees were confined in Soviet prison camps later known as the Gulag. Dr Gullotta’s research brings to light cultural aspects of Gulag life including detainees’ resistance using art and literature, and the Russian government’s ‘memory war’ attempting to rewrite the historical narrative of the Gulag. His findings have formed the basis of
public outreach including a permanent Hunterian Museum digital exhibition Beauty in Hell and have supported and enhanced the work of NGOs Memorial and Rights in Russia, human rights organisations whose work includes advocating against a return to totalitarianism, in part through commemorating the victims of the Soviet Gulag.

Academic: Dr Andrea Gullotts

Partners: Memorial, Rights in Russia

Britské listy

Dr Jan Culik edits and publishes the widely read Czech language journal Britské listy. This is a cultural and political journal, which currently has 200,000 unique readers each month. Czech politicians and decision makers read the journal, a fact that has led to consultations between academics and top politicians. The website has also featured in contemporary Czech fiction.
The website for the journal appears in both Czech and English, the Czech version being the most popular. As it is widely known that the editor-in-chief is an academic in the University of Glasgow College of Arts, there is considerable recognition of and publicity for the institution in the country.

In 2015, Culik was invited to start producing a weekly 15 minute interview for a Czech cable TV station Regionalni Televize, which has the reach of about 100 000 viewers. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Culik has broadcast in excess of 440 political and cultural interviews. Some of them have English subtitles or are conducted in English. They are also available via a YouTube archive.

Partner: The Britské listy Public Association, Regionalni Televize

Academic: Dr Jan Culik

Use of creative practice and research to change perceptions of writing and motherhood

Dr Carolyn Jess-Cooke played a lead role in a move within women’s writing on motherhood byproducing a creative anthology of poems, essays and interviews by 85 female writers worldwide. Unique in its dual examination of the impact of writing on motherhood and the impact of motherhood on literary art, this anthology, and associated events including touring 13 literary festivals with participatory workshops, contributed significantly to the development of discourse about motherhood and women’s writing. Jess-Cooke followed this in 2020 with an online literary festival that attracted 15,000 participants, including many from groups who less commonly participate in literary festivals.

Academic: Dr Carolyn Jess-Cooke

Partners: Stay-at-Home!, Paper Nations

Raising the profile ofScottish Literature through writing and consultancy

Riach’s expansive body of research into Scottish literature and related arts has extended the reach of Scottish literature in a concerted way via a diversity of channels. Riach’s research expertise has raisedthe profile of his subject amongst a broad constituency through (i) advising on literary texts in the design of RBS banknotes, (ii) as author of VisitScotland’s popular guidebookLiterary Scotland,(iii) an ongoing series of 170+research-driven essays coveringmajor and obscure writers and themes,published in the daily newspaper The Nationalsince 2016, and (iv) as poetry contributor to the exhibition Landmarks: Poets, Portraits and Landscapes of Modern Scotland.

Academic: Prof Alan Riach

Partners: VisitScotland, The National, Royal Bank of Scotland

Soillse - Gaelic Language and Culture

Since 2010, the College of Arts has been a partner in the inter-university project Soillse: The National Research Network for Maintenance and Revitalisation of Gaelic Language and Culture. Funded by the universities, Scottish Funding Council, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Bòrd na Gаidhlig, the College has collaborated in research projects in the areas of corpus development, language planning, the acquisition of Gaelic by learners and how to measure language proficiency, and Gaelic broadcasting.

As part of the corpus development strand, the College has been commissioned by Bòrd na Gаidhlig to undertake three research projects on ‘Corpus Planning for Gaelic’, setting out the foundations for future corpus planning for the Gaelic language –

• Dlùth is Inneach – ‘Linguistic and Institutional Framework for Gaelic Corpus Development’: 2013

• Leasachadh Corpas na Gàidhlig (LEACAG, ‘Gaelic Corpus Development’): 2016–18

• ‘Coordinating Developments in the Corpus of Scottish Gaelic’ (LEACAN): 2020–23

Partners: Scottish Funding Council, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, University of Edinburgh, University of Aberdeen, University of the Highlands & Islands and Bòrd na Gаidhlig.

Academic: Prof Roibeard Ó Maolalaigh, Dr Mark McConville

Gaelic Language Corpus

Within the College of Arts, two related research projects were established in 2006 and 2008 respectively: Digital Archive of Scottish Gaelic (DASG) and Corpas na Gаidhlig. Both are funded by British Academy, Scottish Funding Council, Bòrd na Gаidhlig and the Scottish Government. They provide the primary materials for innovative research on the Gaelic language, future technological developments (including apps), a comprehensive historical dictionary of the Gaelic language, and a textual evidence base for ongoing work on creating a comprehensive descriptive grammar of modern Scottish Gaelic. These resources have been publically available since 2014 via the DASG website (https://dasg.ac.uk), including archives of fieldwork and audio collections.

The College was also commissioned by Bòrd na Gаidhlig in 2009 to research the development of Gaelic corpus technology. This resulted in a published report, which sets out recommendations and a roadmap for future development. This work has been followed by further Bòrd-commissioned research projects involving development of language resources, including online grammatical and terminology resources.

Academics have produced widely used Gaelic learning books and materials, as well as an annual literary journal: Aiste: Studies in Gaelic Literature.

Project Partners: British Academy, Scottish Funding Council, Bòrd na Gаidhlig, Scottish Government.

Academic: Prof Roibeard Ó Maolalaigh, Dr Mark McConville

Ownership of Scots Dialects

Professor Jennifer Smith is a sociolinguist who studies the interface between the social and the linguistic in language use, because our speech gives away a lot of clues to our identity. Smith investigated the use of Scots by recording people, including pre-school children, across a variety of Scottish communities. She discovered that Scots-speaking children are bi-dialectical, and that Scots dialects have specific and complicated sets of rules, just like standard English. Her work aims to dispel the myth that people who speak Scots are less intelligent or can't speak English "properly" and to teach children that they are speaking Scots already. Smith believes that the study of Scots should be integrated into the classroom, as a starting point, by allowing the children to create their own resources by recording, transcribing and analysing Scots speech. Smith is collaborating with education planners and intends to trial this approach in a number of schools.

Academic: Prof Jennifer Smith

Partners: Education Scotland, Buckie High School

To find out more about this project or to discuss developing a partnership of your own with the College of Arts please contact Dr Fraser Rowan the College of Arts Knowledge Exchange and Impact Manager by phone (0141 330 3885) or by email.

Learning Polish is as Easy as 1+2

Dr Elwira Grossman and her research assistant Iza Rudzka worked in collaboration with Education Scotland and Glasgow University Arts Lab to develop a Polish as a foreign language unit to be taught in Scottish primary schools. There are currently 15,000 Polish speaking children in Scottish schools, and yet so far the curriculum has privileged Western European languages such as French, German and Spanish. Grossman has discovered that teaching Polish in the classroom gives children a more European and cosmopolitan outlook, and helps to raise the self-esteem of Polish speaking children. The language unit was designed to be the second foreign language children will be exposed to in primary five, as part of the Scottish Government's new '1+2' foreign language scheme.

Academic: Dr Elwira Grossman

Partner: Education Scotland

Translations at the Edinburgh International Festival

Over the past 20 years, Margaret Tejerizo has collaborated with the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) as a translator, cultural adviser and interpreter. The aim has been to “give voice” to many works over these years to national and international EIF audiences.
This has involved using Russian, Spanish, French and Romanian and resulted in productions with theatre directors and conductors such as Peter Stein, Calixto Bieito, and Valerii Gergiev, as well as collaborations with theatre and opera companies worldwide.
In addition to the creation and production of supertitles for many major EIF productions, original translations into English for EIF include “Faust”, (from Romanian), “The Invisible City of Kitezh” (from Russian), “December” (from Spanish) and many more.

Project Partner: Edinburgh International Festival

Academic: Dr Margaret Tejerizo (Affiliate)

Locating Burns in Scottish and Global Culture

Academics in the Centre for Robert Burns Studies (CRBS), College of Arts, have worked in collaboration with the National Library of Scotland, National Galleries Scotland, National Museums Scotland, Glasgow Life, Dumfries and Galloway Museums and East and South Ayrshire Museums as part of Burns Scotland.

This partnership manages and promotes access to the c.36,000 items relating to Burns in Scottish public collections. They have worked on several exhibitions for Burns Scotland in recent years including Zig Zag: The Paths of Robert Burns and Robert Burns Beyond Text, which appeared across Scotland. The CRBS also worked with the BBC to create a permanent online archive of Burns’ works, including performances by many Scottish celebrities.

Project Parner: Burns Scotland

Academics: The Centre for Robert Burns Studies

Name Studies at the University of Glasgow

The Scottish Toponymy in Transition (STIT) project has researched and published two volumes of the place-names of Kinross-shire and Clackmannanshire with a third (Menteith) in the pipeline. In addition the team researched the place-names of Berwickshire and Ayrshire.
The project team from the College of Arts is actively engaging the public with events such as place-name walks, talks to local history societies and putting on exhibitions. The project is also working with Education Scotland to produce place-name resources for the school curriculum.
The College has particular expertise in the study of names (Onomastics) with a lively academic community researching place- and personal names throughout Scotland. Potential areas for future work include developing place-name apps and walks for the tourist industry.

Partner: Education Scotland

Academics: Prof Carole Hough, Dr Elia Williamson, Prof Thomas Clancy, Dr Simon Taylor

A Traveller’s Guide to Literary Scotland

A photograph of Jenni Steele, Head of Partnership Communications at VisitScotland and Professor Alan Riach, Professor of Scottish Literature, sitting on a sofa in the Scottish landscape, holding books and talking. In partnership with VisitScotland and the Association of Scottish Literary Studies (ASLS), Alan Riach, Professor of Scottish Literature, produced a Traveller’s Guide to Literary Scotland. The guide won the 2011 Gold Award for Best Publication at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations PRide awards, and is available in printed form in all VisitScotland Information Centres and to download.
‘The guide pinpoints the stunning settings for world-famous novels, the scenery that inspired poets and the birthplaces of some of the country’s most distinguished writers. It’s a treasure trove of information. From the highbrow to the child-friendly, the guide is useful for anyone curious about our story-tellers. It’s an ideal way to improve your knowledge of Scotland’s great literary and cultural offerings. (Daily Record)

Academic: Prof Alan Riach

Partner: VisitScotland, ASLS

The Road to Independence

A photograph of Professor Murray Pittock and Alex Salmond in front of the Scottish flag Professor Murray Pittock’s, The Road to Independence: Scotland Since the Sixties, was first published by Reaction Books in 2008. So timely was the book in its relevance to Scottish and European politics that a Catalan edition, El camí cap a la independencia, was also published, with a foreword by Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond.

Murray became a regular contributor to high-level debates about Scottish independence in the press and media, and was engaged as a participant on governmental advisory groups. He convened the National Champions Group for Scottish Studies in 2011-13. Following the Scottish National Party’s success in the 2011 Scottish Parliament Elections, the movement towards the Referendum of 18^th September 2014 and, indeed, the book’s previous success, a comprehensively rewritten study was published in 2014: The Road to Independence?: Scotland in the Balance. The Daily Telegraph rated the book one of five must reads on independence and Bella Caledonia included it in a list of the best 24 books on Scottish nationality in the last century.

The argument of the book was summarized in the Radio 4 series The Roots of Scottish Nationalism, which had an aggregate audience of 6.25 million across its 5 episodes and an audience rating of 81%; The Week also published a condensed briefing on the Referendum taken from the book, Independence for Scotland? The book was launched in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Belfast: in the last location, it was No. 1 Northern Ireland political story on the day and No. 1 NI political story on Twitter. Throughout 2014, Murray commented for government and other agencies on documents and speeches before release, and presented on the Scottish brand and its export markets at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh in August and elsewhere, as well as twice briefing Russell Group communications directors on the Scottish situation. The book’s ideas received media coverage in the UK, US, Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, France, Germany, Ghana, Haiti, Ireland, al-Jazeera, Pakistan, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey in outlets from the Financial Times to Nature, and Murray appeared live on Russia Today from Moscow at 7pm on the day after the Referendum.

Following 2014, Murray became the go to broadcaster for Scottish constitutional issues in outlets such as Sky News, Radio Scotland’s Big Debate, ABC News, TV5 Monde, Austria FM, Radio 5 Live (General Election, Corbyn and the Scottish Labour Party), Radio 4, Public Radio Europe, Liberation, Japan Today and appeared in the media additionally in Bangladesh, Canada, India, Indonesia, Japan, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Mexico, Nigeria, Qatar, South Africa, Switzerland, Tunisia, Vietnam, Zambia and the US, leading to a total of over 1100 media and internet appearances, plus the introduction to a French documentary on Nouvelle Caledonie, and its independence referendums. In addition there were c19000 YouTube and other platform views of related material, including a personal profile of Murray, to add to the 6300 views of pre Referendum material. In 2021, Murray Pittock was asked to represent the Scottish Government at the annual UK-Canada international colloquium on the subject of federalism, devolution and the governance of the Covid pandemic.

Academic: Prof Murray Pittock

Breaking Down the Barriers of Engagement with Writing

An image taken from the production of 'The Lady from the Sea' Zoe Strachan is the author of three novels: Ever Fallen in Love, Spin Cycle and Negative Space, and has taught on the Glasgow Creative Writing Programme since 2003. Her short stories and essays have been included in numerous journals and anthologies, she contributes to various newspapers and magazines and her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 3.
As well as receiving numerous international fellowships, in recent years Zoe has engaged with interdisciplinary projects. She has collaborated on the exhibition and publication ‘I throw my prayers into the sky’ (Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Concordia, Germany) and theatre productions with the Citizens Theatre and Oran Mor, Glasgow. Zoe’s most recent high-profile work has been in opera.

Academic: Zoe Strachan

Compiling & Publishing the Historical Thesaurus

The Historical Thesaurus of English (HT) was published in 2009 by academics in the College of Arts, and its second edition was launched in 2020. It is a major new resource for research and writing in the English language and has already had a widespread impact. It was named book of the year in The Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement. It is currently in its fourth print run in three years with sales revenue of approximately £2.3 million of global sales, brining economic benefit to the publishing industry.

In 2010 the HT was integrated with the online Oxford English Dictionary, forming a single accessible resource. It has been widely used by international academics and historical novelists such as Mary Robinette Kowal, Geraldine Brooks, Melvyn Bragg, Alexander McCall Smith, and Philip Pullman. The success of the HT allowed its publisher to commission a popular book, Words in Time, by David Crystal, a highly successful populariser of linguistics for a general audience. In addition, a senior vice president of marketing in the US has blogged that the HT was one of the five objects most important to her work, and that it ‘helped me generate over 1,000 possible names for clients’ in her marketing roles.

Project Partner: Oxford English Dictionary

Writing about Robert Burns for an International Audience

The Centre for Robert Burns Studies (CRBS) regularly engages with industry as part of the Culture and Heritage partnership Burns Scotland (the national Burns collection). CRBS engages in writing and publishing activities in order to disseminate research about the life and works of Scotland's most universally famous literary figure: Robert Burns (1759 - 1796). As part of a major AHRC-funded project led by Professor Gerard Carruthers - 'Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century' - the project team are producing a multi-volume edition of the works of Robert Burns for publication by Oxford University Press.

The CRBS team also regularly compose and contribute to texts for publication in the Scottish Press (recently, The Guardian, The Herald, The Scotsman, The Daily Record); exhibition texts (for both museum-based and online exhibitions); and texts for publication online and as part of Apps (for example, the US-based 'Robert Burns Lives!' online periodical, and an interactive timeline authored for the Scottish government's Robert Burns App). The team also contribute to book festivals, such as 'Aye Write' where a research-based drama documentary about the activities of 'Antique Smith' (a famous nineteenth-century Burns forger), co-authored by Professor Carruthers, was performed for the first time.

The Centre's engagement with industry and the general public through writing and publishing activities ensures that research undertaken at CRBS reaches the extensive worldwide community of scholars and enthusiasts who are interested in Scottish culture and the national bard.

Project Partners: Burns Scotland, Oxford University Press and Various Scottish Press

Academic: Prof. Gerard Carruthers

Translating Dialogue into Old French for the History Channel series, ‘Vikings’

Dr James Simpson (Reader in French) translated dialogue for the History Channel's Vikings, which centres on the Viking raids on Paris in the mid ninth century.

James contributed his research and linguistic expertise in order to translate modern idiomatic dialogue into the language of the period (referred to as Old French), both at the script-writing stage and when the cast were on set. James’s work in this respect has proven so effective that the use of Old French in the series has increased as a result.

James’s collaboration on Vikings ensured confidence in the dialogue, enhances the authenticity of the production, and raises awareness of James’s research/discipline beyond the academy.

As James comments: ‘Engaging in this sort of reconstruction was hard work, but it was also tremendous fun. The Viking raiding and exploration that began in the eighth century had an immense impact on European cultures, and the Vikings settled and assimilated in a number of places. The Vikings programme shows the main characters encountering new languages, customs and ideas. Of course it’s fun to see films and TV series that use other languages, whether historical or invented, because it pretty much always adds to the flavour. However, what’s particularly interesting about this show is that the historical dialogue highlights problems of contact, understanding and identity in very thoughtful ways, with the characters themselves curious about new things and new words, but also wondering how those new perspectives will transform them and their own culture.

Project Partner: History Channel

Academic: Dr James Simpson

The ‘Life Cycle’ of Literature

As part of his work in literary translation between French and English, Professor Michael Syrotinski (Marshall Chair of French) works as part of a network that brings together academics, colleagues at the British Library, contemporary French writers, translators, publishers of contemporary fiction, and literary journalists, both in the UK and France.

The aim of the network is to explore the 'life cycle' of a work of literature, from composition, through to publication, public reception, teaching text, translation, reception of the translation, etc, from both an academic and non-academic perspective. As such, the research network offers a unique insight into the production of literature that will benefit the publishing industry in each country.

Academic: Professor Michael Syrotinski

To learn more about this project or to discuss developing a partnership with the College of Arts please contact Dr Fraser Rowan the College of Arts Knoeledge Exchange and Impact manager by email or phone (0141 330 3885).

Contact:

Dr Fraser Rowan

College of Arts Knowledge Exchange & Impact Manager

6 University Gardens, Room 202, Glasgow, G12 8QH

0141 330 3835

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