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EL55C7: INFINITE SCOTLANDS: SCOTLAND AND THE LITERARY IMAGINATION (2022-2023)

Last modified: 31 Jul 2023 11:19


Course Overview

This course explores the ways in which place is negotiated in a range of Scottish texts. Looking at a selection of texts about rural, urban, and diasporic experience across the centuries, and including both canonical and lesser-known works, this course will acquaint students with key debates in the study of regional and national fiction. Place in these texts is something to be praised and scorned, embraced and abandoned, but always remains central in any discussion of individual and communal identities. Major themes and issues to be discussed include: the idea of ‘home’; the role of nostalgia and longing in Scottish fiction; the nature of community; the significance of emigration and displacement.

Course Details

Study Type Postgraduate Level 5
Term Second Term Credit Points 30 credits (15 ECTS credits)
Campus Aberdeen Sustained Study No
Co-ordinators

Sorry, we don't have a record of any course coordinators.

What courses & programmes must have been taken before this course?

  • One of Any Postgraduate Programme or Master of Letters in English Literary Studies or Master Of Letters In English Language And Literature or Master Of Letters In Literatures, Environments And Places or M Litt in Creative Writing

What other courses must be taken with this course?

None.

What courses cannot be taken with this course?

  • EL50C7 Infinite Scotlands: Scotland and the Literary Imagination (Studied)

Are there a limited number of places available?

No

Course Description

In a late poem Hugh MacDiarmid asks if Scotland is small and replies by saying that in spite of its land mass Scotland is, on the contrary, ‘multiform’ and ‘infinite’, incorporating within itself a diversity of ways of thinking about place and what this might mean. Looking at a selection of texts about rural, urban, and diasporic experience across the centuries, and including both canonical and lesser-known works, this course will acquaint students with key debates in the study of regional and national fiction. Place in these texts is something to be praised and scorned, embraced and abandoned, but always remains central in any discussion of individual and communal identities. Major themes and issues to be discussed include: the idea of ‘home’; the role of nostalgia and longing in Scottish fiction; the nature of community; the significance of emigration and displacement. The course will also examine the linguistic diversity that underpins so much of Scottish experience and which forms the basis for experimentation in its literature. There will be a particular focus on the North-east, the region in which the University of Aberdeen is located, and the course will also consider the ways in which literary heritage contributes to a complex understanding of nation and region in Scotland today. Authors to be discussed may include William Dunbar, Walter Scott, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Willa Muir, Nan Shepherd, George Mackay Brown and Leila Aboulela.


Contact Teaching Time

Information on contact teaching time is available from the course guide.

Teaching Breakdown

More Information about Week Numbers


Details, including assessments, may be subject to change until 30 August 2024 for 1st term courses and 20 December 2024 for 2nd term courses.

Summative Assessments

There are no assessments for this course.

Formative Assessment

There are no assessments for this course.

Course Learning Outcomes

Knowledge LevelThinking SkillOutcome
Sorry, we don't have this information available just now. Please check the course guide on MyAberdeen or with the Course Coordinator

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