The political horizons of Devolution - "Poor Things" revisited

Organised by the new CIVIS Scottish Literature Network on ‘The political horizons of Devolution’, this project aims to examine the different ways this paradigm change is reflected in, but also brought about by, the writing of Scottish writers.

Memory has long been an important aspect of literary studies in Scotland, particularly in the devolutionary period, which emphasises the necessity to delineate national, but also personal identities.

With the twenty-first century, the political developments in a Scottish context, devolution, the independence referendum and a Scottish government in Holyrood, the very notion of identity has taken on new, and more diverse, meanings: BAME writers have come to the forefront of the literary scene, bringing with them a renewed sense of the past, new literary forms have emerged (film poems, collaborative theatre, iPhone-filmed narrative), the renewed interest in historical fiction has become a permanent feature, some of the writers of the 1980s have reached the status of cultural icons, with the recent release, for instance, of internationalised adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s Poor Things.

The period has also seen a spate of apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic futuristic novels (either genre fiction, or mainstream fiction), which are environmentally conscious (Burnside, Sara Maitland) or observe the impact of globalisation on humanity (Morrison). Those are all signs that our notions of national identity have been deeply altered.

The project involves a series of webinars with the goal of reflecting on what specific input Scottish literature brings to the altered sense of Scottish identity.