English

This seminar serves as an introduction to Scottish Studies, an interdisciplinary field combining history, literature, sociology, food studies, and other approaches. The three parts are closely linked both chronologically (focusing on the 18th and 19th centuries) and thematically, all three intertwining themes of food, literature (or writing), and Scottish national identity. The first section looks at the ways in which Scotland was “invented” or reinvented in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Perceived until the mid-eighteenth century as a backward land ridden with religious strife and tyrannical politics, Scotland emerged as a proud Romantic nation. The seminar first examines the rise of travelling, tourism, and travel-writing as ways of creating and disseminating new representations of the nation. Then the study bears on the cult of two men who lived in the late eighteenth-century: the national "Bard" Robert Burns and Thomas Muir, a lesser-known defender of the French Revolution, victim of tyranny who was celebrated in Bordeaux and Paris and died in 1798, providing inspiration for later generations of democrats. The cult of heroes raises many questions: who became a hero and why? What aspects of their lives were brought forward, what aspects were hidden? What (ideological, nationalist, etc.) purposes did the cult of heroes serve? Who contested heroes and why? What about heroines? A particular focus of interest is the Burns Supper, a tradition closely associated with Scottish identity: invented in 1801, it is still vivid today, has become global and has taken on many different meanings across time and place, serving in particular to celebrate Scotland’s role in the British Empire. The second section examines writing by a selection of nineteenth century Scottish authors and the influence of their texts on cultural life and popular culture in Scotland and the wider world in ensuing centuries. The seminar touches on the afterlives of Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson as international authors; literary and cultural tourism in Scotland and elsewhere; Scottish food and drink as evolving literary tropes as well as the scholarly annotation of 19th-century Scottish texts for the needs of 21st-century readers. Finally, the course witnesses history at work in family recipe books in the 18th and 19th centuries in Scotland: In England and Scotland, the tradition of the landowning gentry keeping recipe books began in the seventeenth century. By the eighteenth century, these accounts had become a way for the elite to establish their way of life as a continuum, a vital and enduring heritage passed down from generation to generation. The National Library of Scotland holds a large collection of cookery books, some of which come from the papers of one particular family: the Malcolm family of Burnfoot in Dumfriesshire. Readers can witness the evolution of these records from the first manuscript written in 1782 to the last one in 1892. Examining the family’s recipe books gives us a glimpse into the food consumption habits of an upper-class Scottish family and serves as a valuable record of their ascension up the social ladder. The way cultural influences can be traced in these recipe books also tells us about history from a different, fascinating angle: that of food.

Jane Austen (1775-1817) is one of the greatest English novelists and, since the First World War, has become a national icon. This module provides an opportunity for in-depth study of her six full-length novels. It explores the various ways in which she transformed the genre of the women's domestic novel into a vehicle for social analysis and commentary. Her novels are full of signs which conveyed to her contemporaries opinions about economics, class, religion, and politics. We shall decode those signs and explore their significance.

This course provides an introduction into the study of eco-criticism and environmental literatures. Students examine a range of literary and theoretical texts towards an understanding of the development and current issues in this growing interdisciplinary area of study. It examines topics such as the representation of landscape, pastoral, the social production of space, pollution, climate change, nature/anti-nature writing and recent work on interspecies relations. Examples for discussion are drawn from a range of genres that include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and film.

This course is an introduction to the study of traditional narrative. Students explore the diverse ways that scholars have attempted to account for the origin, transmission, and practice of traditional tales, including psychoanalysis, Oral-Formulaic theory and the Historic-Geographical method. From this interdisciplinary vantage point, students give close attention to the storytelling heritage of Scotland and Ireland, using materials from the School of Scottish Studies Archives and other sources.

This course provides an overview of the evolution of the English language from its origins to the 15th century. Topics include: Britain-- it's cultures and languages and the rise of English; emergence of varieties within Old English; Old English spelling, sounds, and grammar; resurgence of a new English; lexical influx in the late middle ages, innovations, and change; support of a language in the absence of speakers-- English texts from the Late Middle Ages; consolidation of English. 

How do we create meaning from the air we breathe and from marks on a page? How has language been exploited now and throughout history for effect, self-expression, and story-telling? In this course, students study the most intricate, powerful, and beautiful parts of our most valuable human asset - language. In three strands this course explores in detail how newspapers, adverts, and politicians all try to persuade us; how linguistic meaning and structure are key to making ourselves understood; and how the 1500-year history of English tells us about who we are and where we came from.

The course introduces students to Chaucer's THE CANTERBURY TALES, a key text of the English middle ages and one of the most accessible yet challenging works of medieval literature in English. It explores the range of individual tales, and the social and pilgrimage frameworks, that unite the whole. Topics considered include the different narrative kinds and modes employed in the tales, the focus on issues of gender, desire and marriage, and the playful yet sophisticated reflection upon the act of storytelling itself.

This course will focus on the short detective fiction of Agatha Christie (1890-1976), the most successful twentieth-century author of detective novels. While Christie developed two well-known sleuths, Hercules Poirot and Miss Jane Marple, who featured in novels and whose cases have frequently been translated into the medium of film as well into more than 100 languages, this course will concentrate on the early short stories that were published in the 1920s and that predate the Miss Marple novels. Students will be introduced to the study of character and narrative, as well as the genre conventions of detective fiction, at the same time that they will be furnished with tools to understand the various techniques used in crime fiction. Particular attention will be devoted to reading Miss Marple as a moral standard against which aberrant behavior is tested by Christie. 

This course introduces students to different methods of reading literature historically. In order to learn how to place specific textual representations in their wider social and intellectual contexts, students examine a range of literary genres, encompassing both canonical and non-canonical texts from the medieval period to the late 18th century. The texts have been selected to encourage critical engagement with the global dimensions of "English Literature." Students must have passed Literary Studies 1A and 1B (or equivalent if visiting student).

This course combines political philosophy and critical thinking and debate in English. It contains six modules: justice, order, prosperity, market, polity and civilization.

Students will learn about classical theories and the development of political philosophy, how to cultivate critical thinking, argumentative strategies and academic presentation ability and to develop incidental and implicit English acquisition in the exploration of academic subjects.