Course Description

Course Name

Writing and History: Scotland and Empire

Session: VSRS3122

20 SCQF Credits

Please note: Introductory core modules are aimed at students who have done very little literature.

Advanced core modules are for students who have completed introductory modules in their own institutions

over 3 semesters. Students may be admitted to advanced options modules but this will depend on the number

of literature courses they have already completed at their home institution.

Taught In English

This module sets out to explore issues raised by that defining moment, the Union of the English and the Scottish

Parliaments in 1707. It examines the pressures that produced some of Scotland?s finest writing in the 18th, 19th

and 20th centuries, partly opposed to and partly in step with the concept of ?Great Britain?. The Scottish

experience is compared to that of other cultures whose sense of identity has been shaken by the centralising

drive of Empire and the confidence of the English language. The module is divided into three segments, the first

of which is called ?Voices from Post-Union Scotland?. Focusing on the period between the Union and the 1832

Reform Bill, this segment examines texts that emerge from and engage with a Scotland adjusting to the Union

that was to underpin the Empire. The second segment, ?Voices from the Imperial Era?, focuses on texts from the

late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, the high noon of the British Empire. This

segment examines texts from the period that reflect how different Scottish writers have engaged with issues of

Empire. The third segment, ?Post-Imperial Voices?, focuses on recent Scottish texts?all dealing with problematic

questions of place and displacement.

Please note that this module has limited enrolment.

*Course content subject to change