Date/Time
Date(s) - 12 Nov 2013
4:00 PM - 5:15 PM
Location
Fayerweather Hall
Category(ies) No Categories
A Lecture by Corey Gibson
Institute of Advanced Studies
University of Edinburgh
313 Fayerweather Hall
4:00-5:30pm
Tuesday, 12 November
“Becoming Anon.: Literary Renaissance and Folk Revival in Twentieth-Century Scotland”
Through the writings of Hamish Henderson (1919-2002) — folklorist,
poet, political radical, and latter-day folk hero — this paper will
examine the relationship between the Scottish literary renaissance of
the 1920s-30s, and the modern folk revival of the post-WWII years. The
distinctiveness of the Scottish cultural tradition, the politics of
authorship, and the role of the poet in society, were all tested in
the spaces between these two movements. The interstices between
literary culture and oral folk culture provide us with a unique
perspective on the tensions that many writers and folklorists of this
period felt: that between a romantic nationalist inheritance, and a
scientific, internationalist socialism. As the Scottish people prepare
for the independence referendum of 2014, these debates continue to
reverberate in contemporary debates over Scotland’s constitutional
future.
Dr. Corey Gibson is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for
Advanced Studies, University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He is presently a
2013-14 Fulbright Fellow in the Department of English at the
University of California, Berkeley. He was the recipient of the 2012
G. Ross Roy Medal, awarded by the Saltire Society for the best
doctoral work in Scottish literary studies.