Past events

Selected seminars, conferences, lectures, film screenings, exhibitions, and workshops in English and Scottish Literature (2015 -).

English and Scottish Literature Research Events

Each semester, English and Scottish Literature welcomes a fantastic range of guest speakers and colleagues to present a seminar on their research.

Please note that speaker titles and universities, as listed, date from the time of the event and may have changed.

a pink background with vertical lines evoking book spines and Series title overlaid

DateTitleSpeaker(s)
7 March 2025Criticizing SondheimDr Bradley Rogers (Goldsmiths University)
28 February 2025

Dr Ash-Irisarri: 'The Many Miserable Hearts of Andrew of Wyntoun'

Dr Price: 'The Time of Tamburlaine: Sequels and Sequence in Elizabethan Drama'

Dr Kate Ash-Irisarri and Dr Eoin Price (University of Edinburgh)
14 February 2025

Dr Holland: 'James ‘B.V.’ Thomson and the Melancholy of Defeat'

Dr McKeever: 'Subversive Antiquarianism'

Dr Owen Holland and Dr Gerard McKeever (University of Edinburgh)
7 February 2025No Home but the Struggle: From Weltliteratur to World Revolution in the Left Bildungsroman, 1820-2020Professor Benjamin Kohlman (University of Regensburg)
31 January 2025Affective Hospitality in James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’Dr Alberto Tondello (University of Edinburgh)
15 November 2024Inordinate Affections? Pets, Strays, and Modern Queer CultureDr Heike Bauer (Birkbeck, University of London)
1 November 2024Decolonizing Literature: Theory and PracticeDr Anna Bernard (King's College London)
18 October 2024

Dr Girdwood: 'Virginia Woolf's Spirit of the Rose: Ballet, Music Halls, and Mrs Dalloway'

Dr Simpson: 'Homage, Hero Worship, and Homoerotics: Harold Pinter's Staging of James Joyce's Exiles'

Dr Megan Girdwood and Dr Hannah Simpson (University of Edinburgh)
11 October 2024The Many Futures of Postcolonial Climate FictionProfessor Pablo Mukherjee (University of Oxford)
9 October 2024SWINC Autumn Round-UpPaul Barnaby; Hilary Clydesdale; Penny Fielding; Ainsley McIntosh; Cleo O’Callaghan Yeoman; Désha Osborne (all University of Edinburgh)
4 October 2024

Dr Osborne: 'The Charaib Argante and ‘Scottish Tancred’: Literary and Historical Imaginaries of the Chatoyer-Leith Duel'

Dr Hannah Boast: 'Water Privatisation in Contemporary British Literature'

Dr Désha Osborne and Dr Hannah Boast (University of Edinburgh)
15 March 2024Textual Ecologies: Information and Environment from Sir John Sinclair through Ian McHarg (SWINC and Edinburgh Environmental Humanities Network (EEHN) Lecture)Professor Eric Gidal (University of Iowa)
8 March 2024Street Queens and Clean Teens: Bareback Panic and the New Gay Young Adult NovelDr Gabriel Duckels (University of Cambridge)
23 February 2024SWINC Susan Ferrier Symposium - Keynote LectureDr Ainsley McIntosh (University of Edinburgh)
1 December 2023Postcapitalist RealismProfessor Jo Walton (University of Sussex)
24 November 2023The Sadistic Nurse as a Manifestation of the Abject in the Contemporary English NovelProfessor Natalia Kaloh Vid (University of Maribor)
17 November 2023The Problem with ShakespeareProfessor Farah Karim-Cooper (King's College London/Shakespeare’s Globe)
17 November 2023The Bannatyne MS (1568) and its LegacyDr Lucy Hinnie (University of Edinburgh), Dr Theo Van Heijnsbergen (University of Glasgow), Dr Bob Irvine (University of Edinburgh), and Dr Elizabeth Elliott (University of Aberdeen)
18 October 2023Scottish Writing in the Nineteenth Century symposiumVarious from throughout the SWINC research network
13 October 2023A Portrait of the Actor as Still Life: Hazlitt’s KembleDr David Taylor (University of Oxford)

Please note that speaker titles and universities, as listed, date from the time of the event and may have changed.

DateTitleSpeaker(s)
6 April 2023Science Fiction and the AnthropoceneProfessor John Plotz (Brandeis University)
5 April 2023Life-Writing: Between History and MemoryAlison Light
4 April 2023Islam on the Move: Transnational Connections in Arab and African Anglophone LiteraturesDr Nadia Butt (University of Giessen)
29 March 2023Recovering Women’s Voices, 800-1500Professor Elaine Treharne (Stanford University)
23 March 2023-Professor Trish Reid (University of Reading)
8 March 2023Blood Legacy: Reckoning with a Family’s Story of SlaveryAlex Renton
6 March 2023Celticism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth CenturiesDr Richard Barlow (Nanyang Technological University)
3 March 20231922, Globally: The Anticolonial Modernism of Kazi Najrul IslamDr Sourit Bhattacharya (University of Edinburgh)
17 February 2023Necessary Evil: Bitumen, Paradise Lost, and the Circulation of Historical KnowledgeProfessor Eric Song (Swarthmore College)
13 February 2023Frances Wilson in Conversation: Writing LivesFrances Wilson
3 February 2023Love at The Crank’s Table: Sex, Digestion, and Radical PublishingDr Elsa Richardson (University of Strathclyde)
14 December 2022Forms of SecrecyVarious from throughout the Edinburgh Network for Studies in Secrecy (ENSiS) research network
2 December 2022The Lure of Excess: Archival Seduction and Colonial Self-MonumentalityDr Terri Ochiagha Plaza (University of Edinburgh)
11 November 2022The Melville Effect: Meditations on Contemporary Art and CultureProfessor Joseph Boone (University of Southern California)
12 October 2022Scottish Writing in the Nineteenth Century round-upVarious from throughout the SWINC research network
7 October 2022Two Essays for JoyceDr Maria Dick (University of Glasgow)
1 April 2022New Research in Literary-Economic HumanitiesDr Sadek Kessous (University of Edinburgh) and Dr Paul Crosthwaite (University of Edinburgh)
25 March 2022Necessary Evil: Bitumen, Paradise Lost, and the Circulation of Historical KnowledgeEric Song (Swathmore College)
18 March 2022Victorian Poetry and CultureProfessor Juliette Atkinson (University College London)
4 March 2022Communication, Computation, and the Icon NovelProfessor Aarthi Vadde (Duke University)
25 February 2022Mere Being: Imagination at the End of the MindProfessor Peter Boxall (Sussex University)
10 December 2021The Practice of Gleaning: Environmental Fragmentation in Agnès Varda, Kathleen Jamie, and Olga TokarczukProfessor Timothy Baker (Aberdeen University)
10 December 2021Biofictions: Settler Colonialism and Heteronormativity in Australasian Settler FictionProfessor Porscha Fermanis (University College Dublin)
26 November 2021The Wood or the Trees? On the (Im)Possibility of an Ecological CriticismDr Patrick Errington (University of Edinburgh)
19 November 2021Stops and Starts - Sonnet Sequences and Sonnet CyclesDr Tara Stubbs (University of Oxford)
20 November 2020Asignifying Desire: on Dennis Cooper's GIF novelsDr Diarmuid Hester (University of Cambridge)
5 March 2020Recent Irish Poetry and Slightly Magical LiquidsProfessor Lucy McDiarmid (Montclair State University)
19 February 2020Research Group in Life-Writing EventProfessor Alison Light; Alan Goodson; Nicole Chen; Dr Simon Cooke; Dr Allyson Stack (University of Edinburgh)
24 January 2020(Un)Romantic Metropolitanism: Scales, Selves and the Creation of Literary DistinctionDr Matthew Sangster (University of Glasgow)
17 January 2020Seas of Desire and Disgust: Border-Crossing in Helena María Viramontes’ 'Their Dogs Came with Them’.Dr Linda Margarita Greenberg (California State University)
20 November 2019Evaluating Machine Learning Approaches to Literary Studies: The Case of Spatial Imaginaries’Dr Anouk Lang (University of Edinburgh)
13 November 2019The Good Man on Trial, or, Male Virginity and the Politics of MisogynyRebecca Barr (University of Cambridge)
23 October 2019Make It Old: A Reconsideration of the Role of Decadence in ModernismKirsten MacLeod (Newcastle University)
2 October 2019Unpopular Culture: Beyond the Populism of High and Pop CultureSascha Pöhlmann (University of Konstanz)
25 September 2019Enlightenment and National Identity in Defoe’s The True-Born EnglishmanDr Robert Irvine (University of Edinburgh)
29 March 2019Intersectionality in Crisis: Discourses of Resistance, Strategies of RepresentationAnna Carastathis (Panteion University)
22 March 2019Fantasy and the AnthropoceneProfessor Brian Attebery (Idaho State University)
15 March 2019 Aditi Nafde (Newcastle University)
8 March 2019The Doctor that Blushed: Mental ferriarism in the early industrial revolution, 1780-1820Jon Mee (University of York)
1 March 2019Living Dangerously in the Age of Resilience: A Literary and Cultural Perspective’Michael Basseler (Justus Liebig University Giessen)
15 February 2019Resurgent Forms: Contemporary Indigenous Life Writing and U.S. Settler Colonialism'René Dietrich (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)
8 February 2019Growing Up Too Quickly: The Cultural Construction of Children in Lyndsay Faye’s Gods of Gotham TrilogyJames Peacock (Keele University)
1 February 2019Avian, Anal, Outlaw: E.M. Forster’s Queer EcologyBenjamin Bateman (University of Edinburgh)
25 January 2019States of Emergency / States of Emergence: Reading Claudia RankineDr Lee Spinks (University of Edinburgh)
18 January 2019Frozen in the Glassy, Bluestreaked Air: John Dos Passos’s Photographic MetropolisAlix Beeston (Cardiff University)
30 November 2018‘Space Unattached’: Imagining Scotland from the Pacific with Robert Louis StevensonDr Lesley Graham (University of Bordeaux)
23 November 2018Edgelands Without a Centre: Industrial Decline and Rurality in Norman Nicholson’s PoetryDr Andrew Frayn (Edinburgh Napier University)
16 November 2018 Dr George Lipsitz (University of California)
9 November 2018Hatred of Sex: Reflections on the Contemporary Governance of SexDr Oliver Davis (University of Warwick)
2 November 2018Facing Reality with John RuskinDr David Russell (University of Oxford)
26 October 2018What Was ‘Black Nostalgia’Dr Jonathan Schroeder (University of Warwick)
19 October 2018Theatre &… the People Formerly Known as the AudienceDr Helen Freshwater (Newcastle University)
12 October 2018The Professor in Children’s Literature: A Corpus Based Analysis of Expertise in Books Marketed to a Young AudienceDr Melissa Terras (University of Edinburgh)
5 October 2018Autobiography, Identity, and MemoryDr Laura Fish (Northumbria University)
28 September 2018Towards an Autobiography of a Race Woman: The Afromodernist Practice of Eslands Goode RobesonD. Fionnghuala Sweeney (Newcastle University)
21 September 2018George Orwell in RussiaMasha Karp
9 March 2018Residential School Gothic: Genre and Public Memory in 21st Century CanadaDr Jennifer Henderson (Carleton University)
16 February 2018Modernist Belatedness in Contemporary Slow CinemaDr Angelos Koutsourakis (University of Leeds)
9 February 2018The 1820s: Speculation, Improvisation, Identity-FormationProfessor Angela Esterhammer (University of Toronto)
2 February 2018Walk in Progress: Keeping Pace with Ambulatory ArtProfessor William Sharp (Colombia University)
26 January 2018 Dr Rebecca Tierney-Hynes (University of Edinburgh)
1 December 2017Edward FitzGerald and the Grammar of OrnamentDr James Williams (University of York)
17 November 2017Literature, Medicine and Malawian Writing: A reflection on medical humanities and the literary response the AIDS epidemic Dr Chisomo Kalinga (University of Edinburgh)
10 November 2017'Inside the Invisible: Black Atlantic Art and Activism’: a Roundtable DiscussionLubaina Himid (University of Central Lancashire); Alan Rice (University of Central Lancashire); Hannah Durkin (University of Newcastle Upon Tyne); Professor Celeste-Marie Bernier (University of Edinburgh)
3 November 2017Why Fiction Matters in A Post-Truth AgeDr Tabish Khair (Aarhus University)
27 October 2017The Geometry of Invention: Diagrams in the Middle AgesProfessor Mary Carruthers (University of New York)
20 October 2017‘Weak and Strong Modernism’: a Roundtable DiscussionTim Armstrong (University of London); Alex Goody (Oxford Brookes University); Daniel Moore (University of Birmingham); Helen Saunders (Kings College London); Jeff Wallace (Cardiff Metropolitan University); Claire Warden (De Montfort University)
13 October 2017Memories, Histories, Selves: On Writing a MemoirProfessor Alison Light (University of Edinburgh)
6 October 2017Octavia Butler and the Impossibility of SlaveryRob Maslen (University of Glasgow)
7 April 2017The poetics and politics of female elegy in Wales and Scotland, 1400-1800Dr Catherine Charnell-White (Aberystwyth University); Dr Sarah Dunnigan (University of Edinburgh); Dr Kate Mathis (University of Edinburgh); Professor Sarah Prescott (University College Dublin)
31 March 2017"Planets turn to ashes": Byron, Climate Change, and ExtinctionDr David Higgins (University of Leeds)
17 March 2017"Saving grace" in literary modernism and danceProfessor Susan Jones (University of Oxford)
10 March 2017Mysteries, Markets, Maps: Gothic Fiction and the Romantic Book TradeDr Anthony Mandal (University of Cardiff)
3 March 2017I see you have a feeling for symbols of power”: Robert Lowell’s Benito Cereno and American Civil Rights in the 1960sDr Keith Hughes (University of Edinburgh)
17 February 2017"Life As Story": new writing and drama as a tool for changeNicola McCartney (University of Edinburgh)
10 February 2017Literature and the Public GoodProfessor Rick Rylance (University of London)
3 February 2017Charms and the Nerd: Victorian Dark Arts as High TechProfessor Herbert F. Tucker (University of Virginia)
27 January 2017Sentimental Politics in Goldsmith and BurnsDr Bob Irvine (University of Edinburgh)
20 January 2017Suffering and Sunset: World War I in the Art and Life of Horace PippinProfessor Celeste-Marie Bernier (University of Edinburgh)
2 December 2016Who Was Listening to Modernism? BBC Radio Features and Audience ResponseAlex Lawrie (University of Edinburgh)
25 November 2016The Uncertain Contexts of Elizabethan Court Love PoetryJonathan Gibson (The Open University)
18 November 2016"The Last American": Plague Narratives in American Literature and Popular CultureDr Bernice M. Murphy (Trinity College Dublin)
11 November 2016My world has Become Smaller and Smaller’ – Postfeminist Confinement in Louise O’Neill’s Asking For ItFiona McCulloch (independent scholar)
4 November 2016Palestine in the Popular Imagination: From Refugees to NegotiatorsDr Anastassia Valassopoulos
28 October 2016On Writing Neo-Victorian FictionPatricia Duncker (University of Manchester)
21 October 2016Perfectly Disgraceful: Frank O’Hara and the Various New York Schools of ArtSam Ladkin (University of Sheffield)
14 October 2016‘The Poetry of Motion’: The emergence of the motorcar in Edwardian LiteratureJonathan Wild (University of Edinburgh)
7 October 2016Romancing Difference: Gender, Ethnicity, and Religion in Medieval and Modern Orientalist RomanceDr Amy Burge
30 September 2016How does the Syrian Crisis Speak Via Shakespeare?Dr Preti Taneja (University of Warwick)
1 April 2016"When Men and Mountains Meet" (Blake): An Emotional HistoryDr Abbie Garrington (Durham University)
25 March 2016Failures of Political Imagination?: Literary Fiction and the Welfare State in Scotland, 1945-2014Dr Alex Thomson
11 March 2016Bad Parents, Anxious Children: Attachment, Security and Self from D.W. Winnicott to Alison BechdelDr Chiara Alfano (Kingston University)
4 March 2016Mystical Nationalists: Yeats, Pessoa, and MacDiarmidDr Scott Lyall (Edinburgh Napier University)
26 February 2016Impiisima Conjuratrix: Representing the Countess of Buchan in the Fourteenth CenturyDr Kate Ash-Irisarri (University of Manchester)
12 February 2016"Pineapple for the Million": Periodical Genres and the Politics of AffectDr Fionnuala Dillane (University College Dublin)
5 February 2016Performing the ‘soul of Russia’: incarnations of the Moscow Art Theatre in LondonDr Claire Warden (De Montfort University)
29 January 2016Poetry, Anatomy, PresenceDr Katharine Craik (Oxford Brookes University)
22 January 2016Oceanic ShakespeareProfessor Peter Womack (University of East Anglia)
4 December 2015Geoffrey Hill and Intrinsic ValueDr Lee Spinks (University of Edinburgh)
27 November 2015Space, Class and the Politics of Free SpeechDr Rehana Ahmed (Queen Mary University of London)
20 November 2015Spies! From invasion narratives to the Cold WarProfessor Penny Fielding; Dr Simon Cooke; Dr Anna Vaninskaya; Dr Jonathan Wilde (University of Edinburgh)
13 November 2015God Outside the Machine: melodrama, masculinity and the cosmological imaginationDr Brian Baker (Lancaster University)
6 November 2015Picturing Frederick Douglass: The Most Photographed American of the 19th CenturyProfessor Zoe Trodd (University of Nottingham)
30 October 2015Reading the Materiality of the FutureDr Christina Lupton (University of Warwick)
23 October 2015A Home in the Highlands? Occupying the Estate in Scott and Susan FerrierProfessor Caroline McCracken-Flesher (University of Wyoming)
16 October 2015Converting ShelleyDr Tom Mole (University of Edinburgh)
9 October 2015Austen's Wit-Craft: Traversing the Fantasy of Aristocratic PrivilegeProfessor Molly Rothenberg (Tulane University)
2 October 2015The Stevensons and stylometry: from the digital humanities classroom to the scholarly editionProfessor Penny Fielding; Dr Anouk Lang; Robyn Pritzker (University of Edinburgh)
3 April 2015What is the Economic Humanities?Andrew Lawson (Leeds Beckett University); Nicky Marsh (University of Southampton)
27 March 2015Experiment and the World-Historical Imagination in Rana Dasgupta’s SoloDr Sharae Deckard (University College Dublin)
20 March 2015Indian Ocean JourneysProfessor Abdulrazak Gurnah (University of Kent)
13 March 2015The Politics of Simplicity: The example of George EliotDr Jo Carruthers (Lancaster University)
6 March 2015Shar[ing] the Good of our Returned FortunePip Willcox (University of Oxford)
27 February 2015Naturalist Theatre and the Problem of HomosexualityProfessor Dan Rebellato (University of London). 
13 February 2015Cinema and the Philosophy of Iris Murdoch: Building a Moral VisionDr Lucy Bolton (University of London)
6 February 2015Geographies of the selfProfessor Glenda Norquay (Liverpool John Moores University)
30 January 2015Perspectives on Edward ThomasDr David Farrier; Professor Randall Stevenson; Dr Jonathan Wild (University of Edinburgh)
23 January 2015The Ballooning Tradition of WhimsyDr Will May (University of Southampton)
16 January 2015'A course of steady reading':Dr Rebecca Davies (University of Edinburgh)

Other series

Writer in Residence Events with Michael Pedersen

This event series has been put together by the current Writer in Residence, Michael Pedersen. It sees him bringing established names from throughout the literary and comedy world to the University to share their wisdom, processes, and stories.

Guests included Jackie Kay, Alan Cumming, Sara Pascoe and Nicola Sturgeon.

DateVenueSpeaker(s)
10 October 202350 George SquareIrvine Welsh and Gemma Cairney
22 November 202350 George SquareJackie Kay
5 December 2023Queen's HallNicola Sturgeon; Val McDermid; Hollie McNish; Andrés N. Ordorica
13 February 202450 George SquareOpen Mic event - Michael Mullen and various students from throughout the University
23 March 2024Gordon Aikman Lecture TheatreAlan Cumming
10 April 2024Gordon Aikman Lecture TheatreSara Pascoe
25 June 2024Lighthouse BooksMaya C. Popa
31 January 202550 George SquareOpen Mic event - Janette Ayachi and various students from throughout the University
21 March 2025Gordon Aikman Lecture TheatreFern Brady
27 March 2025Edinburgh Futures InstituteSimon Armitage

Crude Representations Seminar Series

Off the back of an online symposium in January, the Crude Representations Seminar Series examined and engaged with one of the largest and longest running oil companies, BP.

It examined the rich, surprising and troubling history of cultural representations of BP, exploring both how the company itself has drawn on and utilised forms of cultural representation, and how artists and other cultural figures have responded to, critically interrogated, and represented the company in their own work.

The series (as well as preceding symposium) was organised by Dr Peter Adkins (University of Edinburgh) and Dr Malcolm Cook (University of Southampton).

DateVenue Speakers
30 April 2025Online (Teams)BP and the Aesthetics of LabourProfessor Kaveh Ehsani (DePaul University); Dr Scott Erich (City University of New York); Raha Golestani (PhD candidate, Goethe University)
2 April 2025Online (Teams)BP and Corporate Myth-MakingIan Wereley (Carleton University); Phoebe Lakin (Harvard University); Tobah Aukland-Peck
12 March 2025Online (Teams)BP and PetrofictionDr Chao Ren (University of Hong Kong); Evelyn MacPherson (Columbia University); Professor Michael Malouf (George Mason University)
12 February 2025Online (Teams)BP and Audio-Visual CultureDr Nariman Massoumi (University of Bristol); Andrea Zarza Canova (University of Nottingham); Professor Annette Davison (Edinburgh College of Art)

This event series was programmed by the University's Writer in Residence at the time, Ryan Van Winkle, and features readings, Q&As and conversations with the best and brightest writers around.

Guests include Alycia Pirmohamed, Lauren Pope, Fiona Mozley and J O Morgan.

DateVenueFeatured guest(s)
23 November 202150 George SquareJ O Morgan
30 November 202150 George SquareFiona Mozley
3 March 202250 George SquareAlycia Pirmohamed and Lauren Pope
10 March 202250 George SquareJessica Gaitán Johannesson
5 October 202250 George SquareCynthia Miller and Tessa Berring
18 November 202250 George SquareElle Nash and Mohamed Tonsy
28 February 2023The Argyle Cellar BarJoseph Fasano
4 April 202350 George SquareJuana Adcock and JL Williams

The Visiting Writers Series was organised by previous Writers in Residence at University of Edinburgh, Claire Askew (September 2017 to August 2019) and Tracey S. Rosenberg (September 2019 to August 2021).

The events took the form of readings, Q&As, workshops and panels with published writers and writing industry professionals designed to help students improve their writing, ask for advice, and access opportunities for publication.

DateVenueGuest(s)
20 February 202050 George SquareAjay Close
21 November 201950 George SquareElizabeth Wein
6 May 201950 George SquareDr Alice Tarbuck (University of Dundee)
19 March 2019Golden Hare BooksEsa Aldegheri; Nadine Aisha Jassat; Dean Rhetoric
28 February 2019Lighthouse BooksJuno Dawson
6 December 201850 George SquareJay Stringer
20 November 201850 George SquareHolly Ringland
2 October 2018Golden Hare BooksMary Paulson Ellis
11 May 20187 George SquareJane Claire Bradley
27 February 201850 George SquareChris McQueer; Laura Jones (404 Ink); Heather McDaid (404 Ink)
5 December 201750 George SquareGraeme Macrae Burnet
14 November 2017Golden Hare BooksHeled Sedgwick; Jane Alexander; Natalie Fergie; Theresa Munoz
28 September 201750 George SquareTerese Svoboda

The Guthrie Drama Seminar Series is organised by Nicola McCartney (FRSA, University of Edinburgh) and takes the form of seminars, workshops and lectures.

The series aims to bring theatre professionals and lovers together to share their passion for the dramatic arts, with a particular focus on teaching practical skills.

DateVenueThemeGuests(s)
11 February 202550 George SquareHannah's career, inspirations, and political influencesHannah Lavery (Edinburgh Makar)
14 November 202440 George SquareBirds of Paradise theatre company, with a focus on disability and the arts in ScotlandRobert Softley Gale (Artistic Director of Birds of Paradise theatre company) and Judith Drake (PhD candidate, European Theatre)
11 October 202340 George SquareConversation, Q&A and masterclassJenny Sealey and Mike Kenny (Graeae Theatre
29 March 2023Lister Learning and Teaching CentreRecovering Women’s Voices, 800-1500Professor Elaine Treharne (Stanford); Professor Greg Walker (Chair)
28 March 202350 George SquareWorkshop on the basics of devising physical theatreNeil Bettles (Artistic Director, ThickSkin)
28 March 202350 George SquarePanel discussion on the ethics and the process around staging asylum storiesNicola McCartney; Dritan Kastrati; Professor Sharon Cowan; Laura Mallows
23 March 202340 George SquareLecture: Zinnie Harris: Disrupting the Inevitable Flow of TimeProfessor Trish Reid (University of Reading)
24 November 2021Online (Zoom)A creative conversation on Gupta's 'Lions and Tigers' (Sam Wannaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe, 2017)Tanika Gupta; Pooja Ghai
29 October 2021Institut français d’EcosseWorkshop: Writing for a Theatre MagazineDr Dana Rufolo (editor-in-chief, Plays International & Europe)
24 November 2020Online (Zoom)Master class on approach to directing a play for performance with professional theatre director Chris WhiteChris White
11 March 201950 George SquareDiscussion​ exploring 'The Tempest', and themes around colonization and empireTheatre Director Pooja Ghai (Live Theatre, Theatre Royal Stratford East)

Digestive Modernisms is an informal interdisciplinary research network based in Edinburgh, bringing together researchers, artists, and writers interested in the gastronomics of modern literature and life.

The network is interested in food, diet, and gut health in modernist literature, art, culture, and philosophy, taking an approach that is informed by the medical humanities, food studies, animal studies, the environmental humanities, and posthumanism, among other critical contexts.


Lectures and talks

Professor Susan Manning was Grierson Professor of English Literature and Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh until her unexpected death in 2013.

This annual lecture commemorates Susan as an internationally renowned academic with wide interests, particularly in Transatlanticism, and as an inspiring influence for an international coterie of scholars in the humanities.

Occasionally, the Lecture has been held as part of a wider event, such as Edinburgh Spy Week in 2019 and Muriel Spark 100 in 2018.

SpeakerDateVenueTheme
Professor Paul Saint Amour (University of Pennsylvania)14 March 202550 George SquareTechniques of the Interwar Land Observer: Crawford, Watkins, Maltwood, Woolf
Professor Yoon Sun Lee (Wellesley College, Massachusetts)22 March 202450 George SquareRace, Labor, and Gratitude: Austen, Edgeworth, and the West Indies
Professor Anahid Nersessian (University of California)24 March 202350 George SquareHouse on Fire: On the Unfinished Business of Romanticism
Professor Caroline Levine (Cornell University)6 May 202250 George SquarePlots of Precarity and Sustainable Endings
Professor Laura Marcus (New College, University of Oxford)21 May 2021Online (Zoom)'The Noise of Time': Autobiography and History in the 1930s
Professor Adam Piette (University of Sheffield)5 April 201950 George SquareThe Revolutionary Double Agent and Cold War Citizenship
Janice Galloway6 April 201850 George Square'There’s something a bit harsh about you, Fleur’: Muriel Spark and her voices
Professor Caryl Phillips (Yale University)24 March 201750 George SquareA Sense of Home
Professor David Bromwich (Yale University)18 March 201650 George Square‘The Single State of Man’ and Killing Caesar and Duncan
Professor Hermione Lee (University of Oxford)20 February 201550 George SquareCharacter in Biography: “The Most Really Interesting Problem”
Professor Maureen McLane (New York University)21 February 2014St Cecilia's HallToward a Compositionist Poetics: From Ballad Rhizomatics to the Mesh

Inaugural Lectures are free public talks by recently-appointed Professors and Chairs at the University of Edinburgh where they share their work with a wide audience, inviting reflection and discussion on its broader implications.

SpeakerDateVenueTheme
Professor Alan Gillis (Professor of Modern Poetry and Criticism)20 November 2024Lecture Theatre G.03, 50 George SquarePoetry Reading
Professor Alex Thomson (Personal Chair of Modern Literature and Critical Theory)16 October 2024Lecture Theatre G.03, 50 George SquareConstructing Scotland: Devolution and Cultural History
Professor Tim Milnes (Personal Chair of Romantic Literature and Philosophy)24 April 2024Lecture Theatre G.03, 50 George SquareEx Nihilo: Romanticism, Creativity, and the Invention of ‘Literature’
Professor Paul Crosthwaite (Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature)27 March 2024Lecture Theatre G.03, 50 George SquareWhat are the Economic Humanities? A Short Guide to an Interdisciplinary Field
Professor Michelle Keown (Professor of Pacific and Postcolonial Literature)26 April 2023Lecture Theatre G.03, 50 George Square‘A Story of a People On Fire’: exploring the legacies of US nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands through literature and visual culture
Professor David Farrier (Professor of Literature and the Environment)29 March 2023Gordon Aikman Lecture TheatreNabokov’s Butterfly, Kafka’s Leopards: what nature can teach us about life on a human planet
Professor Celeste-Marie Bernier (Personal Chair in United States and Atlantic Studies)5 October 2018Playfair LibrarySuffering, Struggle, Survival: 200 Years of African Atlantic Art and Authorship (1818-2018)

Date: 11 April 2025

Venue: 50 George Square

Guest speakers: Keynote: Professor Claire Connolly (University College Cork); Dr Christina Morin (University of Limerick); Professor Dale Townshend (Manchester Metropolitan University); Professor Matthew Sangster (University of Glasgow); Dr Maddy Potter, (University of Edinburgh)

Organiser - Scottish Writing in the Nineteenth Century (SWINC)

In brief: A seminar organised by the SWINC research network, which explored Scottish and Irish Gothic literature. It featured two panels, a keynote talk, and was followed by a reception.


Date: 21 March 2025

Venue: 50 George Square

Guest speakers: Professor Katherine Halsey (University of Stirling) and Professor Matthew Sangster (University of Glasgow)

Title: Towards a True History of Reading Lives: Borrowing in Scotland, 1747-1837

In brief: A joint lecture by Professor Katherine Halsey (University of Stirling) and Professor Matthew Sangster (University of Glasgow), which included a discussion chaired by Dr Penny Fielding (University of Edinburgh). It was preceded by a separate workshop titled 'Edinburgh University Library’s Borrowing Registers', which was also led by Professors Halsey and Sangster.


Date: 19 March 2025

Venue: 50 George Square

Guest speaker: Professor Margaret Russett (University of Southern California)

In brief: An in-person talk by Professor Margaret Russett (University of Southern California) on the concept of 'ideology', and William Godwin's leading theories on ideology.


Date: 8 November 2024

Venue: 50 George Square (lecture); Centre for Research Collections (optional preceding workshop)

Guest speaker: Professor Dirk Van Hulle (Oxford University)

Title: Writers' Libraries

In brief: A lecture by Professor of Bibliography and Modern Book History at Oxford University, Dirk Van Hulle, which included a discussion chaired by Dr Hannah Simpson (University of Edinburgh). It was preceded by a separate workshop titled 'The Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project', which was also led by Professor Van Hulle.


Date: 16 February 2024

Venue: 50 George Square

Guest speaker: Professor Emma Smith (University of Oxford)

Title: Following the Money: Book Collecting in the Age of Slavery

In brief: Professor Smith gave the inaugural annual lecture of Edition, a collaborative initiative exploring all aspects of the history of the book. The lecture was chaired by Professor James Loxley (University of Edinburgh).


Date: 6 October 2023

Venue: 50 George Square

Guest speaker: Amit Chaudhuri

Chair: Dr Simon Cooke (English Literature)

In brief: Amit Chaudhuri, winner of the 2022 James Tait Black Prize in Biography, was in conversation with Dr Simon Cooke, celebrating the launch of his latest publication, 'Sweet Shop: New and Selected Poems'. The conversation was followed by a reception, generously sponsored by New York Review of Books.


Date: 31 May 2023

Venue: Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, University of Edinburgh

Speakers: Alec Finlay (poet and artist), Yulia Kovanova (artist and filmmaker), Patrick James Errington (poet, translator, and researcher), Jessica Gaitán Johannesson (writer and climate justice activist) and Martin Schauss (University of Edinburgh)

In brief: Part of the Green Tease programme, this event invited a discussion on the importance of innovative and experimental environmental storytelling. It explored how we might use ecopoetics to cultivate everyday resilience in the face of climate crisis.

It was created in collaboration between Martin Schauss, a researcher in literature and ecology at the University of Edinburgh and Creative Carbon Scotland, and was a part of the Green Tease programme that promoted how the arts and culture can transform society in response to climate change.


Date: 23 May 2023

Venue: Usha Kasera Lecture Theatre​​​​​​, Old College

Research strand: The British empire, colonialism, and cultural responses to famine and food crisis

Guest speaker: Sir Tom Devine, Professor Emeritus of Scottish History and Palaeography

In brief: This lecture considered the impact of the 1840s European potato blight on Scotland. It focused especially on the Highlands, where over-dependency on the crop for subsistence exposed the people of the region to acute life-threatening crisis.


Date: 13 November 2022

Venue: Online (Zoom)

Guest speakers: Professor Michelle Keown (University of Edinburgh), Dr Shari Sabeti (University of Edinburgh) and Dr Simon Grennan (University of Chester)

In brief: An online lecture organised by Museums and Galleries Edinburgh and marking Robert Louis Stevenson Day 2022. We heard from the research team behind a major research project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), decolonising Robert Louis Stevenson's Pacific fiction through graphic adaptation, arts education and community engagement.


Date: 16 November 2021

Venue: Online (Zoom)

In brief: An online conversation between First Nations activist Delee Nikal and Rebecca Macklin (University of Edinburgh), introduced by Dr Julie Gibbins (University of Edinburgh), on colonial resource extraction, gender violence and COP26. In this special event, they shared their reflections on why global climate action must account for the ongoing role of colonialism and the devastating impact this has for Indigenous women across Canada. Supported by The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), the Centre for Modern and Contemporary History and the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures.


Date: 4 March 2021

Venue: Online (Zoom)

Speaker: Paul Karasik

In brief: An illustrated lecture on the challenges of adapting literary texts into comics and graphic novels.


Date: 25 March 2019

Venue: 50 George Square, University of Edinburgh

Speaker: Paul Karasik

In brief: An illustrated lecture and Q&A revealing the secret language of comics by renowned New Yorker cartoonist, editor, memoirist and scholar Paul Karasik.


Date: 5 December 2018

Venue: 7 George Square, University of Edinburgh

Speakers: Dr Paul Crosthwaite (University of Edinburgh); Professor Peter Knight (University of Manchester); Professor Nicky Marsh (University of Southampton)

In brief: A event showcasing research from the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded 'History of Financial Advice' project tracing the investment advice genre from its origins in the print culture of eighteenth-century London to its explosion across multiple platforms in the present. The project team also outlined the project’s work with schools and universities to develop new financial literacy curricula as well as its collaboration with the Edinburgh-based Library of Mistakes to build an annotated collection of investment advice literature.


Date: 16 February 2018

Venue: 50 George Square, University of Edinburgh

Events series: Edinburgh Film Seminar

Speakers: Dr Angelos Koutsourakis (University of Leeds)

In brief: A joint seminar between English Literature and Film Studies exploring the reanimation of modernist tropes in contemporary slow cinema with reference to two case studies: Pedro Costa’s Ossos (Bones, 1996) and Angela Schanelec’s Marseille (2004).


Date: 25 January 2018

Venue: IASH, University of Edinburgh

Events series: Scotland and Russia

Speaker: Natalia Kaloh Vid

In brief: A talk on the history of Robert Burns translation in Russia, beginning with the nineteenth century, but focusing on the extraordinary cultural dominance Burns achieved in the Soviet Union in translations by Marshak.


Date: 14 July 2017

Speaker: Professor Susan Stewart (Princeton University)

In brief: Held as part of the Ian Hamilton Finlay: Little Fields, Long Horizons conference, this public lecture looked closely at Ian Hamilton Finlay's place in the art history of his time by considering his most fundamental departure from prevailing avant-garde practice: that is, his immersion in history.


Conferences and symposia

Date: 9 May 2025

Venue: 50 George Square

Organiser: Michael Pedersen (Writer in Residence)

In brief: A one-day conference that featured industry professionals, two panel discussions, one-to-one meetings, and networking. It also included readings from the winners of the University of Edinburgh Writing Prizes, and the launch of From Arthur's Seat, a yearly creative writing anthology produced by the MSc Creative Writing cohort.T


Dates: 28 and 29 May 2025

Venue: Business School

Keynote speakers: Dr Devin Singh (Dartmouth College) and Dr Rachel O’Dwyer (National College of Art and Design, Dublin)

In brief: A two-day conference organised by Professor Paul Crosthwaite (School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures) and Professor Rachel Muers (School of Divinity), featuring two keynote talks, panels discussions, and an innovative “Laboratory of Economic Concepts" series of workshops focused on keywords from the economic lexicon.


Date: 24 January 2025

Venue: Online (Teams)

Keynote speaker: Mona Damluji (University of California, Santa Barbara)

In brief: A one-day symposium organised by Dr Peter Adkins (University of Edinburgh) and Dr Malcolm Cook (University of Southampton) that concerned the representation of the oil company BP throughout various forms of media. It featured three panels and a keynote talk titled 'Pipeline Cinema and the Cultural Imagination of Oil'.


Date: 13 November 2024

Venue: 50 George Square

Research strand: Remediating Stevenson: Decolonising Robert Louis Stevenson’s Pacific Fiction through Graphic Adaptation, Arts Education and Community Engagement

In brief: A one-day symposium to celebrate Robert Louis Stevenson Day that concerned his legacy and travels within the Pacific islands. It consisted of five panels featuring the following speakers:

  • Keao NeSmith and Solomon Enos (Hawai‘i)
  • Lucio De Capitani (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) and Simon Grennan (University of Chester)
  • Carla Manfredi (University of Winnipeg) and Alice Chapman-Kelly (University of Edinburgh)
  • Dan Lin, Nick Stone (Hawai‘i)and Emma Dussouchaud-Esclamadon (University of Edinburgh)
  • Colin McIlroy (National Library of Scotland)

Dates: 19 to 20 October 2024

Venue: 50 George Square, with visits to nearby collections

Speakers: Dr Georgianna Ziegler (Folger Shakespeare Library); Dr Jamie Reid-Baxter; 10 panellists

In brief: A two-day conference to mark the quartercentenary of Esther Inglis's death, a uniquely important 17th century manuscript artist and writer. This conference was brought about with the generous support of the FEATHERS project at the University of Leiden, and received funding from the European Research Council (ERC).

The event consisted of two keynote plenaries, four panel sessions, exhibition visits, reception, and a concert.


Date: 1 July 2024

Venues: 50 George Square and the Centre for Research Collections (CRC)

Organiser: Scottish Writing in the Nineteenth Century (SWINC)

Keynote speaker: Professor Ian Duncan (University of California, Berkeley)

In brief: A one-day symposium that marked the bicentenary of 1824, a landmark year for Scottish fiction. It featured a special collections ‘show and tell’ workshop in the CRC, featuring material from the university Heritage Collections and from Selkirk Museums, and then a panel and lecture in 50 George Square. The panel saw talks from four academics, and the keynote lecture was given by Professor Duncan. It was held in collaboration with Edition, and supported by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities.


Date: 27 June 2024

Venue: 50 George Square

Keynote speaker: Professor Heike Bauer (Birkbeck, University of London)

In brief: A one-day symposium organised by two English Literature PhD candidates that explored how sex, broadly construed, was theorised at the turn of the twentieth century. It consisted of four panels and a keynote lecture, was supported by The University of Edinburgh’s Student Experiences Grant, and sponsored by the Victorian Popular Fiction Association.


Dates: 11 and 12 June

Venue: Lister Learning and Teaching Centre

Organiser: Northern Early Modern Network (NEMN)

Keynote speaker: Dr Inma Sánchez García (University of Edinburgh)

In brief: A two-day conference organised by the NEMN, a peer-led network of scholars studying the early modern period. Its theme was '‘Ipsa scientia potestas est:’ Cultures of Knowledge, Learning, and Imagination in the Early Modern World', and it consisted of a keynote lecture and fifteen panel sessions.


Dates: 2 to 4 May 2024

Venue: 50 George Square

Keynote speaker: Emeritus Professor Robert Crawford (University of St Andrews)

In brief: A three-day conference on the subject of unions and disunions in the context of Scotland. The conference featured nine panel sessions, a keynote plenary from Professor Crawford, and a ceilidh. It was hosted at the University, and organised by the Société Française d’Etudes Ecossaises (French Society for Scottish Studies).


Date: 3 May 2024

Venue: 50 George Square

Organiser: Michael Pedersen (Writer in Residence)

In brief: A one-day conference that featured industry professionals, two panel discussions, one-to-one meetings, networking. It also included readings from the winners of the University of Edinburgh Writing Prizes, Hannah Lavery (poetry) and Andrés N. Ordorica (fiction). It was followed by the launch event of From Arthur's Seat, which featured readings from the students involved with the anthology, and from Michael Pedersen.


Dates: 26 to 27 July 2023

Venue: Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh

Organisers: British Academy and Wellcome Trust Conferences

In brief: A two-day, in-person conference that brought together scholars and practitioners working across disciplines and employing creative and/or critical modes of enquiry to explore questions of gender, colonialism and environment. 

The conference featured a series of original artworks by Natasha Thembiso Ruwona and Caitlin Stobie, produced in response to the themes and setting of the event, as well as a tour of the exhibition Shipping Roots by Keg De Sousa, which was led by the exhibition curator Emma Nicolson.


Date: 28 June 2023

Venue: Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh

Organisers: Dr Arka Chattopadhyay (IIT Gandhinagar) and Dr Sourit Bhattacharya (University of Edinburgh)

In brief: A one-day hybrid symposium on decolonising modernism(s) by approaching it afresh from the perspective of world literature(s), while looking at the diversity of identity categories like race, class, caste, gender, ethnicity, nationality and diaspora. In addition, it focused on the ‘webzine’ as an alternative publishing platform for creating a transnational modernist network. The symposium consisted of three panels and an online digital exhibition.


Dates: 27 June to 30 June 2023

Venue: 50 George Square

Organiser: The Ezra Pound Society

In brief: A three-day conference on the legacy, impact, reception and influence of the cantos poem. It considered the impact of the poem on poetry and politics today; questions of publication history and new editions; reception and influence; media and digitalisation; poetics; globalism, geopolitics, regionalism. It also explored Pound’s connections to Scotland, and featured a number of panels, plenary talks, sessions, walking tours and open-air poetry readings.


Date: 15 June to 16 June 2023

Venue: 50 George Square

Organisers: Amanda Blake Davis (University of Derby), Cleo O’Callaghan Yeoman (Universities of Glasgow, Stirling, and Edinburgh), and Yu-Hung Tien (University of Edinburgh)

In brief: A two-day conference which explored the concept of 'boundaries' within Romantic literature and culture. It consisted of two keynote speeches and six parallel panels.


Date: 9 May 2023

Venue: Project Room 1.06, 50 George Square

Organiser: Ryan Van Winkle (Writer in Residence, University of Edinburgh)

In brief: A one-day conference that consisted of of two panel discussions, one-to-one meetings, networking time and author readings. The event also included readings from the winners of the University of Edinburgh Writing Prizes, a selection of authors From Arthur's Seat, an anthology of new writing from the Creative Writing Masters programme, and Booker Prize-nominated author Graeme Macrae Burnet.


Date: 19 May 2022

Venue: 50 George Square, University of Edinburgh

Organisers: Céleste Callen and Emily Vault (PhD students in English Literature, University of Edinburgh)

In brief: A one-day conference exploring the changing perspectives on individual identities and the construction of the self in nineteenth-century fiction. The conference comprised four themed panel sessions and a round-table discussion with Dr Jonathan Wild (University of Edinburgh).


Date: 10 May 2022

Venue: 50 George Square, University of Edinburgh

Organiser: Ryan Van Winkle (Writer in Residence, University of Edinburgh)

In brief: A one-day conference of panel discussions, one-to-one meetings and networking activities, highlighting a range of publishing opportunities and support available to emerging writers. The event also included readings from Nick Holdstock, the University of Edinburgh Writing Prizes 2022 winners and 'From Arthur's Seat' contributors, the annual anthology by the MSc Creative Writing cohort.


Dates: 6 to 8 July 2021

Venue: Online (Microsoft Teams; Media Hopper)

Keynote speakers: Professor Deidre Lynch (Harvard University); Professor Alison Lumsden (University of Aberdeen)

In brief: A three day online conference celebrating the 250th anniversary of Walter Scott. The conference comprised two live plenary lectures as well as 20 panel sessions of lectures recorded in advance and made available on Media Hopper.


Date: 27 and 28 March 2021

Venue: Online

Keynote speakers: Professor Jyotsna Singh (Michigan State University); Dr Helmer Helmers (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences); Professor Diane Purkiss (Keble College, University of Oxford); Professor Adrian Streete (Glasgow University); Professor Ania Loomba (University of Pennsylvania)

Organiser: Thom Pritchard (Edinburgh Early Modern Network)

In brief: A two-day virtual conference exploring the construction of 'the enemy' and the consequences of this process, such as war and persecution, in the Early Modern World. The conference comprised both keynote and plenary lectures.


Date: 26 and 27 November 2020

Venue: Online (Blackboard Collaborate)

Keynote speakers: Michael Ohajuru (University of London); Professor Helen Smith (University of York)

Organisers: Thom Pritchard and Julia Smith (Edinburgh Early Modern Network)

In brief: A two-day virtual conference comprising two keynote lectures and five panel sessions. The conference launched the Northern Early Modern Network, a peer network for early modern scholars in Scotland and the North of England.


Dates: 28 to 29 May 2019

Venue: Old Medical School, University of Edinburgh

Keynote speaker(s): Renata Carvalho

In brief: A two-day multidisciplinary conference on the transgender and non-binary experience in social policy, health and wellbeing, law, the arts, digital humanities, and media, co-organised by researchers of transgender identity and experience in Scottish universities. The conference comprised a film screening and discussion (Call Her Ganda), a keynote presentation, and eight panel sessions.


Date: 8 March 2019

Venue: Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes

In brief: Convened by Natalie Ferris (Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow, English Literature) this one-day symposium brought together writers, artists, scholars and technologists to explore the role of women in surveillance, transcription, cryptography, espionage, translation, observation, visualisation and recording. This event was in celebration of International Women's Day.


Date: 23 November 2018

Venue: Teviot Row House, University of Edinburgh

In brief: A one-day symposium exploring children’s books in museum and library archives in children’s oral and literary cultures (including Gaelic in Scotland and Ireland) and the role of children as readers and producers of literature. Part of a year-long programme during Scotland’s Year of Young People (2018) and linked to a collaborative project between SELCIE and Edinburgh’s Museum of Childhood.


Dates: 16 and 17 November 2018

Venue: National Gallery of Scotland

Keynote speaker: Professor George Lipsitz (University of California, Santa Barbara)

In brief: A two-day conference comprising panel sessions and a plenary lecture. Part of the Our Bondage and Our Freedom project, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, celebrating the 200-year anniversary of the birth of African American activist and author, Frederick Douglass (1818-1895).


Date: 10 May 2018

Venue: Pleasance Cabaret Bar, University of Edinburgh

Organiser: Claire Askew (Writer in Residence, University of Edinburgh)

In brief: A one-day conference on all things creative writing and publishing consisting of four panels, readings by the MSc Creative Writing students and a networking lunch. Participants included published writers, professional editors, agents, publishers, literary events organisers, bloggers, podcasters and other members of the writing community in Scotland.


Dates: 13 to 15 July 2017

Venue: 50 George Square, University of Edinburgh

Keynote speaker(s): Susan Stewart (Princeton University); Stephen Bann (University of Bristol); Drew Milne (University of Cambridge)

In brief: A three-day symposium exploring new critical and interdisciplinary perspectives on the Scottish poet, artist and avant-gardener Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006). The symposium was supported by supported by the British Academy and comprised three keynote presentations (including one public lecture), eight panel sessions and a field trip to Little Sparta.


Date: 11 May 2017

Venue: Teviot Row House, University of Edinburgh; The Rowantree

Organiser: Sam Riviere (Writer in Residence, University of Edinburgh)

In brief: A one-day conference chaired by Writer in Residence Sam Riviere on all aspects of the publishing world, with a wealth of insights from industry insiders – publishers, editors, novelists, poets, reviewers, and translators. The conference comprised three themed panel sessions with a total of 12 speakers. The day concluded with author readings at the launch of the second edition of From Arthur's Seat, an anthology created by the MSc Creative Writing 2016/17 cohort.


Date: 12 November 2016

Venue: Scottish Poetry Library

In brief: A one-day symposium bringing together new and established voices from academia, poetry, publishing, and other creative areas to debate the diverse energies, directions, and innovations in contemporary Scottish women’s poetry post-2000. The symposium comprised two panel sessions, two round-table discussions and poetry readings.


Date: 20 June 2016

Venue: University of Dundee

Events series: Scotland and Russia

Keynote speaker(s): Dmitry Fedosov; Billy Kay

In brief: A one-day symposium comprising two keynote lectures and three panel sessions exploring the history of Scottish-Russian cultural exchange and influence, including the nineteenth-century roots of twentieth-century perceptions across literature, translation, performance and revolutionary politics.


Date: 11 May 2017

Venue: Pleasance Cabaret Bar, University of Edinburgh

Organiser: Sam Riviere (Writer in Residence, University of Edinburgh)

In brief: A one-day conference chaired by Writer in Residence Sam Riviere on all aspects of the publishing world, with a wealth of insights from industry insiders – including publishers, editors, novelists, poets, reviewers, and translators from Penguin Random House, Melville House, Freight Books, Granta, and Scottish Review of Books. The conference comprised three themed panel sessions with a total of 12 speakers and an evening event hosted by MSc Creative Writing students, featuring performances from a variety of writers and musicians.


Date: 10 September 2015

Venue: 40 George Square, University of Edinburgh

In brief: A one-day symposium of fiction readings and four panel sessions seeking to tap the wayward energies of Scottish women's fiction in the twenty-first century and study the challenges presented by new and established writers to the new Scotland and beyond.


Date: 18 June 2015

Venue: Evolution House, Edinburgh College of Art

In brief: A one-day conference comprising five panel sessions with a total of 16 speakers, bringing together national and international theatre artists and scholars from different disciplines.

Related research: The Bacchae Project


Film screenings and festivals

Spy Week

A public series of events, including talks, discussion panels, film screenings, author Q&As and workshops, focusing on espionage fiction and film and the ways in which secrecy and spying run through our history and culture. First held in 2014, Spy Week aims to bring together creative practitioners and academic researchers to talk about books and ideas in public and accessible ways.

The Spy Week team is based in English Literature in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC) at the University of Edinburgh and works with other Schools and cultural bodies in Edinburgh to bring the very best contemporary spy writers to Edinburgh.

Please note that speaker titles and universities, as listed, date from the time of the event and may have changed.

DatesVenue(s)Speakers and discussants
5 to 12 April 201950 George Square; Edinburgh Filmhouse; National Library of Scotland; St Cecilia's HallProfessor Adam Piette (University of Sheffield); Adam Roberts; John Plotz; Anthony Horowitz; Dr Jonny Murray (University of Edinburgh); Dr Natalie Ferris (University of Edinburgh); Val McDermid; Adam Brookes; Nadine Akkerman (Leiden University)
16 to 20 April 201850 George Square; National Library of Scotland; Filmhouse Cinema; Blackwell's Bookshop; St Cecilia's HallAugust Thomas; Jeremy Duns; Aly Monroe; Stephen Dorril; Andrew Lowni; Mick Herron; Denise Mina; Mark Laity (SHAPE, NATO); Professor Patricia Waugh (Durham University); Dr Simon Cooke (University of Edinburgh); Victoria Stewart (University of Leicester)
17 to 22 April 201750 George Square; National Library of Scotland; Blackwell's Bookshop; Edinburgh FilmhouseNiall Whelehan (University of Strathclyde); Professor Penny Fielding (University of Edinburgh); Aly Monroe; Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones (University of Edinburgh); Henry Hemming; Annie Machon
10 to 15 April 201650 George Square; National Library of Scotland; Edinburgh FilmhouseDame Stella Rimington; Professor Penny Fielding (University of Edinburgh); Dr Christopher Moran (University of Warwick); Dr Malcolm Craig (University of Edinburgh); Richard J. Aldrich (University of Warwick); Rhodri Jefferys-Jones (University of Edinburgh); Jeremy Duns; Ben Macintyre
18 to 23 May 2015National Library of Scotland; Edinburgh Filmhouse; Informatics Forum; 50 George SquareGraham Greene; James Robertson; Tim Stevens; Kieron O' Hara (University of Southampton); Charles Cumming; Daniel Pembrey
6 to 12 April 2014Edinburgh Filmhouse; Blackwell's Bookshop; Playfair Library; Teviot Row HouseDame Stella Rimington; Charles Cumming; Jeremy Duns; Tim Stevens; Professor Penny Fielding (University of Edinburgh); Dr Simon Cooke (University of Edinburgh); Dr Anna Vaninskaya (University of Edinburgh); Dr Jonathan Wild (University of Edinburgh)

English Literature at the summer festivals

Every year, English Literature staff and alumni get involved in events across the summer festivals in Edinburgh. Their events were open to the public, and they feature a multitude of themes relevant to the contemporary culture and society.

Please note that this is as close to a complete list as possible, and that speaker titles and institutions may have changed from time of the event.

DateFestivalVenueTitleEnglish Literature rep
28 August 2023Edinburgh International Book FestivalSpark TheatreThe Idea of HomeMarjorie Lofti (MSc in Creative Writing)
25 August 2023Edinburgh International Book FestivalBaillie Gifford West CourtLiving in ColourMichael Pedersen (upcoming Writer in Residence)
22 August 2023Book FringeTypewronger BooksInterpret MagazineGabrielle Tse (currently completing an MSc in Comparative Literature); Alyson Kissner (MSc in Creative Writing); Medha Singh (MSc in Creative Writing)
21 August 2023Book FringeTypewronger BooksAn evening with Jane McKie, Lauren Pope, Allie Kerper & Anne-Laure CoxamJane McKie (Lecturer in Creative Writing); Lauren Pope (MSc and PhD in Creative Writing, SUISS Summer School Administrative Manager); Allie Kerper (MSc in Creative Writing)
21 August 2023Edinburgh International Book FestivalBaillie Gifford Sculpture CourtCreature FutureDavid Farrier (Professor of Literature and the Environment)
19 August 2023Edinburgh International Book FestivalBaillie Gifford Storytime YurtOur City, Our StoriesJane McKie (Lecturer in Creative Writing)
18 August 2023Edinburgh International Book FestivalWee Red BarDamian Barr Literary SalonMichael Pedersen (upcoming Writer in Residence)
18 August 2023Edinburgh International Book FestivalBaillie Gifford West CourtThe Million Year ViewDavid Farrier (Professor of Literature and the Environment)
16 August 2023Edinburgh International Book FestivalBaillie Gifford West CourtBeing and OthernessMarjorie Lotfi (MSc in Creative Writing)
16 August 2023Edinburgh International Book FestivalSpark TheatreJokha Alharthi: The James Tait Black EventBenjamin Bateman (Senior Lecturer in Post-1900 British Literature and Director of Learning and Teaching)
14 August 2023Edinburgh International Book FestivalBaillie Gifford West CourtWomen in WritingKim Sherwood (Lecturer in Creative Writing)
14 August 2023Edinburgh International Book FestivalBaillie Gifford Sculpture CourtDifferent Futures are PossibleDavid Farrier (Professor of Literature and the Environment)
13 August 2023Book FringeTypewronger BooksHillfire Press at the Book FringeLLC students and Creative Writing MSc graduates from 2019-20
12 August 2023Edinburgh International Book FestivalWee Red Bar'Just' FriendsAnahit Behrooz (PhD in English Literature)
5 to 6, 8 to 13, 15 to 20 August 2023Edinburgh Festival FringeTraverse TheatreSean and Daro Flake It 'Til They Make ItLaurie Motherwell (MSc in Playwriting)
5 to 12 August 2019Edinburgh Festival FringeTraverse TheatreEdinburgh Festival Fringe 2019: Pre-ViewMSc Playwriting students
21 August 2018Edinburgh International Book Festival Spark and TimeSchool of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
20 August 2018Edinburgh Festival FringeTraverse TheatreJames Tait Black Prize for DramaSchool of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
20 August 2018Edinburgh International Book Festival Frederick Douglass: AbolitionistProfessor Celeste-Marie Bernier (English Literature) and Dr Andrew Taylor (English Literature)
19 August 2018Edinburgh International Book Festival Crime Debuts to Die For: Claire Askew and Alan ParksClaire Askew (Writer in Residence)
17 August 2018Edinburgh International Book Festival How to Read a Novel (Fiction and Biography)Dr Alex Lawrie (English Literature)
15 August 2018Edinburgh International Book Festival What have children been reading?Dr Sarah Dunnigan (English Literature)
13 August 2018Edinburgh Festival FringeTraverse TheatrePre-View: 'Born to Rule' and 'The Exhibit'Felix Maxwell and Derek Roland (MSc Playwriting)
13 August 2018Edinburgh Festival FringeTraverse TheatreLet them lead the wayLaurie Motherwell (MSc Playwriting) and Jenny Knotts (MSc Writing for Theatre and Performance)
11 August 2018Edinburgh International Book Festival The Liberation of Libraries: Celebrating 50 YearsIan Rankin (MA Hons English Language and Literature)
6 August 2018Edinburgh Festival FringeTraverse TheatrePre-View: 'The Brahan Child' and 'Pink House'Erica Mack and Madison Pollack (MSc Playwriting)
Various dates 2018Edinburgh Festival FringetheSpaceTriplexA Beginner's Guide to PopulismAndy Moseley (MSc Playwriting)
Various dates 2018Edinburgh Festival FringeTraverse Theatre'Old Enough' and 'Grout'

Old Enough: Laurie Motherwell (MSc Playwriting)

Grout: Ella Hickson (MA Hons History of Art and English Literature)

Various dates 2018Edinburgh Festival FringetheSpace @ Niddry StreetThe MeetingMelloney Flinn (MA Hons History of Art and English Literature, MSc Playwriting)
22 August 2017Edinburgh International Book Festival James Loxley on The Bonniest CompanieProfessor James Loxley (Professor of Early Modern Literature)
21 August 2017Edinburgh International Book Festival James Tait Black Prize for DramaLLC staff and students
20 August 2017Edinburgh International Book Festival Margo Jefferson with Celeste-Marie BernierProfessor Celeste-Marie Bernier (Professor of Black Studies)
18 August 2017Edinburgh Festival Fringe Edinburgh’s Festivals and the University of Edinburgh: 70 Years of CollaborationProfessor Gary West (Personal Chair in Scottish Ethnology)
17 August 2017Edinburgh International Book Festival David Olusoga – Black and BritishProfessor Celeste-Marie Bernier (Professor of Black Studies)
14 August 2017Edinburgh Festival FringeTraverse TheatreTalkFest 2017 - Pop goes the theatre!Nicola McCartney (Programme Director of our MSc in Playwriting)
14 August 2017Edinburgh International Book Festival James Tait Black Memorial Prize announcementLLC staff and students
14 August 2017Edinburgh Festival FringeTraverse TheatrePre-ViewBrandon Shalansky and Carolyn Yates (both MSc Playwriting)
12 and 19 August 2017Edinburgh International Book Festival The Story of Edinburgh - Journey through the literary landscapeProfessor James Loxley (Professor of Early Modern Literature)
12 August 2017Edinburgh International Book Festival Reading the city - Edinburgh's New TownProfessor James Loxley (Professor of Early Modern Literature)
7 August 2017Edinburgh Festival FringeTraverse TheatrePre-ViewSonya Hayden, Catriona Scott and Andy Moseley (all MSc Playwriting)
10 and 17 August 2015Edinburgh Festival FringeTraverse TheatreEdinburgh Festival Fringe 2015: Pre-ViewMSc Playwriting students

Exhibitions, workshops, readings and performances

The English Literature Play

Each year, the department of English Literature awards up to £1,000 to a literature student staging a live performance of a play of literary interest featuring our students in its cast and crew.

Date(s)TitleVenue
29 April to 4 May 2025JellyfishBedlam Theatre
13 to 16 March 2024Mother Clap's Molly HouseBedlam Theatre
1 to 4 March 2023TranslationsBedlam Theatre
15 and 16 March 2022BoysAssembly Roxy
26 February to 3 March 2018Our Country’s GoodBedlam Theatre
19 to 22 January 2011GaslightThe Caves
16 and 20 March 2010Grimm TalesMcEwan Hall
24 to 28 February 2009City of GlassBedlam Theatre
26 February to 1 March 2008Humble BoyBedlam Theatre
27 February to 3 March 2007The Cosmonaut's Last Message To The Woman He Once Loved In The Former Soviet UnionBedlam Theatre

From Arthur's Seat 2024

The MSc Creative Writing students from the academic year 2023 to 2024 organised a series of readings to promote their edition of the annual MSc anthology, From Arthur's Seat. These events took place throughout Edinburgh, and ranged from pre- to post-launch of the volume. They featured readings from the students themselves, usually along with one special guest from the English Literature department.

DateVenueFeatured guest
18 March 2024Waverley BarMiriam Gamble (English Literature)
1 April 2024Fruitmarket GalleryJessie Widner (Creative Writing)
12 April 2024Scottish Storytelling CentreJane Alexander (Creative Writing)
22 April 2024Lighthouse Bookshop 
3 May 2024InSpace GalleryMichael Pedersen (Writer in Residence)
15 May 2024Scottish Poetry LibraryProfessor Alan Gillis (English Literature)

More exhibitions, workshops, readings and performances

Date: 30 April 2025

Venue: Old Medical School

Speakers: Professor Greg Walker and Emeritus Professor Randall Stevenson (both English Literature)

In brief: A book launch event celebrating the publication edited by Professor Greg Walker and Emeritus Professor Randall Stevenson, 'Oxford Handbook of Scottish Theatre' (Oxford, 2025). This event featured Professor Walker and Emeritus Professor Stevenson, as well as selected contributors, in conversation about the publication, and was followed by a reception.


Date: 3 April 2025

Venue: 50 George Square

Speakers: Dr Kate Ash-Irisarri (Scottish & English Literature) and Dr Gerard McKeever (Scottish Literature)

In brief: A book launch event to celebrate the publication of two new monographs:

  • 'Rewriting the Past in Scottish Literature, 1350-1550' (Boydell & Brewer, 2025) - Dr Kate Ash-Irisarri
  • 'Regional Romanticism Literature and Southwest Scotland, c.1770–1830' (Palgrave, 2025) - Dr Gerard McKeever

It was followed by a reception.


Date: 7 November 2024

Venue: Netherbow Theatre, Scottish Storytelling Centre

Title: The Remarkable Deliverances of Alice Thornton (dir. Flavia D’Avila)

In brief: A solo performance as part of the Alice Thornton's Book Project (led by Professor Cordelia Beattie at the University of Edinburgh, and co-investigated by Professor Suzanne Trill of English Literature), and based on Alice's handwritten notebooks.


Date: 13 April 2024

Venue: Traverse Theatre

Research strand: Class Act

In brief: In association with Traverse Theatre, and as part of Nicola McCartney's (English Literature) long-running Class Act research project, she and two other international playwrights, Sara Shaarawi, and Natalya Vorozhbyt, worked with Ukrainian young people currently living in Scotland to develop their ideas and stories into scripts through a week-long series of workshops. These scripts were then turned into plays by a team of professional play-makers. This event was delivered in collaboration with the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain (AUGB).


Date: 15 May 2023

Venue: Project Room 1.06, 50 George Square

Readers: Ryan van Winkle (Writer in Residence, University of Edinburgh), Jane McKie ('Carnation Lily Lily Rose'), Patrick Errington ('The Swailing')

In brief: A launch event for Jane McKie’s collection Carnation Lily Lily Rose and also for Patrick James Errington’s new collection the swailing, along with a final 'farewell' event for LLC's Writer in Residence Ryan Van Winkle. There were readings from all three poets, books for signing, wine and nibbles, and a chance to catch up with many familiar faces.

Date: 4 May 2023

Venue: Project Room 1.06, 50 George Square

Organiser: MSc Creative Writing students of 2022-23

In brief: The in-person launch of Volume Eight of the annual anthology of new poetry and prose by students from the MSc Creative Writing programme.

Date: 21 April 2023

Venue: Project Room 1.06, 50 George Square

Organiser: Scottish Writing in the Nineteeth Century (SWINC)

In brief: A round-table discussion chaired by Bob Irvine (University of Edinburgh), which focused on antiquarianism, material texts and historicism, particularly manuscripts, digital texts and textual editing in the present moment.

The discussion was followed by a lecture by Professor Deidre Lynch (Harvard University), one of the world’s foremost scholars of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literature, entitled ‘Walter Scott’s Typographical Antiquities’.

Date: 5 February 2022

Venue: 50 George Square, University of Edinburgh

Organiser: Dr Anna Pilz (University of Edinburgh)

In brief: A one-day workshop bringing together investigations of today's coastal romanticisms on Scotland’s shores, hosted jointly by Scottish Writing in the Nineteeth Century (SWINC) and Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH). The workshop comprised three panels of seven speakers and an artist talk with Christina Riley. Contributions focused on the material reality and ecologies of coasts in cultural productions from domestic travellers to transnational visitors and explorers, from writers and artists to natural historians and geologists and all those drawn to the coast in order to highlight the richness of R/romanticisms, past, present and future.

Browse the full programmes on the SWINC website

Related research: Travel, Environment, Sustainability 

Date: 23 January 2020

Venue: Scottish Poetry Library

Event series: The Cantos Readings

Performers:  Paul Cunningham (reading); Professor Peter Liebregts (moderator)

In brief: A free event showcasing Ezra Pound's monumental poem and modernist classic 'The Cantos'

Text reads: Reading of The Cantos of Ezra Pound IV, The Scottish Poetry Library, 23rd January 2020

Sponsored by The Cantos Project at the University of Edinburgh and the Leverhulme Trust, the event was the fourth in an ongoing series and focused on the poems written between 1934 and 1936.

Date: 19 August 2019

Venue: Traverse Theatre

Host: Shereen Nanjiani

In brief: The James Tait Black (JTB) Prize for Drama 2019 ceremony, held during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019. The accolade celebrates innovation in playwriting and is awarded annually by the University of Edinburgh in association with Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland and the Traverse Theatre. The ceremony featured discussions with the playwrights about their work and extracts from the shortlisted plays.

Image of Traverse Theatre with text overlay. Text says: James Tait Black Prize for Drama at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019, 119th August 2019

The shortlisted plays were:

  • Dance Nation by Clare Barron (Almeida Theatre) - WINNER
  • Richard III Redux [or] Sara Beer [is/not] Richard III by Kaite O’Reilly with Phillip B Zarrilli (The Llanarth Group)
  • Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris (New York Theatre Workshop)

Date: 14 March 2019

Venue: Frankenstein, 26 George IV Bridge

In brief: Guest hosted by Pippa Goldschmidt, this event featured music, poetry and prose readings, including a science fiction short story by our own Jane Alexander (Senior Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing), part of a collection of uncanny short fiction about contemporary science and technology. In celebration of International Woman's Day.


Date: 28 February 2019

Venue: Scottish Poetry Library

Event series: The Cantos Readings

Performers:  Paul Cunningham (reading); Leslee Smucker (violin); Roxana Preda (moderator)

In brief: A free event showcasing Ezra Pound's monumental poem and modernist classic 'The Cantos'

Cantos III 1930s

Sponsored by The Cantos Project at the University of Edinburgh and the Leverhulme Trust, the event was the third in an ongoing series and focused on the poems written between 1930 and 1934. 

Find out more about The Cantos Project

Dates: 4 October 2018 to 16 February 2019

Venue: National Gallery of Scotland

In brief: The display opened during Black History Month UK in 2018 and ran until February 2019. Part of the international Our Bondage and Our Freedom project, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, celebrating the 200-year anniversary of the birth of African American activist and author, Frederick Douglass (1818-1895). Situating Douglass and his family in relation to transatlantic abolitionism and black radical reform movements, it is the first display of its kind to show the family's manuscripts, letters and photographs, as held in the Walter O. Evans Collection. It remains on permanent display in the Maryland State House in Annapolis, MD, USA.


Related research: Our Bondage and Our Freedom

Dates: 1 June to 8 December 2018

Venue: Museum of Childhood, Edinburgh

In brief:  A free exhibition developed in partnership with Scotland’s Early Literature for Children Initiative (SELCIE) exploring the history of children’s literature as glimpsed through the collections of the Museum of Childhood, with books dating from the 1700s through to the mid-20th century. 


Date: 5 October 2017

Venue: 50 George Square, University of Edinburgh

Event series: The Cantos Readings

Performers:  Paul Cunningham (reading); A. David Moody (introduction); Kamil Tchalaev (violin)

In brief: A free event showcasing Ezra Pound's monumental poem and modernist classic 'The Cantos'

Painting with text overlay reading: A Reading of The Cantos of Ezra Pound II: Cantos of the 1920s

Sponsored by The Cantos Project at the University of Edinburgh and the Leverhulme Trust, the event was the second in an ongoing series and focused on the poems written between 1923 and 1930.

 

 

Date: 24 March 2016

Venue: MHSES, University of Edinburgh

Events series: Scotland and Russia

In brief: A two-hour workshop led by freelance theatre director Robert Leach on applying the Michael Chekhov acting technique to a scene from Ena Lamont Stewart's well-known Scottish play, Men Should Weep.


Date: 9 October 2015

Venue: ECA, University of Edinburgh

Events series: Scotland and Russia

Keynote speaker(s): Dr Dmitry Fedosov; Billy Kay

In brief: A four-part performance of songs translated from (Scots-) English to Russian, and vice versa, between 2008 and 2015 by translator/bard Thomas Beavitt.


Dates: 16 to 20 February 2015

In brief: An exhibition of a series of drawings by Claudia Nocentini, which she created during a workshop on movement by Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (University of Edinburgh) Dr Wendy Timmons (University of Edinburgh) in May 2014.

Related research: The Bacchae Project


Date: 17 October 2014

Venue: Reid Concert Hall

Performers: Olga Ivakina, Arshak Kuzikyan, Rusne-Monika Palsauskaite and Timothy Dean

In brief: A concert featuring acclaimed Russian musicians performing selections from Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Sviridov, Medtner, Mussorgsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev, as well as Erik Chisholm's Celtic Folk Songs.


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