Past events

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

English Literature Seminar Series

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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.

Earlier events in the series

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

Date	Title	Speaker(s)
20 November 2020	Asignifying Desire: on Dennis Cooper's GIF novels	Dr Diarmuid Hester (University of Cambridge)
5 March 2020	Recent Irish Poetry and Slightly Magical Liquids	Professor Lucy McDiarmid (Montclair State University)
19 February 2020	Research Group in Life-Writing Event	Professor 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 Distinction	Dr Matthew Sangster (University of Glasgow)
17 January 2020	Seas of Desire and Disgust: Border-Crossing in Helena María Viramontes’ 'Their Dogs Came with Them’.	Dr Linda Margarita Greenberg (California State University)
20 November 2019	Evaluating Machine Learning Approaches to Literary Studies: The Case of Spatial Imaginaries’	Dr Anouk Lang (University of Edinburgh)
13 November 2019	The Good Man on Trial, or, Male Virginity and the Politics of Misogyny	Rebecca Barr (University of Cambridge)
23 October 2019	Make It Old: A Reconsideration of the Role of Decadence in Modernism	Kirsten MacLeod (Newcastle University)
2 October 2019	Unpopular Culture: Beyond the Populism of High and Pop Culture	Sascha Pöhlmann (University of Konstanz)
25 September 2019	Enlightenment and National Identity in Defoe’s The True-Born Englishman	Dr Robert Irvine (University of Edinburgh)
29 March 2019	Intersectionality in Crisis: Discourses of Resistance, Strategies of Representation	Anna Carastathis (Panteion University)
22 March 2019	Fantasy and the Anthropocene	Professor Brian Attebery (Idaho State University)
15 March 2019		Aditi Nafde (Newcastle University)
8 March 2019	The Doctor that Blushed: Mental ferriarism in the early industrial revolution, 1780-1820	Jon Mee (University of York)
1 March 2019	Living Dangerously in the Age of Resilience: A Literary and Cultural Perspective’	Michael Basseler (Justus Liebig University Giessen)
15 February 2019	Resurgent Forms: Contemporary Indigenous Life Writing and U.S. Settler Colonialism'	René Dietrich (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)
8 February 2019	Growing Up Too Quickly: The Cultural Construction of Children in Lyndsay Faye’s Gods of Gotham Trilogy	James Peacock (Keele University)
1 February 2019	Avian, Anal, Outlaw: E.M. Forster’s Queer Ecology	Benjamin Bateman (University of Edinburgh)
25 January 2019	States of Emergency / States of Emergence: Reading Claudia Rankine	Dr Lee Spinks (University of Edinburgh)
18 January 2019	Frozen in the Glassy, Bluestreaked Air: John Dos Passos’s Photographic Metropolis	Alix Beeston (Cardiff University)
30 November 2018	‘Space Unattached’: Imagining Scotland from the Pacific with Robert Louis Stevenson	Dr Lesley Graham (University of Bordeaux)
23 November 2018	Edgelands Without a Centre: Industrial Decline and Rurality in Norman Nicholson’s Poetry	Dr Andrew Frayn (Edinburgh Napier University)
16 November 2018		Dr George Lipsitz (University of California)
9 November 2018	Hatred of Sex: Reflections on the Contemporary Governance of Sex	Dr Oliver Davis (University of Warwick)
2 November 2018	Facing Reality with John Ruskin	Dr David Russell (University of Oxford)
26 October 2018	What Was ‘Black Nostalgia’	Dr Jonathan Schroeder (University of Warwick)
19 October 2018	Theatre &… the People Formerly Known as the Audience	Dr Helen Freshwater (Newcastle University)
12 October 2018	The Professor in Children’s Literature: A Corpus Based Analysis of Expertise in Books Marketed to a Young Audience	Dr Melissa Terras (University of Edinburgh)
5 October 2018	Autobiography, Identity, and Memory	Dr Laura Fish (Northumbria University)
28 September 2018	Towards an Autobiography of a Race Woman: The Afromodernist Practice of Eslands Goode Robeson	D. Fionnghuala Sweeney (Newcastle University)
21 September 2018	George Orwell in Russia	Masha Karp
9 March 2018	Residential School Gothic: Genre and Public Memory in 21st Century Canada	Dr Jennifer Henderson (Carleton University)
16 February 2018	Modernist Belatedness in Contemporary Slow Cinema	Dr Angelos Koutsourakis (University of Leeds)
9 February 2018	The 1820s: Speculation, Improvisation, Identity-Formation	Professor Angela Esterhammer (University of Toronto)
2 February 2018	Walk in Progress: Keeping Pace with Ambulatory Art	Professor William Sharp (Colombia University)
26 January 2018		Dr Rebecca Tierney-Hynes (University of Edinburgh)
1 December 2017	Edward FitzGerald and the Grammar of Ornament	Dr James Williams (University of York)
17 November 2017	Literature, 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 Discussion	Lubaina 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 2017	Why Fiction Matters in A Post-Truth Age	Dr Tabish Khair (Aarhus University)
27 October 2017	The Geometry of Invention: Diagrams in the Middle Ages	Professor Mary Carruthers (University of New York)
20 October 2017	‘Weak and Strong Modernism’: a Roundtable Discussion	Tim 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 2017	Memories, Histories, Selves: On Writing a Memoir	Professor Alison Light (University of Edinburgh)
6 October 2017	Octavia Butler and the Impossibility of Slavery	Rob Maslen (University of Glasgow)
7 April 2017	The poetics and politics of female elegy in Wales and Scotland, 1400-1800	Dr 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 Extinction	Dr David Higgins (University of Leeds)
17 March 2017	"Saving grace" in literary modernism and dance	Professor Susan Jones (University of Oxford)
10 March 2017	Mysteries, Markets, Maps: Gothic Fiction and the Romantic Book Trade	Dr Anthony Mandal (University of Cardiff)
3 March 2017	I see you have a feeling for symbols of power”: Robert Lowell’s Benito Cereno and American Civil Rights in the 1960s	Dr Keith Hughes (University of Edinburgh)
17 February 2017	"Life As Story": new writing and drama as a tool for change	Nicola McCartney (University of Edinburgh)
10 February 2017	Literature and the Public Good	Professor Rick Rylance (University of London)
3 February 2017	Charms and the Nerd: Victorian Dark Arts as High Tech	Professor Herbert F. Tucker (University of Virginia)
27 January 2017	Sentimental Politics in Goldsmith and Burns	Dr Bob Irvine (University of Edinburgh)
20 January 2017	Suffering and Sunset: World War I in the Art and Life of Horace Pippin	Professor Celeste-Marie Bernier (University of Edinburgh)
2 December 2016	Who Was Listening to Modernism? BBC Radio Features and Audience Response	Alex Lawrie (University of Edinburgh)
25 November 2016	The Uncertain Contexts of Elizabethan Court Love Poetry	Jonathan Gibson (The Open University)
18 November 2016	"The Last American": Plague Narratives in American Literature and Popular Culture	Dr Bernice M. Murphy (Trinity College Dublin)
11 November 2016	My world has Become Smaller and Smaller’ – Postfeminist Confinement in Louise O’Neill’s Asking For It	Fiona McCulloch (independent scholar)
4 November 2016	Palestine in the Popular Imagination: From Refugees to Negotiators	Dr Anastassia Valassopoulos
28 October 2016	On Writing Neo-Victorian Fiction	Patricia Duncker (University of Manchester)
21 October 2016	Perfectly Disgraceful: Frank O’Hara and the Various New York Schools of Art	Sam Ladkin (University of Sheffield)
14 October 2016	‘The Poetry of Motion’: The emergence of the motorcar in Edwardian Literature	Jonathan Wild (University of Edinburgh)
7 October 2016	Romancing Difference: Gender, Ethnicity, and Religion in Medieval and Modern Orientalist Romance	Dr Amy Burge
30 September 2016	How does the Syrian Crisis Speak Via Shakespeare?	Dr Preti Taneja (University of Warwick)
1 April 2016	"When Men and Mountains Meet" (Blake): An Emotional History	Dr Abbie Garrington (Durham University)
25 March 2016	Failures of Political Imagination?: Literary Fiction and the Welfare State in Scotland, 1945-2014	Dr Alex Thomson
11 March 2016	Bad Parents, Anxious Children: Attachment, Security and Self from D.W. Winnicott to Alison Bechdel	Dr Chiara Alfano (Kingston University)
4 March 2016	Mystical Nationalists: Yeats, Pessoa, and MacDiarmid	Dr Scott Lyall (Edinburgh Napier University)
26 February 2016	Impiisima Conjuratrix: Representing the Countess of Buchan in the Fourteenth Century	Dr Kate Ash-Irisarri (University of Manchester)
12 February 2016	"Pineapple for the Million": Periodical Genres and the Politics of Affect	Dr Fionnuala Dillane (University College Dublin)
5 February 2016	Performing the ‘soul of Russia’: incarnations of the Moscow Art Theatre in London	Dr Claire Warden (De Montfort University)
29 January 2016	Poetry, Anatomy, Presence	Dr Katharine Craik (Oxford Brookes University)
22 January 2016	Oceanic Shakespeare	Professor Peter Womack (University of East Anglia)
4 December 2015	Geoffrey Hill and Intrinsic Value	Dr Lee Spinks (University of Edinburgh)
27 November 2015	Space, Class and the Politics of Free Speech	Dr Rehana Ahmed (Queen Mary University of London)
20 November 2015	Spies! From invasion narratives to the Cold War	Professor Penny Fielding; Dr Simon Cooke; Dr Anna Vaninskaya; Dr Jonathan Wilde (University of Edinburgh)
13 November 2015	God Outside the Machine: melodrama, masculinity and the cosmological imagination	Dr Brian Baker (Lancaster University)
6 November 2015	Picturing Frederick Douglass: The Most Photographed American of the 19th Century	Professor Zoe Trodd (University of Nottingham)
30 October 2015	Reading the Materiality of the Future	Dr Christina Lupton (University of Warwick)
23 October 2015	A Home in the Highlands? Occupying the Estate in Scott and Susan Ferrier	Professor Caroline McCracken-Flesher (University of Wyoming)
16 October 2015	Converting Shelley	Dr Tom Mole (University of Edinburgh)
9 October 2015	Austen's Wit-Craft: Traversing the Fantasy of Aristocratic Privilege	Professor Molly Rothenberg (Tulane University)
2 October 2015	The Stevensons and stylometry: from the digital humanities classroom to the scholarly edition	Professor Penny Fielding; Dr Anouk Lang; Robyn Pritzker (University of Edinburgh)
3 April 2015	What is the Economic Humanities?	Andrew Lawson (Leeds Beckett University); Nicky Marsh (University of Southampton)
27 March 2015	Experiment and the World-Historical Imagination in Rana Dasgupta’s Solo	Dr Sharae Deckard (University College Dublin)
20 March 2015	Indian Ocean Journeys	Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah (University of Kent)
13 March 2015	The Politics of Simplicity: The example of George Eliot	Dr Jo Carruthers (Lancaster University)
6 March 2015	Shar[ing] the Good of our Returned Fortune	Pip Willcox (University of Oxford)
27 February 2015	Naturalist Theatre and the Problem of Homosexuality	Professor Dan Rebellato (University of London).
13 February 2015	Cinema and the Philosophy of Iris Murdoch: Building a Moral Vision	Dr Lucy Bolton (University of London)
6 February 2015	Geographies of the self	Professor Glenda Norquay (Liverpool John Moores University)
30 January 2015	Perspectives on Edward Thomas	Dr David Farrier; Professor Randall Stevenson; Dr Jonathan Wild (University of Edinburgh)
23 January 2015	The Ballooning Tradition of Whimsy	Dr Will May (University of Southampton)
16 January 2015	'A course of steady reading':	Dr Rebecca Davies (University of Edinburgh)

Author Conversations

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

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

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.

Date	Venue	Guest(s)
20 February 2020	50 George Square	Ajay Close
21 November 2019	50 George Square	Elizabeth Wein
6 May 2019	50 George Square	Dr Alice Tarbuck (University of Dundee)
19 March 2019	Golden Hare Books	Esa Aldegheri; Nadine Aisha Jassat; Dean Rhetoric
28 February 2019	Lighthouse Books	Juno Dawson
6 December 2018	50 George Square	Jay Stringer
20 November 2018	50 George Square	Holly Ringland
2 October 2018	Golden Hare Books	Mary Paulson Ellis
11 May 2018	7 George Square	Jane Claire Bradley
27 February 2018	50 George Square	Chris McQueer; Laura Jones (404 Ink); Heather McDaid (404 Ink)
5 December 2017	50 George Square	Graeme Macrae Burnet
14 November 2017	Golden Hare Books	Heled Sedgwick; Jane Alexander; Natalie Fergie; Theresa Munoz
28 September 2017	50 George Square	Terese Svoboda

Guthrie Drama Seminar Series

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.

Date	Venue	Theme	Guests(s)
29 March 2023	Lister Learning and Teaching Centre	Recovering Women’s Voices, 800-1500	Professor Elaine Treharne (Stanford); Professor Greg Walker (Chair)
28 March 2023	50 George Square	Workshop on the basics of devising physical theatre	Neil Bettles (Artistic Director, ThickSkin)
28 March 2023	50 George Square	Panel discussion on the ethics and the process around staging asylum stories	Nicola McCartney; Dritan Kastrati; Professor Sharon Cowan; Laura Mallows
23 March 2023	40 George Square	Lecture: Zinnie Harris: Disrupting the Inevitable Flow of Time	Professor Trish Reid (University of Reading)
24 November 2021	Online (Zoom)	A creative conversation on Gupta's 'Lions and Tigers' (Sam Wannaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe, 2017)	Tanika Gupta; Pooja Ghai
29 October 2021	Institut français d’Ecosse	Workshop: Writing for a Theatre Magazine	Dr Dana Rufolo (editor-in-chief, Plays International & Europe)
24 November 2020	Online (Zoom)	Master class on approach to directing a play for performance with professional theatre director Chris White	Chris White
11 March 2019	50 George Square	Discussion exploring 'The Tempest', and themes around colonization and empire	Theatre Director Pooja Ghai (Live Theatre, Theatre Royal Stratford East)

Digestive Modernisms series

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.

Explore the full series of Digestive Modernisms events

Lectures and talks

The Susan Manning Memorial Lecture

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.

Speaker	Date	Venue	Theme
Professor Yoon Sun Lee (Wellesley College, Massachusetts)	22 March 2024	50 George Square	Race, Labor, and Gratitude: Austen, Edgeworth, and the West Indies
Professor Anahid Nersessian (University of California)	24 March 2023	50 George Square	House on Fire: On the Unfinished Business of Romanticism
Professor Caroline Levine (Cornell University)	6 May 2022	50 George Square	Plots of Precarity and Sustainable Endings
Professor Laura Marcus (New College, University of Oxford)	21 May 2021	Online (Zoom)	'The Noise of Time': Autobiography and History in the 1930s
Professor Adam Piette (University of Sheffield)	5 April 2019	50 George Square	The Revolutionary Double Agent and Cold War Citizenship
Janice Galloway	6 April 2018	50 George Square	'There’s something a bit harsh about you, Fleur’: Muriel Spark and her voices
Professor Caryl Phillips (Yale University)	24 March 2017	50 George Square	A Sense of Home
Professor David Bromwich (Yale University)	18 March 2016	50 George Square	‘The Single State of Man’ and Killing Caesar and Duncan
Professor Hermione Lee (University of Oxford)	20 February 2015	50 George Square	Character in Biography: “The Most Really Interesting Problem”
Professor Maureen McLane (New York University)	21 February 2014	St Cecilia's Hall	Toward a Compositionist Poetics: From Ballad Rhizomatics to the Mesh

Inaugural Lectures

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.

Speaker	Date	Venue	Theme
Professor Alan Gillis (Professor of Modern Poetry and Criticism)	20 November 2024	Lecture Theatre G.03, 50 George Square	Poetry Reading
Professor Alex Thomson (Personal Chair of Modern Literature and Critical Theory)	16 October 2024	Lecture Theatre G.03, 50 George Square	Constructing Scotland: Devolution and Cultural History
Professor Tim Milnes (Personal Chair of Romantic Literature and Philosophy)	24 April 2024	Lecture Theatre G.03, 50 George Square	Ex Nihilo: Romanticism, Creativity, and the Invention of ‘Literature’
Professor Paul Crosthwaite (Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature)	27 March 2024	Lecture Theatre G.03, 50 George Square	What are the Economic Humanities? A Short Guide to an Interdisciplinary Field
Professor Michelle Keown (Professor of Pacific and Postcolonial Literature)	26 April 2023	Lecture 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 2023	Gordon Aikman Lecture Theatre	Nabokov’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 2018	Playfair Library	Suffering, Struggle, Survival: 200 Years of African Atlantic Art and Authorship (1818-2018)

More lectures and talks

Edition Annual Lecture: Emma Smith

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).

Reimagining Climate Resilience through Ecopoetics

A green informative banner featuring the image of a wind turbine in a forest

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.

Climax of the Clearances: The Great Highland Famine and Scottish History

A man smiling in front of wall-to-wall bookcases with a rugged landscape as graphic's background

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.

Remediating Robert Louis Stevenson's Pacific Fiction

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.

Dispatches from the Frontlines of Environmental Justice

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.

Watch the conversation between Delee and Rebecca on the IASH website

Gained in Translation: Adapting Literary Texts into Comics

Image of Paul Karasik in a white medical face mask, drawing a nose and mouth on top of the mask

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.

Under the Influence of Comics: a public lecture by Paul Karasik

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.

Lessons from Three Centuries of Financial Advice

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.

Find out more about the project on the History of Financial Advice website

Modernist Belatedness in Contemporary Slow Cinema

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).

Browse previous events in the Edinburgh Film Seminar series

Robert Burns in Russia: Translations and Influences

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.

Take me to the Scotland and Russia website for full details

Between Spoils and Gifts

Engraved stone in Little Sparta, the home of Ian Hamilton Finlay

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

The Scottish Novel in 1824

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.

Fin de Sexe? A Symposium on Sexuality

a dusty pink background with a series of dots connected by lines, similar to a constellation, and event info overlaid

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.

Northern Early Modern Network: Annual Conference 2024

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.

Unions/Disunions: SFEE Annual Conference 2024

a painting of a man holding a candle studying a book, event title overlaid

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).

Creative Writing Conference 2024

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.

Resisting Toxic Climates: Gender, Colonialism, and Environment

A banner with an image of red-stained cloth in a small stream

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.

Find out more about the conference

Decolonising Modernism(s)

A pile of water canisters arranged in a semi-circle on top of each other, they are reminiscent of faces

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.

Find out more about the symposium

30th Ezra Pound International conference: Ezra Pound and the Legacy of The Cantos

Informative banner with blue and black inky mixture background

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.

Find out more about the conference

Romantic Boundaries: BARS ECR & PGR Conference 2023

Black and white oil painting background with Romantic Boundaries overlaid

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.

Find out more about the conference

Creative Writing Conference 2023

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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.

Find out more about the conference

Shaping the Self: The Construction of Identity in Nineteenth-Century Fiction

Arthur Edmund Grimshaw's painting The Strand from 1899 with text reading Shaping the Self

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).

Find out more about the conference

Creative Writing Conference 2022

Image with text reading University of Edinburgh Creative Writing Conference

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.

Browse the full programme and speaker bios

12th International Walter Scott Conference: History, Landscape, Environment

12th International Conference on Walter Scott

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.

Browse lectures the full conference programme

Enemies in the Early Modern World 1453-1789: Conflict, Culture and Control

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.

Northern Early Modern Network Conference

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.

Transgender: Intersectional/International Conference

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.

Out of the Air: Women, Creativity and Intelligence Work

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.

Opening Up the Archives: Collections, Collaborations, and Forgotten Histories in Children’s Literature

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.

Our Bondage and Our Freedom: Black Atlantic Authorship and Art (1818-2018)

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).

Find out more on the Our Bondage and Our Freedom website

The Business: A Creative Writing and Publishing Conference

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.

Ian Hamilton Finlay: Little Fields, Long Horizons

The garden of the concrete poet Ian Hamilton Finlay in the Scottish Borders

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.

The Business: Futures in Publishing

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.

Scottish Women's Poetry Symposium 2016

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.

Truths and Fictions: Two Centuries of Scottish-Russian Encounters

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.

Take me to the Scotland and Russia website for full details

The Business: Futures in Publishing

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.

Scottish Women's Fiction Symposium - Route for Scotland

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.

Theatre Citizenship and the Law

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.

Dates	Venue(s)	Speakers and discussants
5 to 12 April 2019	50 George Square; Edinburgh Filmhouse; National Library of Scotland; St Cecilia's Hall	Professor 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 2018	50 George Square; National Library of Scotland; Filmhouse Cinema; Blackwell's Bookshop; St Cecilia's Hall	August 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 2017	50 George Square; National Library of Scotland; Blackwell's Bookshop; Edinburgh Filmhouse	Niall 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 2016	50 George Square; National Library of Scotland; Edinburgh Filmhouse	Dame 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 2015	National Library of Scotland; Edinburgh Filmhouse; Informatics Forum; 50 George Square	Graham Greene; James Robertson; Tim Stevens; Kieron O' Hara (University of Southampton); Charles Cumming; Daniel Pembrey
6 to 12 April 2014	Edinburgh Filmhouse; Blackwell's Bookshop; Playfair Library; Teviot Row House	Dame 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)

Browse the full events archive on the Spy Week website

English Literature at the summer festivals

A soft purple fabric background with event text and image of a microphone overlaid

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.

Date	Festival	Venue	Title	English Literature rep
28 August 2023	Edinburgh International Book Festival	Spark Theatre	The Idea of Home	Marjorie Lofti (MSc in Creative Writing)
25 August 2023	Edinburgh International Book Festival	Baillie Gifford West Court	Living in Colour	Michael Pedersen (upcoming Writer in Residence)
22 August 2023	Book Fringe	Typewronger Books	Interpret Magazine	Gabrielle Tse (currently completing an MSc in Comparative Literature); Alyson Kissner (MSc in Creative Writing); Medha Singh (MSc in Creative Writing)
21 August 2023	Book Fringe	Typewronger Books	An evening with Jane McKie, Lauren Pope, Allie Kerper & Anne-Laure Coxam	Jane 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 2023	Edinburgh International Book Festival	Baillie Gifford Sculpture Court	Creature Future	David Farrier (Professor of Literature and the Environment)
19 August 2023	Edinburgh International Book Festival	Baillie Gifford Storytime Yurt	Our City, Our Stories	Jane McKie (Lecturer in Creative Writing)
18 August 2023	Edinburgh International Book Festival	Wee Red Bar	Damian Barr Literary Salon	Michael Pedersen (upcoming Writer in Residence)
18 August 2023	Edinburgh International Book Festival	Baillie Gifford West Court	The Million Year View	David Farrier (Professor of Literature and the Environment)
16 August 2023	Edinburgh International Book Festival	Baillie Gifford West Court	Being and Otherness	Marjorie Lotfi (MSc in Creative Writing)
16 August 2023	Edinburgh International Book Festival	Spark Theatre	Jokha Alharthi: The James Tait Black Event	Benjamin Bateman (Senior Lecturer in Post-1900 British Literature and Director of Learning and Teaching)
14 August 2023	Edinburgh International Book Festival	Baillie Gifford West Court	Women in Writing	Kim Sherwood (Lecturer in Creative Writing)
14 August 2023	Edinburgh International Book Festival	Baillie Gifford Sculpture Court	Different Futures are Possible	David Farrier (Professor of Literature and the Environment)
13 August 2023	Book Fringe	Typewronger Books	Hillfire Press at the Book Fringe	LLC students and Creative Writing MSc graduates from 2019-20
12 August 2023	Edinburgh International Book Festival	Wee Red Bar	'Just' Friends	Anahit Behrooz (PhD in English Literature)
5 to 6, 8 to 13, 15 to 20 August 2023	Edinburgh Festival Fringe	Traverse Theatre	Sean and Daro Flake It 'Til They Make It	Laurie Motherwell (MSc in Playwriting)
21 August 2018	Edinburgh International Book Festival		Spark and Time	School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
20 August 2018	Edinburgh Festival Fringe	Traverse Theatre	James Tait Black Prize for Drama	School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
20 August 2018	Edinburgh International Book Festival		Frederick Douglass: Abolitionist	Professor Celeste-Marie Bernier (English Literature) and Dr Andrew Taylor (English Literature)
19 August 2018	Edinburgh International Book Festival		Crime Debuts to Die For: Claire Askew and Alan Parks	Claire Askew (Writer in Residence)
17 August 2018	Edinburgh International Book Festival		How to Read a Novel (Fiction and Biography)	Dr Alex Lawrie (English Literature)
15 August 2018	Edinburgh International Book Festival		What have children been reading?	Dr Sarah Dunnigan (English Literature)
13 August 2018	Edinburgh Festival Fringe	Traverse Theatre	Pre-View: 'Born to Rule' and 'The Exhibit'	Felix Maxwell and Derek Roland (MSc Playwriting)
13 August 2018	Edinburgh Festival Fringe	Traverse Theatre	Let them lead the way	Laurie Motherwell (MSc Playwriting) and Jenny Knotts (MSc Writing for Theatre and Performance)
11 August 2018	Edinburgh International Book Festival		The Liberation of Libraries: Celebrating 50 Years	Ian Rankin (MA Hons English Language and Literature)
6 August 2018	Edinburgh Festival Fringe	Traverse Theatre	Pre-View: 'The Brahan Child' and 'Pink House'	Erica Mack and Madison Pollack (MSc Playwriting)
Various dates 2018	Edinburgh Festival Fringe	theSpaceTriplex	A Beginner's Guide to Populism	Andy Moseley (MSc Playwriting)
Various dates 2018	Edinburgh Festival Fringe	Traverse Theatre	'Old Enough' and 'Grout'	Old Enough: Laurie Motherwell (MSc Playwriting) Grout: Ella Hickson (MA Hons History of Art and English Literature)
Various dates 2018	Edinburgh Festival Fringe	theSpace @ Niddry Street	The Meeting	Melloney Flinn (MA Hons History of Art and English Literature, MSc Playwriting)
22 August 2017	Edinburgh International Book Festival		James Loxley on The Bonniest Companie	Professor James Loxley (Professor of Early Modern Literature)
21 August 2017	Edinburgh International Book Festival		James Tait Black Prize for Drama	LLC staff and students
20 August 2017	Edinburgh International Book Festival		Margo Jefferson with Celeste-Marie Bernier	Professor Celeste-Marie Bernier (Professor of Black Studies)
18 August 2017	Edinburgh Festival Fringe		Edinburgh’s Festivals and the University of Edinburgh: 70 Years of Collaboration	Professor Gary West (Personal Chair in Scottish Ethnology)
17 August 2017	Edinburgh International Book Festival		David Olusoga – Black and British	Professor Celeste-Marie Bernier (Professor of Black Studies)
14 August 2017	Edinburgh Festival Fringe	Traverse Theatre	TalkFest 2017 - Pop goes the theatre!	Nicola McCartney (Programme Director of our MSc in Playwriting)
14 August 2017	Edinburgh International Book Festival		James Tait Black Memorial Prize announcement	LLC staff and students
14 August 2017	Edinburgh Festival Fringe	Traverse Theatre	Pre-View	Brandon Shalansky and Carolyn Yates (both MSc Playwriting)
12 and 19 August 2017	Edinburgh International Book Festival		The Story of Edinburgh - Journey through the literary landscape	Professor James Loxley (Professor of Early Modern Literature)
12 August 2017	Edinburgh International Book Festival		Reading the city - Edinburgh's New Town	Professor James Loxley (Professor of Early Modern Literature)
7 August 2017	Edinburgh Festival Fringe	Traverse Theatre	Pre-View	Sonya Hayden, Catriona Scott and Andy Moseley (all MSc Playwriting)

More film screenings and festivals

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019: Pre-View

Image of Traverse Theatre with text overlay. Text reads: Pre-View at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019

Dates: 5 to 12 August 2019

Venue: Traverse Theatre

In brief: Showcases of original works by MSc Playwriting students, performed as script-in-hand readings by an ensemble of leading Scottish actors as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019. Students: Francisca da Silveira; Ansley Echols; Joanna Glum; Davey Goodwin; Amy Rhianne Milton; Ahmad Musta’ain Bin Khamis; Karolina Oleskiewicz; Morgan Powell.

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2015: Pre-View

Dates: 10 and 17 August 2015

Venue: Traverse Theatre

In brief: Showcases of four original works by MSc Playwriting students, performed as script-in-hand readings by an ensemble of Scottish actors as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2015.

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)	Title	Venue
13 to 16 March 2024	Mother Clap's Molly House	Bedlam Theatre
1 to 4 March 2023	Translations	Bedlam Theatre
15 and 16 March 2022	Boys	Assembly Roxy
26 February to 3 March 2018	Our Country’s Good	Bedlam Theatre
19 to 22 January 2011	Gaslight	The Caves
16 and 20 March 2010	Grimm Tales	McEwan Hall
24 to 28 February 2009	City of Glass	Bedlam Theatre
26 February to 1 March 2008	Humble Boy	Bedlam Theatre
27 February to 3 March 2007	The Cosmonaut's Last Message To The Woman He Once Loved In The Former Soviet Union	Bedlam 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.

Date	Venue	Featured guest
18 March 2024	Waverley Bar	Miriam Gamble (English Literature)
1 April 2024	Fruitmarket Gallery	Jessie Widner (Creative Writing)
12 April 2024	Scottish Storytelling Centre	Jane Alexander (Creative Writing)
22 April 2024	Lighthouse Bookshop
3 May 2024	InSpace Gallery	Michael Pedersen (Writer in Residence)
15 May 2024	Scottish Poetry Library	Professor Alan Gillis (English Literature)

More exhibitions, workshops, readings and performances

Class Act: Ukraine in Scotland

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).

Creative Writing Programme: Poetry Celebration

Informative banner with three images: a woman outside, a man in front of a hedge, and a man sitting in an armchair

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.

From Arthur's Seat: Volume Eight launch

An informative, black banner with thistles

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.

Typographical Antiquities

Sir Walter Scott Finding the Manuscript of 'Waverley' in an Attic, Charles Martin Hardie (1858–1916)

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’.

Scotland’s Coastal Romanticisms

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 programme on the SWINC website

Related research: Travel, Environment, Sustainability

Find out more about research in English Literature Travel, Environment, Sustainability: A literary and cultural history of Irish and Scottish coastal routesTravel, Environment, Sustainability: A literary and cultural history of Irish and Scottish coastal routesTravel, Environment, Sustainability: A literary and cultural history of Irish and Scottish coastal routes

Reading of The Cantos of Ezra Pound: IV

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'

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.

Find out more about The Cantos Project

The James Tait Black Prize for Drama Ceremony 2019

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

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.

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)

Shoreline of Infinity Event Horizon – An evening of women in science fiction

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.

Reading of The Cantos of Ezra Pound: III

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'

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

Strike for Freedom: Slavery, Civil War and Emancipation: Frederick Douglass and Family in the Walter O. Evans Collection

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.

Find out more about the exhibition on the National Library of Scotland website

Related research: Our Bondage and Our Freedom

Find out more on the Our Bondage and Our Freedom website

Growing Up With Books

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.

Find out more on the SELCIE website

Reading of The Cantos of Ezra Pound: II

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'

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.

Find out more about The Cantos Project

Michael Chekhov’s Acting Practice: Reading “Men Should Weep” by Ena Lamont Stewart

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.

Take me to the Scotland and Russia website for full details

Scotland and Russia: Song in Translation with Thomas Beavitt

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.

Take me to the Scotland and Russia website for full details

Bacchae, Democracy and Violence

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

This article was published on 2024-08-13