The History begins with the first full-scale critical consideration of Scotland's earliest literature, drawn from the diverse cultures and languages of its early peoples. The first volume covers the literature produced during the medieval and early modern period in Scotland, surveying the riches of Scottish work in Gaelic, Welsh, Old Norse, Old English and Old French, as well as in Latin and Scots. New scholarship is brought to bear, not only on imaginative literature, but also law, politics, theology and philosophy, all placed in the context of the evolution of Scotland's geography, history, languages and material cultures from our earliest times up to 1707.

This collection of essays explores the role played by imaginative writing in the Scottish Enlightenment and its interaction with the values and activities of that movement. Across a broad range of areas via specially commissioned essays by experts in each field, the volume examines the reciprocal traffic between the groundbreaking intellectual project of eighteenth-century Scotland and the imaginative literature of the period, demonstrating that the innovations made by the Scottish literati laid the foundations for developments in imaginative writing in Scotland and further afield. In doing so, it provide a context for the widespread revaluation of the literary culture of the Scottish Enlightenment and the part that culture played in the project of Enlightenment.

Too often seen as a ghost from the past, nationalism has resurfaced as a major factor in European politics and culture. A powerful commitment to national autonomy has marked Scottish writing throughout the twentieth century. How has the emergence of new voices from feminist, gay and lesbian critics transformed that commitment? How critical and pluralistic can the new nationalisms be? This collection serves notice that the tradition is being read in new and disruptive ways. Five women and four men examine the relationship between gender and nationality, how male and female authors portray women, the treatment of sexuality in Scottish writing, the construction of Scottish masculinity and its relation to class and homophobia. Covering modern fiction and theatre, poetry, film and television, it is a provocative reassessment of the gender and culture of a 'stateless nation'.

Community in Modern Scottish Literature is the first book to examine representations and theories of community in Scottish writing of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries across a broad range of authors and from various conceptual perspectives. The leading scholars in the field examine work in the novel, poetry, and drama, by key Scottish authors such as MacDiarmid, Kelman, and Galloway, as well as less well known writers. This includes postmodern and postcolonial readings, analysis of writing by gay and Gaelic authors, alongside theorists of community such as Nancy, Bauman, Delanty, Cohen, Blanchot, and Anderson. This book will unsettle and yet broaden traditional conceptions of community in Scotland and Scottish literature, suggesting a more plural idea of what community might be.

A unique introduction, guide and reference work for students and readers of Scottish literature from the pre-medieval period.

The first full-length study of Scottish literature using a post-devolutionary understanding of postcolonial studies. Using a comparative model and spanning over two hundred years of literary history from the 18th Century to the contemporary, this collection of 19 new essays by some of the leading figures in the field presents a range of perspectives on Scottish and postcolonial writing. The essays explore Scotland's position on both sides of the colonial divide and also its role as instigator of a devolutionary process with potential consequences for British Imperialism.