The English Subject Centre’s decision to hold a study day dedicated to Scottish and Irish literature is a tribute to the increasing visibility of Scottish and Irish Studies within the discipline of ‘English’. The day was hosted by Murray Pittock, Professor of Scottish and Romantic Literature at the University of Manchester, and was attended by 25 delegates, most of whom were based furth of Scotland and Ireland. Dr Jonathan Gibson attended from the Subject Centre.
The morning session opened with Dr Liam Harte (Manchester) discussing Irish Studies as ‘a transgressive and a founding site for postcolonial theory’ and commenting on the importance of identifying student background and context, while Dr Crawford Gribben (Manchester) discussed his experiences in delivering Scottish literature both at Trinity College, Dublin and in Northern Ireland and Professor Glenda Norquay (John Moores) outlined curricular issues in the contemporary Scottish and Irish film and poetry courses at JMU. Dr John Corbett (Glasgow) gave a display of Moodle, Glasgow’s preferred Virtual Learning Environment, and demonstrated its potential in linking Scottish Studies internationally, while Dr Barbara Bell (Edge Hill) outlined the problem-based assessment tool she used to encourage theatre students to address the difficulties inherent in staging plays from Scottish or Irish literature in different kinds of theatrical and cultural environments.
In the afternoon, Dr Bill Hutchings (Manchester) expanded on the problem and enquiry-based learning theme by discussing ways to teach Swift using contemporary iconography, a theme taken up later in a Scottish context by Dr Suzanne Gilbert (Stirling). Professor Alan Riach (Glasgow) analysed his experiences in teaching both Scottish and Irish literature (and encounters with expatriate culture) in New Zealand, ending with a poem, as did Mr John McAuliffe (Manchester) who examined the issues in teaching creative writing through the medium of national literatures. Dr Michael Brown (Trinity College, Dublin) and Dr Gerry Carruthers (Glasgow) both took on the broader theoretical issues of revisionism in Scottish and Irish Studies in a day packed with everything from teaching techniques to new research ideas. The October day was a tribute, at a busy time in term, to the enthusiasm for Scottish literature now increasingly evident throughout these islands, not least at the University of Manchester, where it is now embedded in year 2, 3 and MA programmes.
