Call for papers
Scotland & the In-Between
Société française d’études écossaises Annual Conference
12–14 November, Université de Lorraine (Nancy), France
The conference invites participants to consider the many forms of passage, transition, & mediation that have shaped Scottish history, literature, the arts, language, & culture.
Deadline: 28 April 2026
@litstudies
https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6338
#Scottish #literature #history #culture #culturalstudies #callforpapers
Design insights from studying the Van Gogh Museum
A new predictive model can forecast visitor movement through a museum to help illuminate how physical and digital spaces shape engagement.
By Dylan Walsh
https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/design-insights-studying-van-gogh-museum
Van Gogh at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/40599
Previously Unknown Medieval Chronicle Discovered
A newly discovered chronicle from the early eighth century is giving medieval historians a rare new window onto the political shocks and religious debates that reshaped the eastern Mediterranean in the decades before and after the rise of Islam.
https://www.medievalists.net/2026/02/previously-unknown-medieval-chronicle-discovered/
More articles about Maronite Chronicle of 713:
https://medievalworlds.net/0xc1aa5572_0x004102d6.pdf
Newly published stories show a different side of Ian Fleming and Graham Greene
By Milton Guevara, Majd Al-Waheidi
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/15/nx-s1-5397182/strand-magazine-ian-fleming-graham-greene-short-stories
Warburg’s Werewolf: An Anamnesis
Aby Warburg spent his life finding forms that could hold their own against the flow of time. All the while, as Kevin Dann explores, he was churning on the brink of madness with the sense that he himself was changing — into a terrifying animal. What kind of history would a werewolf write?
By Kevin Dann
https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/warburgs-werewolf-an-anamnesis/?utm_source=newsletter
The deaf blacksmith who married in 1576 – and the history of sign as a legal language
The medieval church’s acknowledgement that signs were equivalent to a spoken language was transformative for deaf people.
by Rosamund Oates
Sign language at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subjects/search/?query=sign+language
Time Travel
What do we hold fast, what do we let go? The question, like a living being, hovers onstage in The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov.
By Cynthia Zarin
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/04/18/time-travel/
The Cherry Orchard at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7986
bradan à linne
fadh à frith
craobh à coille
trì nithean
nach meàirle
ghabhail o nàdar…
—Aonghas MacNeacail, “trì nithean”
published in Laoidh an donais òig / Hymn to a young demon (Polygon, 2007)
#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #EarthDay #EarthDay2026 #poem #poetry #landrights
Maria Edgeworth’s Educational Philosophy in 5 Core Concepts
Maria Edgeworth's timeless educational philosophy focuses on practical skills, parental involvement, critical thinking, ethics, and individualized learning.
By Viktoriya Sus
https://www.thecollector.com/maria-edgeworth-educational-philosophy-core-concepts/
Maria Edgeworth at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/630
#OTD "The Countess Cathleen" by W. B. Yeats is performed for the first time in 1899 at the The Irish Literary Theater in Dublin.
In the play Countess Cathleen sells her soul to the devil so that her tenants can be saved from a famine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Countess_Cathleen
"The Countess Cathleen" at PG
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5167
William Butler Yeats by William Rothenstein
RSE Investigates: The history of Scots and English in 10 objects
What can objects tell us about the history of our languages?
Prof Jeremy Smith uncovers the unique stories & histories of English & Scots through ten extraordinary objects: a bone, a piece of jewellery, a stone cross, a jug, two manuscripts, two letters, a broadside sheet, & an early printed book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8MEEn47TRc
#Scottish #literature #Scots #Scotslanguage #languagehistory
The sun’s been tint for weeks. Deid maybe.
Likely drooned. Water’s aaplace, teemin doon
gutters and branders, rinnin aff the slates,
floodin pavements. Fowk near droon…
—Ken Morrice, “Foo Mony Cubits?”
published in Selected Poems (Keith Murray, 1991)
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/foo-mony-cubits/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #Aberdeenshire #rain
The Scottish Highlands: Epic Mode
23 March, online – tickets from £3.35
Prof Dòmhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart investigates the ancient heroic tales of the Fèinn/Fianna & Fionn mac Cumhail/Finn Mac Cool. These exciting, complex, & often moving stories are part of the common heritage of Scotland & Ireland.
#Scottish #Irish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #legends #mythology #epic #Highlands
The Ur-“Conspiracy”: History of a Pseudoconcept
By Barrett Brown
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2026/02/12/the-ur-conspiracy-history-of-a-pseudoconcept/
#OTD in 1975, humorist P. G. Wodehouse died.
Wodehouse "was an English writer and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeves; the immaculate and loquacious Psmith; Lord Emsworth and the Blandings Castle set; the Oldest Member, with stories about golf...."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._G._Wodehouse
Books by Wodehouse at PG:
"Heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; ..."
Don’t fall in love this Valentine’s Day – read Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë’s novel celebrates the head-spinning, hair-raising, all-consuming experience of falling in love.
by Andrew McInnes
Wuthering Heights at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/768
The Man Who Invented the Future
Are we the conflicted heirs of the world according to Francis Bacon?
by Ed Simon
https://hedgehogreview.com/web-features/thr/posts/the-man-who-invented-the-future
Bacon at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/296
My Own Delightful Gordon,
Your letter has moved me deeply as you may imagine. But alas, I must ever decline to be Mrs Lowther…
—from Muriel Spark’s THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE (1961): a love letter – as imagined by her pupils – from Miss Brodie to Mr Lowther, the music teacher
@bookstodon
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #novel #novella #womenwriters #MurielSpark #love #loveletters #humour #ValentinesDay
Meet the Writers: Damian Barr
Damian Barr reflects on childhood shaping his memoir & novel, his move from journalism to fiction, & celebrating overlooked Scottish artists via writing, theatre & an exhibition.
Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love…
—Carol Ann Duffy, “Valentine”
published in A Red Rose or a Satin Heart: An Anthology of Scottish Love Poems, @canongatebooks 2010
💝
#Scottish #literature #ValentinesDay #poem #poetry #womenwriters #lovepoem #CarolAnnDuffy
When you go,
if you go,
and I should want to die,
there’s nothing I’d be saved by
more than the time
you fell asleep in my arms…
—Edwin Morgan, “When You Go”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)
https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781784109967
#Scottish #literature #ValentinesDay #LGBTQ #LGBTQplusHM #poem #poetry #Valentine #lovepoem #lovepoetry #EdwinMorgan
O dastram, dastram,
Dastram Mòrag!
Rìbhinn bhuidh’, bhasdalach,
Leac-ruiteach ròsach…
—Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, bho “Moladh Mòrag”
published in DASTRAM/DELIRIUM: Selected Poems of Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, Versions by Taylor Strickland (Broken Sleep Books, 2023)
https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/taylor-strickland-dastram-delirium
#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #ValentinesDay #poem #poetry #18thcentury #love #lovepoem #lovepoetry
O, love, love, love!
Love is like a dizziness;
It winna let a poor body
Gang about his biziness!
—James Hogg (1770–1835), “Love is like a dizziness” 💝
#Scottish #literature #poetry #poem #ValentinesDay #Valentine #18thcentury #19thcentury #humour
Here is a letter
come across the ocean
over the back of a world
curved like a whale…
—Hugh McMillan, “Letter”
published in THE OTHER CREATURES IN THE WOOD (Mariscat, 2014)
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/letter/
#Scottish #literature #ValentinesDay #poem #poetry #lovepoem #lovepoetry #Valentine
Like the Idalian queene,
Her haire about her eyne,
With necke and brests ripe apples to be seene,
At first glance of the morne
In Cyprus gardens gathering those faire flowrs
Which of her bloud were borne…
—William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649), “Like the Idalian queene”
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/jacobean-parnassus/
#Scottish #literature #ValentinesDay #Valentine #17thcentury #earlymodern #poem #poetry #lovepoem #lovepoetry
![Theophilus Schweighardt, The Temple of the Rose Cross, 1618,
The representation was created around 1604 and was published in the Speculum sophicum Rhodostauroticum by Theophilus Schweighart. At the center of the picture is a wheeled, fortress-like building. Look at the picture from the OCCIDENS, i.e. from the west. The lower image caption provides us with an indication of this (it is difficult to recognize here in the picture). The entrance to this building, which is directly revealed to the viewer, is marked by a lettering. Above the archway you can read "VENITE DIGNI" ("COME HERE, WORTHY"). To the right of the archway you can see a cross and to the left a rose. Directly below the entrance you can read the word "MOVEAMVR" spread over two lines. Above the archway there are two windows along which the lettering "IESVS NOBIS OMNIA" ("JESUS [IS] EVERYTHING FOR US") runs along. It therefore becomes clear that, in addition to all the many other symbolic representations, it could be a rose cruiserical representation. The cross and rose can be clearly identified, but not presented united, as in today's form.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Templeofrosycross_highres.png](/proxy/post_attachment/992973/736d78bcb1.png "Theophilus Schweighardt, The Temple of the Rose Cross, 1618,
The representation was created around 1604 and was published in the Speculum sophicum Rhodostauroticum by Theophilus Schweighart. At the center of the picture is a wheeled, fortress-like building. Look at the picture from the OCCIDENS, i.e. from the west. The lower image caption provides us with an indication of this (it is difficult to recognize here in the picture). The entrance to this building, which is directly revealed to the viewer, is marked by a lettering. Above the archway you can read \"VENITE DIGNI\" (\"COME HERE, WORTHY\"). To the right of the archway you can see a cross and to the left a rose. Directly below the entrance you can read the word \"MOVEAMVR\" spread over two lines. Above the archway there are two windows along which the lettering \"IESVS NOBIS OMNIA\" (\"JESUS [IS] EVERYTHING FOR US\") runs along. It therefore becomes clear that, in addition to all the many other symbolic representations, it could be a rose cruiserical representation. The cross and rose can be clearly identified, but not presented united, as in today's form.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Templeofrosycross_highres.png")
