For the latest SWH! podcast Ali caught up with Scott Hames, who lectures in Scottish Literature at the University of Stirling. The reason was to talk about Scott’s fascinating book The Literary Politics of Scottish Devolution, and look in some detail at the themes and ideas he addresses. The book’s subtitle is ‘Voice, Class, Nation’ and Scott sets out the relationship between the three.
As much a historical text as it is political and critical, Scott details the events, people, and places – as well as the publications – central to this story of constitutional change.
The two talk about Scott’s reasons for writing this book, how he came to be interested in Scottish writing in the first place, ‘the Dream’ and ‘the Grind’, the vital role of cultural magazines, as well as discussing specific writers and texts and their relationship to Scotland’s politics in the devolution years. It’s a fascinating conversation about Scotland’s recent social, political, and cultural history.
You can get your own copy of The Literary Politics of Scottish Devolution from Edinburgh University Press.
If you are new to the Scots Whay Hae! podcast there is quite a substantial back-catalogue for you to discover. If you aren’t yet a subscriber you can do so, (or simply listen) at iTunes, on Podbean, with Spotify, by RSS (but you’ll need to have an RSS reader to do so) or on MixCloud.
You can also download the podcast by clicking on the relevant link to the right of this post, or, if you want it right here, right now, you can listen on SoundCloud…
..or on YouTube…
We will continue to bring you many and varied SWH! podcasts in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime you can always check out our back catalogue of over 150 interviews with some of the most interesting names in Scottish culture, including our Scottish Opera series and the Glasgow Film Festival 2020 podcasts.