Scottish Literature and Scottish Independence

Humanities Viewpoints

My guest is Ryan Shirey, Director of the Writing Center and Assistant Teaching Professor in the Writing Program at Wake Forest University as well as a scholar of Scottish literature. He has written and presented on a number of topics related to Scottish literature, most recently contributing a chapter on John Buchan’s use of dialect Scots in his poetry for the edited collection: /John Buchan and the Idea of Modernity/. He has another chapter forthcoming for the Association for Scottish Literary Studies companion to the work of Scottish novelist Lewis Grassic Gibbon.
He offers his thoughts on the upcoming referendum for Scottish independence that will take place on Thursday, September 18th. The Scottish Referendum Bill was passed by the Scottish Parliament in November 2013, following an agreement between the Scottish and the United Kingdom governments. Voters can answer only Yes or No to the question “Should Scotland be an independent country?” The independence proposal requires a simple majority to pass, and all residents in Scotland over the age of 16 can vote.
During our conversation, Dr. Shirey discusses the complex history of the relationship between Scotland and England. He particularly illustrates the interesting perspective that Scottish literature provides for examining the possibility of Scottish independence, with a particular focus on how Scottish writers represent issues of nationalism and of Scottish political and cultural identity in their fiction and poetry.