Queer Form in Scottish Writing

This one-day symposium is a landmark opportunity to discuss the status of queer writing in Scottish literature. The event celebrates the launch of the Scottish Literary Review special issue, ‘Queer Form in Scottish Writing’, co-edited by Zoë Strachan and Darryl Peers. The day will gently disrupt the form of the academic symposium, giving attendees plenty of opportunity to engage with the ideas and topics raised by the research gathered in the issue. It will provide a forum for interested people in and outside of the university to reflect on the intersections which may, or may not, exist between studies of sexuality and gender, and studies of the nation.

Speakers will include contributors to the special issue: Professor Timothy C. Baker (University of Aberdeen), Dr Eleanor Byrne (Manchester Metropolitan University), Dr Carole Jones (University of Edinburgh), Professor Churnjeet Mahn (University of Strathclyde), Iain Morrison (independent scholar), Professor Susannah Thompson (Glasgow School of Art), and Dr Heather H. Yeung (University of Dundee).

There will also be performances from: Mae Diansangu, writer of Bloodsongs; Colin Herd, writer of too ok and Click and Collect; Nat Raha, writer of Of Sirens, Body & Faultlines; and Peter Scalpello, writer of Limbic.

If you would like to join us for a light buffet lunch, you must register and confirm your dietary requirements by email by Tuesday 2nd July at 12 noon. Otherwise there is a café at the venue. The event is free to attend but registration is required. We encourage attendance from across the UK; funding to cover travel expenses is available (please email [email protected] with the amount required).

• Queer Nostalgia and Island Time in J. M. Barrie and Compton Mackenzie (Timothy C. Baker)
• Called Back: Reading Backwards in Ali Smith (Eleanor Byrne)
• Collapse, Demolition and Queer Landscapes (Jack Halberstam)
• ‘In spite of, to spite’: Trans Figuring in Shola von Reinhold’s LOTE (2020) (Carole Jones)
• The Uses of Queer Scottish Form (Churnjeet Mahn)
• Poems in Letters: Callie Gardner’s ‘Letteriness’ (Iain Morrison)
• ‘I Name Myself Zami’: Maud Sulter’s Queer Form (Susannah Thompson)
• The Breaks, With Morgan (Heather H. Yeung)

Copies of the journal will be available for sale on the day, price £10.

Host or Publisher ASLS