The Caledonian Trans Reveal with Harry Josephine Giles

An event celebrating writer and performer Harry Josephine Giles' forthcoming chapter in the Routledge Companion of Scottish Literature. Giles's chapter focuses on the recurrence of transgender figures across genres in late-twentieth century Scottish literature, from Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory (1984) to Ali Smith's Girl Meets Boy (2007), asking how these literary representations of trans identity at once reveal Scottish national anxieties and obscure trans subjectivity, writing possible futures for a Scottish nation over trans stories. A panel of speakers will respond to Giles' work, followed by roundtable discussion.

With the support of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Speakers:

Harry Josephine Giles is a writer and performer from Orkney, living in Leith. Her latest book is the poetry collection Them! (Picador 2024). Her verse novel Deep Wheel Orcadia (Picador 2021) won the 2022 Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction book of the year. Her poetry collections The Games (Out-Spoken Press, 2018) and Tonguit (Freight Books 2015) were between them shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Saltire Prize and the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Her stage show of her poetry sequence Drone toured internationally in 2019, and the performance of Deep Wheel Orcadia in 2025. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Stirling. www.harryjosephine.com

is a queer poet from Aberdeen who writes in Scots and English. Her practice is rooted in the belief that storytelling is a collaborative act, and she is particularly interested in reframing contemporary issues through the retelling of shared histories and myths. Much of her work explores themes of identity, resilience, power, transformation, and belonging. Her debut collection, Bloodsongs (Tapsalteerie), was longlisted for a 2025 Saltire Book Award.

Domenico Di Rosa is a doctoral researcher and tutor in Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow. His thesis, titled ‘Affective Kinships across Time: Queer and Trans Narratives in Modern and Contemporary Scottish Literature’ investigates Scottish writers from the beginning of the twentieth century until the 2020s who use literary techniques and devise aesthetic forms around queerness, transness and nonnormative kinships.

Moth McGowan is a queer writer, poet, and philosopher currently based at the University of Aberdeen. Her academic focus is on identity formation and the epistemology of the neurodivergent self. Their research on identifying transgender and nonbinary narratives in the operatic canon was first presented at the joint BFE/RMA research student conference (2022), and at the LGBTQ+ Music Research Group's Symposium (2022). As a poet, moth's work champions resistance and radical self-acceptance, and has been performed both locally and throughout Scotland.

With BSL interpretation by Lesley Crerar

Detailed guidance about the venue and accessibility is available here.

Tickets for online attendance are available here.

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Host or Publisher English Literature, University of Aberdeen