Experiments with Scottish Gothic Writing

Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio

Thursday 6th March

2 – 4 pm

The Scottish Gothic: Bloody Lament and the Female Vampire.

From blood-letting traditions in the Highlands to accounts of sanguinary consumption by Gaelic lovers whose sweethearts had been slain, we will be looking at the blooded and the bloodless in the Scottish Gothic tradition using R.L. Stevenson’s vampiric tale, Olalla, as a smeared lens – transfusing our own writing with a certain tang.

 

We will circulate some texts in advance of each session, but only minimal preparation required.  We are interested in exploring how to write through and against Scottish Gothic writing and in trying out some experiments with what Scottish Gothic writing might generate in the way of new writing, whether critical, poetic or fictional.

 

If you would like to join the writing workshop,

please email Drew Milne at <agm33@cam.ac.uk>

or just come along.   All welcome.

 

Scottish Gothic is a loose category that gestures towards a range of writing tendencies, from James Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner, through Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to Alasdair Gray’s Lanark and beyond. It takes many forms – high brow and low brow, historical and futurist – and resists tidy generalisations, but if you’d like a quick, tendentious guide, see:

<https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2009/11/scottish-gothic-towards-a-definition/>.

 

 

The drama studio is located in the basement of the Faculty of English and is accessible via the Faculty lift or a stairwell.

Please do not attend if experiencing cold-like symptoms.