UCSL held a PG Symposium to coincide with its 2025 AGM (2 May, University of Stirling).

Led entirely by graduate students, this was a key opportunity for Scottish Literature PGRs to hear and present new research, and to connect socially. We heard some fantastic lightning talks and had an excellent discussion. Many thanks to Laura MacDonald and Calum Esler, PGRs at Strathclyde and Stirling, for all their work organising the day (see photos, programme and CFP below). Initial plans for a 2026 PG Symposium are in development!

Symposium Programme

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Call for Papers

The hope is that as the ‘idea of Scotland’ begins again to emerge, the parts and pieces of its literary production will be seen to belong to the same animal, and that this animal will be worth a bit of describing and investigating.

(Edwin Morgan, Nothing not Giving Messages)

As postgraduate researchers it is easy to feel isolated, as though you are not one part of a larger whole. Edwin Morgan hoped that one day the various ‘parts and pieces’ of Scotland’s literary culture might be understood as of ‘the same animal’. Universities Committee of Scottish Literature invites PGRs working on any aspect of Scottish Literature to share their research in short talks of 5-10 minutes to investigate what shape this animal is taking in the 2020s. Can our research be said to all be part of the same animal? Are we creating a grotesque amalgam like Poor Things’s Godwin Baxter? Could that be a good thing?

We invite PGRs at partner institutions of UCSL to submit proposals for a paper at our PG Symposium, held at the University of Stirling, 2-5pm on 2 May 2025. We look forward to meeting up in-person but hybrid attendance will be an option; please get in touch to arrange.

Abstracts are welcomed from any area of Scottish Literature. Papers could include, but are not limited to:

• Introductory summaries of your research
• Presentations of early stage research
• Summaries of a chapter from a larger work
• Experiments with new approaches to and directions for your research
• Short showcases of texts or themes from Scottish Literature which you feel deserve more ‘describing and investigating’

This symposium aims to support PGRs at all stages of research in sharing and developing ideas and theories in a relaxed and welcoming environment. There will also be opportunities for informal discussion, as a priority of this event is to strengthen connections between researchers through consideration of connections between our research. Prospective speakers should send a title, abstract (100-200 words), and a brief biography (~50 words) to laura.macdonald@strath.ac.uk by 7 March 14 March 2025.

Presenters will be contacted by early April 2025.

A small number of travel bursaries will be available; details to follow.