In addition to the Ross Roy Medal, UCSL also supports and celebrates outstanding contributions to Scottish literature through the presentation of postgraduate bursaries and awards.

British Association for Romantic Studies

UCSL awarded two bursaries to support postgraduate attendance at The British Association for Romantic Studies Early Career Researcher and Postgraduate Conference, ‘Romantic Boundaries’ in 2023.

• Nick Smith (University of Exeter): ‘‘Crossing the Highland Line: Transgressive Tourisms in Romantic Scotland’
• Julianna Wagar (Simon Fraser University): ‘Reclaiming Flora MacDonald: Replacing Romantic Remediations of Flora MacDonald with Robert Forbes’ “The Lyon in Mourning”’

The BARS-USCL bursaries have also supported postgraduates and early career scholars to help fund expenses incurred through travel to Scottish libraries, archives, and universities. Previous winners of this support include:

• 2021, Gerry McKeever (University of Stirling)
• 2019, Amy Wilcockson (University of Nottingham)
• 2018, Eva-Charlotta Mebius (University College London)
• 2017, Christine Woody (University of Pennsylvania)

World Congress of Scottish Literatures

UCSL was delighted to support postgraduate attendance at the Third World Congress of Scottish Literatures in 2022 through the award of bursaries aiding attendance both online and in person.

• Lorna MacBean (University of Glasgow): ‘Peregrinations and Paratexts: The Threshold to William Lithgow’s Discourse’
• Suping Li (University of Glasgow): ‘The Poet of Love to Patriotism: The Early Reception of Robert Burns in China from 1919 – 1949’
• Amy Wilcockson (The University of Nottingham): ‘A ‘weary heap of good-for-nothing evidence’: The Letters of Thomas Campbell’

UCSL Prize for Postgraduate Research

The UCSL prize for outstanding postgraduate research was awarded to the author of the top student paper at the first World Congress of Scottish Literatures held in 2014 at the University of Glasgow.

Margaret Kolb (University of California, Berkeley) achieved the prize for her paper ‘Literary Divination’. Among the judges’ comments:

This is a truly brilliant paper on Scott, prediction and coincidence. Enviably written and casting new and refreshing light on the ‘cues and clues’ of the historical novel — equally germs of the realist novel and cousins of astrological wonderment. Operates at a consistently high (indeed, publishable) level and effectively marshals an argument bursting with suggestive insights. Outstanding work.

Arianna Introna (University of Stirling) won a position as runner-up for her paper ‘Miserablism or Dismodernism? A “Post-IndyRef” Perspective on the Representation of Disability in Violet Jacob and James Kelman’.