From Trocchi to Trainspotting – Scottish Critical Theory Since 1960

michael gardiner

This book charts the course of Scottish Critical Theory since the 1960s. It provocatively argues that ‘French’ critical-theoretical ideas have developed in tandem with Scottish writing during this period. Its themes can be read as a breakdown in Scottish Enlightenment thinking after empire - precisely the process which permitted the rise of 'theory'.The book places within a wider theoretical context writers such as Muriel Spark, Edwin Morgan, Ian Hamilton Finlay, James Kelman, Alexander Trocchi, Janice Galloway, Alan Warner and Irvine Welsh, as well as more recent work by Alan Riach and Pat Kane, who can be seen to take the 'post-Enlightenment' narrative forward. In doing so, it draws on the work of the Scottish thinkers John Macmurray and R.D. Laing as well as the continental philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Paul Virilio.Key Features* Engaging polemic which connects Scottish literature with critical theory and continental thinking with Scottish philosophy.* Provides a needed corrective to the 'theory-fear' which has often stopped Scotland looking at its own Enlightenment.* Offers the first book-length commentary on contemporary Scottish writers, as well as re-positioning more familiar writers such as Muriel Spark and James Kelman.

Genres

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,2006

Places

scotland,

This edition

Format: 208 pages, Paperback
Published: July 4, 2006 by Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 9780748622337
ASIN: 0748622330
Language: English

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Gilles Deleuze

Gilles Louis René Deleuze was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art....
Ian Hamilton Finlay

Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925 - 2006) was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener. He was educated at Dollar Academy and joined the British Army in 1942.At the end of the war, Finlay worked as a shepherd, before beginning to write short stories and poems...
Alexander Trocchi

Alexander Trocchi (1925 - 1984) was a Scottish novelist. He lived in Paris in the early 1950s and edited the literary magazine Merlin, which published Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, Christopher Logue and Pablo Neruda, among others. Although he was never pu...
Edwin Morgan

Edwin George Morgan OBE FRSE (1920 – 2010) was a Scottish poet and translator who was associated with the Scottish Renaissance. He is widely recognised as one of the foremost Scottish poets of the 20th century. In 1999, Morgan was made the first Glasgow P...
Muriel Spark

Dame Muriel Sarah Spark DBE, CLit, FRSE, FRSL (née Camberg; 1918 – 2006) was a Scottish novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist.Spark began writing seriously after the war, under her married name, beginning with poetry and literary criticism. In 1...
Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh

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