Association for Scottish Literary Studies

ASLS logo

The Association for Scottish Literary Studies (ASLS) is a Scottish educational charity,^[1] founded in 1970 to promote and support the teaching, study and writing of Scottish literature. Its founding members included the Scottish literary scholar Matthew McDiarmid (1914–1996). Originally based at the University of Aberdeen, it moved to its current home within the University of Glasgow in 1996.

ASLS's main field of activity is publishing, and the Association is a member of Publishing Scotland.^[2]

Publications

Periodicals

ASLS produces periodicals, including Scottish Literary Review (formerly Scottish Studies Review), a peer reviewed journal of Scottish literature and cultural studies; Scottish Language, a peer reviewed journal of Scottish languages and linguistics; The International Journal of Scottish Literature, a free online peer reviewed journal; and The Bottle Imp, a free online ezine (named after the short story by Robert Louis Stevenson). From June 2013, Scottish Literary Review has been included in Project MUSE's Premium Collection of journals.^[3]

Books

Annual Volumes

Since 1971 ASLS has republished a number of out of print Scottish texts in their Annual Volumes series (43 volumes by 2014). Titles in the series include reprints of 18th- and 19th-century fiction, anthologies of Scottish drama, editions of poetry and collections of other writings. Two ASLS Annual Volumes have won Saltire Society Research Book of the Year awards: The Poems of William Dunbar, edited by Priscilla Bawcutt (1998), and Sorley MacLean's Dàin do Eimhir, edited by Christopher Whyte (2002).^[4]

New Writing Scotland

Since its first issue in 1983, many contemporary Scottish writers have had early work published in ASLS's annual anthology of new short fiction and poetry, New Writing Scotland, including Leila Aboulela,^[5] Lin Anderson,^[6] Iain Banks,^[7] Anne Donovan,^[8] Janice Galloway,^[9] A L Kennedy,^[10] James Meek,^[11] Ian Rankin,^[12] James Robertson,^[13] Suhayl Saadi,^[14] Chiew-Siah Tei,^[15] Irvine Welsh,^[16] and others. New Writing Scotland is part-funded by Creative Scotland.

Occasional Papers

The ASLS Occasional Papers series publishes essays and monographs on Scottish literary and linguistic topics, often based on papers presented at ASLS conferences. The most recent edition in this series, number 20, is entitled Gael and Lowlander in Scottish Literature.^[17]

Scotnotes

ASLS publishes the Scotnotes series of study guides to Scottish writers and their literary works. There are currently thirty-four titles in this series, on authors ranging from late medieval poets such as William Dunbar and Robert Henryson to contemporary writers such as Iain Banks, Liz Lochhead and Ian Rankin.^[18]

Other titles

In May 2010, in partnership with the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park, ASLS published an illustrated edition of Sir Walter Scott's narrative poem The Lady of the Lake, to mark the 200th anniversary of the original publication.^[19]

In June 2011, with financial support from the Gaelic Books Council, ASLS published a new edition of Sorley MacLean's An Cuilithionn/The Cuillin.^[20]

In February 2013, ASLS hosted the inaugural Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship, set up by Creative Scotland "to enable a writer to take time out of their usual environment to embark upon a year-long literary adventure to develop their practice".^[21] Kirsty Logan was selected to be the first recipient of the Fellowship,^[22] and on 10 August 2015 ASLS published her collection of short stories A Portable Shelter.^[23]

Exhibitions

Since 2004, ASLS has mounted the Scottish Writing Exhibition at the Modern Language Association of America's annual conventions in the USA, most recently in Vancouver in January 2015,^[24] and plans to attend the 2016 event in Austin, Texas. In August 2008 the Scottish Writing Exhibition was on display at the biannual European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) conference in Aarhus in Denmark.

Presidents

A number of literary scholars have held the presidency of the ASLS:

• John MacQueen (1970–1973)
• Tom Dunn (1973–1976)
• Alexander Scott (1976–1979)
• David Daiches^[25] (1979–1984)
• Tom Crawford (1984–1989)
• Maurice Lindsay^[26] (1989–1993)
• John Blackburn (1993–1994)
• David Robb (1994–1998)
• Dorothy McMillan (1998–2002)
• Alan MacGillivray (2002–2006)
• Alan Riach (2006–2010)
• Ian Brown (2010–2015)
• Alison Lumsden (2015–)

Awards

To date, two ASLS Annual Volumes have won Saltire Society Research Book of the Year awards: The Poems of William Dunbar, edited by Priscilla Bawcutt (1998); and Sorley MacLean's Dàin do Eimhir, edited by Christopher Whyte (2002).^[27]

In 2011, the ASLS's edition of Sorley MacLean's An Cuilithionn/The Cuillin was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year award.^[28]

Also in 2011, along with VisitScotland and the University of Glasgow, the ASLS co-produced Literary Scotland: A Traveller's Guide.^[29] In October 2011, this publication won the Chartered Institute of Public Relations Scotland Gold Award for Best Publication.^[30]

See also

• Scottish literature

References

External links

• Association for Scottish Literary Studies
• Association for Scottish Literary Studies, Registered Charity no. SC006535 at the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator
• Scottish Writing Exhibition
• The International Journal of Scottish Literature
• The Bottle Imp ezine