It’s been fifteen years since the last fat volume of essays on contemporary Scottish writing. Only a blink of historical time, but it’s been quite an eventful period. When the chapters of Berthold Schoene’s brilliant Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Scottish Literature were being written, both the country and its debates looked rather different.
by Patricia Macdonald This is the first of a series of blogs featuring themes and participants from the book Surveying the Anthropocene: Environment and photography now, edited by Patricia Macdonald (for an introduction to the book, see Q & A blog…
by Patricia Macdonald Tell us a bit about your book… The purpose of the book is to explore the range of responses of thoughtful photographic image-makers worldwide to the current emergency times – the global situation of multiple, interconnected, environmental…
By Michael Rosie In May 2021 Scottish Affairs gave over issue 30 (2) to a discussion on the position and prospects for Gaelic language and culture in Scotland. Edited by James Oliver (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) and Iain MacKinnon (Coventry University) the special issue addressed…
by Andrew M. Jones Tell us a bit about your book The Revival of Evangelicalism: Mission and Piety in the Victorian Church of Scotland is the story of how a movement – evangelicalism – continued to influence the Church of…
In this great interview from New Books in National Security, Omar Ashour, author of How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt, talks to host Jeffrey Bristol about his work. They discuss the origin of Ashour’s study…
by Elisabeth Özdalga The core of her new book Pulpit, Mosque and Nation, author Elisabeth Özdalga explores five key aspects of Turkey’s Friday preaching. 1. A Secular State Housing Thousands of Mosques and Pulpits Every Friday, millions of Muslims all…
By Wolayat Tabasum Niroo In the northeastern provinces of Afghanistan, talented women sing folk songs to entertain each other in female-only gatherings on happy occasions. The songs are accompanied by a diara or daff, a colorful frame drum made of…
Via Discovery & Inspiration, a podcast from the National Humanities Center In this short podcast from the National Humanities Center, Alka Patel, author of Iran to India, introduces her work on the Ghurid Dynasty, and what she means when she…