Camille Manfredi – författare

This innovative collection of essays is focused on the idea of transmedialization: the ways that the traditional forms of the predominantly oral cultures of Scotland and Brittany (poetry, song and story) can be transformed by the use of hybrid forms and new digital technologies.The volume invites readers from a range of disciplines – music, art, literature, history, cultural memory studies, anthropology or media studies – to consider how an intermedial aesthetics of the edge can enable these distinctive cultures to thrive. The languages of both cultures are presently endangered and the essays seek to connect notions of language with a culture which can align its traditions with the concerns of the present day. The collection proceeds from a conceptual analysis of poetry film, peripheral vision and the concerns of peripheral communities to an examination of inventive practices in the film-poem, experimental video, film portrait, word-image, digitised music, sound-image and genre-contestant narratives. The collection also includes contributions from creative practitioners who utilize a range of hybrid forms to revitalize the traditional vernacular cultures of Scotland and Brittany.The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, literature, film studies, media studies, music, cultural theory, and philosophy.

Alasdair Gray (1934–2019) is widely recognised as a key figure in Scottish literature and culture. His work reached a new audience in 2024 due to the release of the Oscar-nominated adaptation of his novel Poor Things. In the wake of this recent attention, The Edinburgh Companion to Alasdair Gray and the Arts interrogates both Gray’s literary and visual artistic practice as well as, crucially, facilitating conversation between these forms. With chapters on his prefatory spaces, his depictions of women, his complex relationship to empire and his role as a public intellectual, it provides a historicised view of Gray’s output while also introducing fresh critical approaches. The accounts of Gray’s visual art gathered here provide new insights into his collaborative projects, including his work with fellow artists and assistants on large-scale murals like Òran Mór and the Hillhead Subway commission, as well as his mobilisation of exhibitions not only for himself but in support of contemporary and more junior artists. Featuring contributions from prominent authors, academics, artists, politicians and curators, this Companion explores Gray’s political commitments and artistic partnerships to understand how his work has been remade and reincarnated, particularly in transmedial ways.

A provisional re-mapping of Scotland's post-devolution literary culture, these fifteen essays explore how literature, theatre and visual art have both shaped and reflected the 'new Scotland' promised by parliamentary devolution. Chapters explore leading figures such as Alasdair Gray, David Greig, Kathleen Jamie and Jackie Kay, while also paying particular attention to women's writing by Kate Atkinson, A. L. Kennedy, Denise Mina, Ali Smith, Louise Welsh, and writers of colour such as Bashabi Fraser, Annie George, Tendai Huchu, Chin Li and Raman Mundair. Tracing continuities with 1990s debates alongside 'edges of the new' visible since Indyref 2014, these critics offer an in-depth study of Scotland's vibrant literary production in the period of devolution, viewed both within and beyond the frame of national representation.

A provisional re-mapping of Scotland's post-devolution literary culture, these fifteen essays explore how literature, theatre and visual art have both shaped and reflected the 'new Scotland' promised by parliamentary devolution. Chapters explore leading figures such as Alasdair Gray, David Greig, Kathleen Jamie and Jackie Kay, while also paying particular attention to women's writing by Kate Atkinson, A. L. Kennedy, Denise Mina, Ali Smith, Louise Welsh, and writers of colour such as Bashabi Fraser, Annie George, Tendai Huchu, Chin Li and Raman Mundair. Tracing continuities with 1990s debates alongside 'edges of the new' visible since Indyref 2014, these critics offer an in-depth study of Scotland's vibrant literary production in the period of devolution, viewed both within and beyond the frame of national representation.

This book examines how contemporary Scottish writers and artists revisit and reclaim nature in the political and aesthetic context of devolved Scotland.