Post 4 (suggested soundtrack – Felix Mendelssohn, The Hebrides Overture (“Fingal’s Cave”*) I mentioned in my first post the frequency of the ‘journey North’ motif in Scottish texts. This is particularly evident in film, both from within and outwith Scotland. English director Neil Marshall’s 2001 horror Dog Soldiers has already been cited, and the journey North is taken a stage further in his 2008 post-apocalyptic flop Doomsday (despite its many laughable qualities and adverse reviews, I rather enjoyed this – definitely a guilty pleasure). The fi

Post 3 (suggested soundtrack – The Amphetameanies, ‘The Devil Lives Upstairs’) To turn now to recent and contemporary examples of the Gothic from Scotland, the most renowned exponent must surely be Iain Banks. He is widely acknowledged as an important Gothic writer in general (for example he is included in the ‘contemporary Gothic’ chapter in the 2000 Companion to the Gothic, and takes his place on the core twentieth-century module of the M.Litt.). Although there are Gothic elements in Banks’ science fiction (written as Iain M. Banks), I want to focus on

Here's something I came across recently - proof that the association between the Highlands of Scotland and the supernatural has become so embedded that it's open to parody: For more, see http://idigcerealkillers.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html

Post 2 (suggested soundtrack – Malcolm Middleton, ‘Death Love Depression Love Death’) As I write this (5/02/09), I am trapped on Orkney. The snow has been falling since yesterday, all planes off the island are cancelled and some of the roads are shut. I’m therefore in the perfect frame of mind for discussing J.M. Barrie’s wonderful and disturbing novella Farewell Miss Julie Logan (1931). It may come as some surprise to those of you not familiar with Barrie’s whole canon that the author most famous for Kailyard tales of couthy rural Scotland and Peter Pan pe

Post 1 (*suggested soundtrack: The Phantom Band, ‘Howling’*) Greetings all, and many thanks for having me as guest blogger this month. It’s most pleasant to be back, if only in a virtual sense (I did the M.Litt back in 2001/2). I will examine the concept of Scottish Gothic over the next few weeks, as recent research has rekindled my misgivings regarding the notions of distinctiveness and even exceptionality that some previous critics have ascribed to the Gothic as manifested in Scottish texts. I would very much appreciate your thoughts on this. I propose to introduce and di