I write mainly about Scottish literature and cultural politics, with a focus on the era of devolution (1967-present). I did my PhD at the University of Aberdeen, on the literary politics of James Kelman. My wider teaching and research interests lie in modern periodical studies, Anglophone vernacular writing, critical theory, and contemporary literature and politics. I'm currently Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and Chair of the Universities Commitee for Scottish Literature.
My monograph on The Literary Politics of Scottish Devolution: Voice, Class, Nation was published in 2020. It's a cultural history and critique of devolution, focused on the role of writers, critics, magazines and intellectuals, and was described by reviewers as 'an outstanding critical tour-de-force' (Review of English Studies) and 'one of the most original and arresting studies of our political culture written for 10 years’ (Herald). I also edited the Edinburgh Companion to James Kelman, Unstated: Writers on Scottish Independence and (with Marie-Odile Pittin-Hedon and Camille Manfredi) Scottish Writing After Devolution: Edges of the New. With Maria Daniella-Dick and Alex Thomson, I edit the book series Engagements with Modern Scottish Culture for Edinburgh University Press.
I lead the Scottish Magazines Network, an AHRC research network partnered with the National Library of Scotland (CI: Malcolm Petrie, St Andrews). The network brings together scholars of Scottish literature, history, politics and publishing to study independent magazine culture of the post-1960s period. Our events and publications aim to stimulate new public interest in these cultural and political magazines, and their role in shaping the Scotland of today. Ultimately, we hope to digitise a range of these magazines and restore them to public circulation. For news and details, see the project website or @ScotMagsNet. An edited volume based on the project (co-edited with Eleanor Bell and Malcolm Petrie) is currently in preparation.
I set up the Stirling Magazines and Periodicals Research Group and am active with the Stirling Scottish Studies Network. My ongoing interests in Scottish cultural and political magazines follow on from a research project on 'Narrating Scottish Devolution: Literature, Politics and the Culturalist Paradigm', which led to this Guardian podcast.
With Professor Maria Fusco (Northumbria; PI), I ran an AHRC Research Network on 'De-Localising Dialect', exploring new creative and critical practices for and about vernacular language art. Over three workshops held in 2019, we established an original research agenda to place ‘dialect’ and its debates at the centre of critical attention in the nexus of art, literature and sociolinguistics.
I've published articles and chapters on James Kelman (and masculinity, existentialism, canonicity, inner-speech, vernacular aesthetics), Alistair MacLeod, William McIlvanney, Alice Munro, Andrew O'Hagan, Don Paterson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alan Warner, Irvine Welsh, Scottish novels of education, vernacular fetishism, the Indyref novel, Scotland's political print-culture, ‘theory’ and cultural nationalism. I have work in progress on James Kelman, and am developing a project on Tom Nairn and literary style. With Eleanor Bell and Ian Duncan I co-founded and co-edited the International Journal of Scottish Literature, and I also maintain an online bibliography of James Kelman criticism.
Occasionally I write for the New Statesman on topics related to my research, and other pieces of cultural and political commentary can be found here.
PhD Supervisees
Current:
Irina Nakonechna - Scottish identity and diasporic literature, 1960-present
Neil Conway - The Melancholic Solitary in Modern Scottish Poetry [second supervisor]
Completed:
Maike Dinger - A myth of popular participation? Discourse and the politics of representation in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum (AHRC-funded; co-supervised with Michael Higgins at Strathclyde, completed 2024)
Alice Doyle - Archive and Narrative in the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum (AHRC-funded; CDP with the National Library of Scotland, completed 2021)
Felix Flores Varona - Remapping Scotland's Literary Influence: José Martí and the (In)Visible Transatlantic Connection (completed 2021)
Mairi A. MacLeod - The Metaphysical Landscapes of Neil M. Gunn (completed 2020)
Harry Josephine Giles (co-supervised with Kathleen Jamie) - Scrievan Orkney's Future: Marginal Language and Speculative Poetries (AHRC-funded; completed 2020)
Arianna Introna - Crip Antagonisms: Autonomist Narratives of Disability in Scottish Writing (AHRC-funded; completed 2018)
Meghan McAvoy - A Critique of Scottish Literary Nationalism (completed 2015)
Neil Syme - The Modern Uncanny: Textuality and Tradition in Post-1970s Scottish Fiction (completed 2014)
Thomas Christie - Ideology, Genre and National Identity in Popular Scottish Fiction, 1975-2006 (completed 2012)
I welcome PhD proposals relating to any of the research areas above.
Main research interests in modern Scottish literature and cultural politics (especially magazines, James Kelman, Scottish devolution, politics of language and identity); contemporary fiction and criticism; Anglophone vernacular writing; modernism and critical theory.
Scottish Magazines Network: New Research Directions and Partnerships
PI: Dr Scott Hames
Funded by: Arts and Humanities Research Council
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De-localising Dialect
PI: Dr Scott Hames
Funded by: Arts and Humanities Research Council
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Narrating Scottish Devolution: Literature, Politics and the Culturalist Paradigm
PI: Dr Scott Hames
Funded by: The British Academy
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Book Chapter
Hames S (2024) Interview with James Kelman [shown in Kelman's book as 'Interview by Scott Hames']. In: All We Have Is the Story: Selected Interviews 1973-2022. Oakland, California: PM Press, pp. 242-73. https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1506
Edited Book
Scottish Writing After Devolution: Edges of the New
Pittin-Hédon M, Manfredi C & Hames S (eds.) (2022) Scottish Writing After Devolution: Edges of the New. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-scottish-writing-after-devolution.html
Book Chapter
Democracy and the Indyref Novel
Hames S (2022) Democracy and the Indyref Novel. In: Pittin-Hédon M, Manfredi C & Hames S (eds.) Scottish Writing After Devolution: Edges of the New. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-scottish-writing-after-devolution.html
Book Chapter
Hames S, Pittin-Hédon M & Manfredi C (2022) Introduction . In: Scottish Writing After Devolution: Edges of the New. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 1-16. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-scottish-writing-after-devolution.html
Article
James Kelman and Everyone Else
Hames S (2022) James Kelman and Everyone Else. Honest Ulsterman, (February 2022). https://humag.co/features/scott-hames
Newspaper / Magazine
Spitfire Britain and the Zombie Union
Hames S (2020) Spitfire Britain and the Zombie Union. The Drouth. 10.2020.
Book Chapter
Twin Tracks: Cultural and Political Nationalism after 1967
Hames S (2020) Twin Tracks: Cultural and Political Nationalism after 1967. In: Keating M & McAngus C (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Scottish Politics. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-scottish-politics-9780198825098?q=Handbook%20of%20Scottish%20Politics&lang=en&cc=gb
Website Content
James Kelman - Annotated Bibliography
Hames S (2019) James Kelman - Annotated Bibliography. [Online bibliography] 26.11.2019. https://doi.org/10.1093/OBO/9780199846719-0162
Monograph
The Literary Politics of Scottish Devolution: Voice, Class, Nation
Hames S (2019) The Literary Politics of Scottish Devolution: Voice, Class, Nation. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-literary-politics-of-scottish-devolution.html
Article
On Snottery Weans Forever: Against Dreichism
Hames S (2018) On Snottery Weans Forever: Against Dreichism. Irish Pages, 10 (1), pp. 72-82. https://irishpages.org/
Article
Narrating Devolution: Politics and/as Scottish Fiction
Hames S (2017) Narrating Devolution: Politics and/as Scottish Fiction. C21 Literature: Journal of 21st Century Writings, 5 (2), Art. No.: 2. https://doi.org/10.16995/c21.20
Article
Lucky Thinker: An Interview with Tom Nairn
Hames S & Storrar W (2016) Lucky Thinker: An Interview with Tom Nairn. Scottish Affairs, 25 (4), pp. 436-450. https://doi.org/10.3366/scot.2016.0151
Edited Proceedings
If Scotland.... Conjecturing 2014
Hames S & Hunter A (eds.) (2016) If Scotland.... Conjecturing 2014. Journal of Scottish Thought, Volume 8. If Scotland: Posting 2014, 23.08.2014-24.08.2014. University of Stirling: AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen. https://www.store.abdn.ac.uk/product-catalogue/publications/research-institute-of-irish-and-scottish-studies/journal-of-scottish-thought-volume-8
Book Chapter
‘Maybe singing into yourself’: James Kelman, Inner Speech and Vocal Communion
Hames S (2016) ‘Maybe singing into yourself’: James Kelman, Inner Speech and Vocal Communion. In: Lyall S (ed.) Community in Modern Scottish Literature. Scottish Cultural Review of Language and Literature, 25. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, pp. 196-213. http://www.brill.com/products/book/community-modern-scottish-literature
Other
Nobody's Dream: Stories of Scottish Devolution
Hames S (2016) Nobody's Dream: Stories of Scottish Devolution. [Audio podcast] 02.2016. https://stirlingcentrescottishstudies.wordpress.com/2016/02/26/nobodys-dream-stories-of-scottish-devolution/
Book Chapter
Hames S (2016) The New Scottish Renaissance?. In: Boxall P & Cheyette B (eds.) The Oxford History of the Novel in English: Volume 7, British and Irish Fiction Since 1940. Oxford History of the Novel in English, 7. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-history-of-the-novel-in-english-9780198749394?cc=gb〈=en&
Other
Saving the Union to Death? Gordon Brown and the Evacuation of Britishness
Hames S (2015) Saving the Union to Death? Gordon Brown and the Evacuation of Britishness. The Drouth, (53), pp. 6-16. https://issuu.com/drouth/docs/scott_hames_saving_the_union_to_dea/7?e=10523491/32050210
Book Chapter
The 'Settlers and Colonists' Affair
Hames S (2014) The 'Settlers and Colonists' Affair. In: Manfredi C (ed.) Alasdair Gray: Ink for Worlds. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 73-104. http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137401779
Conference Paper (published)
Scottish Literature, Devolution, and the Fetish of Representation
Hames S (2014) Scottish Literature, Devolution, and the Fetish of Representation. In: MLA 2014, Chicago, 09.01.2014-12.01.2014. Association of Scottish Literary Studies. https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2014/03/scottish-literature-devolution-and-the-fetish-of-representation/
Book Chapter
Hames S (2013) Realism and Romance. In: McCracken-Flesher C (ed.) Approaches to Teaching the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson. MLA Approaches to Teaching World Literature, 124. New York: Modern Language Association, pp. 61-68. http://www.mla.org/store/PID449
Article
On Vernacular Scottishness and its Limits: Devolution and the Spectacle of 'Voice'
Hames S (2013) On Vernacular Scottishness and its Limits: Devolution and the Spectacle of 'Voice'. Studies in Scottish Literature, 39 (1), pp. 201-222, Art. No.: 16. http://scholarcommons.sc.edu/ssl/vol39/iss1/16/
Edited Book
Unstated: Writers on Scottish Independence
Hames S (ed.) (2012) Unstated: Writers on Scottish Independence. Edinburgh: Word Power. http://www.word-power.co.uk/books/unstated-I9780956628398/
Book Chapter
Introduction: Don't Feel Bought, You're Buying
Hames S (2012) Introduction: Don't Feel Bought, You're Buying. In: Hames S (ed.) Unstated: Writers on Scottish Independence. Edinburgh: Word Power Books, pp. 1-18. http://www.word-power.co.uk/books/unstated-I9780956628398/
Article
Diasporic Narcissism: De-sublimating Scotland in Alice Munro and Alistair MacLeod
Hames S (2012) Diasporic Narcissism: De-sublimating Scotland in Alice Munro and Alistair MacLeod. Anglistik, 23 (2), pp. 73-82. http://www.anglistenverband.de/publikationen/anglistik
Article
A Box of Toys: Robert Louis Stevenson and Andrew O'Hagan
Hames S (2010) A Box of Toys: Robert Louis Stevenson and Andrew O'Hagan. Edinburgh Review, 130, pp. 132-141. https://edinburgh-review.com/back-issues/issue-130-wynd/
Book Chapter
Hames S (2010) Alan Warner. In: Shaffer B (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction. Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 374-376. http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405192445.html
Edited Book
The Edinburgh Companion to James Kelman
Hames S (ed.) (2010) The Edinburgh Companion to James Kelman. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. http://www.euppublishing.com/book/9780748639649
Book Chapter
Hames S (2010) Kelman's Art-Speech. In: Hames S (ed.) The Edinburgh Companion to James Kelman. Edinburgh Companions to Scottish Literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 86-98. http://www.euppublishing.com/book/9780748639649
Article
Eyeless in Glasgow: James Kelman's Existential Milton
Hames S (2009) Eyeless in Glasgow: James Kelman's Existential Milton. Contemporary Literature, 50 (3), pp. 496-527. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/contemporary_literature/v050/50.3.hames.html; https://doi.org/10.1353/cli.0.0073
Book Review
Culture, nation and the new Scottish parliament
Hames S (2008) Culture, nation and the new Scottish parliament. Review of: Culture, Nation, and the New Scottish Parliament, Caroline McCracken-Flesher ed. Lewisburg, PA, Bucknell University Press, 2007, 279pp. 083875547X. Victorian Studies, 50 (3), pp. 519-521. https://doi.org/10.2979/VIC.2008.50.3.519
Article
Theory and Scottish Exceptionalism
Hames S (2007) Theory and Scottish Exceptionalism. International Journal of Scottish Literature, (3). http://www.ijsl.stir.ac.uk/issue3/editorial.htm
Article
Dogged Masculinities: Male Subjectivity and Socialist Despair in Kelman and McIlvanney
Hames S (2007) Dogged Masculinities: Male Subjectivity and Socialist Despair in Kelman and McIlvanney. Scottish Studies Review, 8 (1), pp. 67-87. http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ScotLit/ASLS/SSR.html
Book Chapter
Don Paterson and Poetic Autonomy
Hames S (2007) Don Paterson and Poetic Autonomy. In: Schoene B (ed.) The Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Scottish Literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 245-254. http://www.eupjournals.com/book/9780748623969
Book Chapter
Fightin' Dominies and Form: Politics and Narrative in Some Modern Scottish Novels of Education
Hames S (2004) Fightin' Dominies and Form: Politics and Narrative in Some Modern Scottish Novels of Education. In: Alexander N, Murphy S & Oakman A (eds.) To the Other Shore: Cross-currents in Irish and Scottish Studies. Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics. Belfast: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona (Queen's University Belfast Press), pp. 56-68. http://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/COB/Publications/BelfastStudiesinLanguageCultureandPolitics/
At undergraduate level, my teaching tends to focus on our second-year modules 'Writing and Theory' and 'Writing and History: Scotland and Empire'. I also co-teach option modules on 'Rotten English: Voicing Difference' (on literature in non-standard language), 'Talking on Paper: The Essay as Literature' and 'Scottish Literature'. I contribute to various other modules, including 'Introduction to Literary Studies', 'Literary Revolutions', and a few sessions on the MLitt in Creative Writing.
