The Scottish Universities'
International Summer School

Text and Context Course

Modernism British and Irish literature 1900-1950 9th-21st July 2012 Scottish Literature Scottish literature 1900-present 23rd July-4th August 2012 Contemporary Literature British and Irish literature 1960-present 6th-18th August 2012 To find out more about the content of these courses, please check out our reading list and the lecture programme.

Patricia Waugh gives a lecture on Postmodernism in 2009

Please click here to download the 2012 application form for the Text and Context course.

Our programme provides a comprehensive interdisciplinary course covering the period 1900 to the present, examining literature in Britain and Ireland in the context of the major changes and developments in British society and culture during the twentieth and twenty-first century. The dynamic and varied character of more than a hundred years of British and Irish literature is examined from the standpoints of Scottish, English, Irish and Postcolonial texts, taking into account recent developments in literary theory. Guest speakers of established scholarly reputation give daily lectures on major authors and critical developments.

Teaching

The course consists of a carefully planned programme of lectures and seminars. Speakers in the past have included such distinguished figures as David Daiches, Cairns Craig, Arthur Marwick, Toril Moi, Christopher Harvie, Catherine Belsey, Randall Stevenson, Angela Smith and Brian McHale. Recent lecturers have included the distinguished American academic Elaine Showalter, Terry Eagleton, one of the most influential critics at work in Britain today, the University of Oxford's Goldsmith's Professor Laura Marcus, Muriel Spark's biographer Martin Stannard, the preeminent T.S. Eliot scholar Lawrence Rainey and Patricia Waugh, one of the leading experts in post-modernist literary theory.

Terry Eagleton chats to SUISS students

Students are encouraged to approach lecturers to discuss the lectures, and ideas for their own work.

The central component of the School's teaching programme is the seminar, in which students discuss literary and critical texts with their assigned tutor. Tuition is intensive, with groups meeting four to five times each week for two hours per session. SUISS tutors are all experienced in University teaching and are experts in their field. Tutors are happy to offer advice to students on their own research. The course provides 34 hours of teaching contact hours per module (lectures + seminars). Additional consultancy periods with tutors can also be arranged as required.

International Symposium

Postgraduate students wishing to give a short paper on aspects of their own work and researchare requested to inform the Directors on their arrival in Edinburgh, or by e-mail beforehand: suissdir@ed.ac.uk

At SUISS 2010 one student-led seminars was held on August 13 in which many postgraduate students presented papers. You can read their contributions here.

SUISS Scholars Around the World

In 2010, Edinburgh University Press has published The Correspondence Between Hugh MacDiarmid and Sorley MacLean: an Annotated Edition by Susan Wilson from Canada, who was a student at SUISS in 2005.