Edinburgh good reads: a modern Scottish literature bookshelf - Edinburgh Impact Discover Dr Gerard McKeever’s favourite Scottish classics, inspiring quotations, and what he’s reading now for pure enjoyment.

I enjoyed this unusually literary bit of marketing from my university with @mckeever.bsky.social

Call for Papers: 'Politics, Place and Print Culture: The 14th International Walter Scott Conference', @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social, 28-30 June 2027, organised by @mckeever.bsky.social & team. Deadline for proposals: 1 October 2026. Details of financial support for PGRs to follow. tinyurl.com/yt2vj4x7

The special issue of Eighteenth Century Studies on coasts is now out! If you click on the link and scroll down a bit, the very eclectic table of contents is visible. Pleased to be a part of this. #CoastalHistory #CoastalStudies 🗃️

muse.jhu.edu/issue/55889

British.

Dr Gerard McKeever - Scotch Novels YouTube video by The Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club

Recorded on 4 Sept 2025 – Dr Gerard McKeever, lecturer in modern Scottish literature at @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social, speaks about Walter Scott’s relationship with Scotland, particularly through the lens of his so-called “Scotch Novels”
#C19th #romanticism
www.youtube.com/watch?v=twvr...

Huge congrats to the wonderful @cleoocy.bsky.social who passed her viva today with no corrections!

Just watched There Will Be Blood for the first time in about ten years. Holy mackerel, what an unbelievable film. Had forgotten quite how unhinged Day-Lewis’s character is.

A man smiling beside the road sign for Pont L’Évêque

A board with very nice Pont L’Évêque cheese on it.

The Bayeux Cathedral

A boy sitting on a beach in the sun.

Went on a holiday and it was totally awesome

'It's a Killing Field': IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid IDF officers and soldiers told Haaretz they were ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near food distribution sites in Gaza, even when no threat was present. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, prompting the military prosecution to call for a review into possible war crimes

IDF soldiers have now themselves admitted they have been ordered to murder aid-seekers in Gaza.

Truly an atrocity built on atrocity.

www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

I like the Pope, the Pope says nope

The secrets are out! Great to see this years-long labour of love out in the world. The official publication date is June 28; available for pre-order on the OUP website now! global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Call for Applications: Stephen Copley Research Award
Deadline 1st June 2025

The BARS Executive Committee has established the bursaries in order to help fund research expenses up to a maximum of £500.

More information and how to apply:
www.bars.ac.uk/main/index.p...

Normalise writing a nice quick note to scholars literally every time you read and like their work. Our world is small and getting smaller. We need encouragement.

This sounds great, congrats! Can’t wait to read it.

Todorov! Structuralism and genre are a match made in heaven

3/3 Only at the very end of this rehearsal of the lore do we get to the real basis of the problems here:

Will look forward to reading that. To me, she’s one of the instances where Scott is most strongly flirting with a genuinely supernatural character, short of the White Lady of Avenel, of course.

Good stuff! Peveril of the Peak is so often laughing at rather than with Geoffrey Hudson. Think it’s my least favourite of the entire 27 novels.

Oooh sounds interesting! Can you tease a few of your primary texts?

Key lime time

Email I received from a senior colleague at Berkeley this week opened ‘Greetings from the anarcho-neofascist hellscape!’ … thoughts are with everyone in the US 🙏

It’s a butter delivery system tbh - more butter the better

A new Five Questions interview up on the BARS Blog (@bars.bsky.social) - @mckeever.bsky.social on his new monograph, Regional Romanticism: Literature and Southwest Scotland, c.1770–1830: www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=5944.

Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon: 9781594206108 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books The new novel from Thomas Pynchon Milwaukee 1932, the Great Depression going full blast, repeal of Prohibition just around the corner, Al Capone in the federal pen, the private investigation busines...

🔥🔥🔥 Some much needed good news at last!: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/316427...

It could be an April Fool but, apparently, it’s publication day for this wee book. Thanks to all at @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social for bringing it into the world!

Fellowship opportunity here at Edinburgh for unaffiliated ECRs in C19 studies. Very happy to chat to anyone who’s interested in applying.

Big news! The digital edition of Alice Thornton's four Books is now complete and online. There are 1,019 pages (c. 270,000 words) of Thornton’s life-writings in both modernised and semi-diplomatic versions and they are fully searchable.
#EarlyModern 🗃️ 📚 📜
thornton.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/posts/news/2...

Ciarárn Hinds as Karl Marx

Exactly right. There’s a view out that that universities are a tweedy self-indulgence. In reality, they’re a massive component of regional economies right across the UK and essential to any feasible vision of national economic renewal.