Ecology and Modern Scottish Literature

This book presents a provocative and timely reconsideration of modern Scottish literature in the light of ecological thought. Louisa Gairn demonstrates how successive generations of Scottish writers have both reflected on and contributed to the development of international ecological theory and philosophy. Provocative re-readings of works by authors including Robert Louis Stevenson, John Muir, Nan Shepherd, John Burnside, Kathleen Jamie and George Mackay Brown demonstrate the significance of ecological thought across the spectrum of Scottish literary culture. This book traces the influence of ecology as a scientific, philosophical and political concept in the work of these and other writers and in doing so presents an original outlook on Scottish literature from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. In this age of environmental crisis, Ecology and Modern Scottish Literature reveals a heritage of ecological thought which should be recognised as of vital relevance both to Scottish literary culture and to the wider field of green studies.Key features*Considers both 'canonical' and less well known Scottish writers, including Gaelic poets and mountaineering literature, Robert Louis Stevenson and John Muir, and contemporary authors Kathleen Jamie and John Burnside*The first book to consider Scottish literature in the light of ecological and green thought*Engages with a major topical issue and sets the study of Scottish writing within the broader context of international green approaches to literary studies*Encourages reflection on the links between literary studies and perspectives drawn from the disciplines of environmental history, anthropology, philosophy and cultural geography.

Louisa Gairn is a contributor to The Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Scottish Literature, ed. Berthold Schoene (Edinburgh University Press, 2007) as well as to three other essay collections.