Hamish Henderson: The Desert War, Italy, and Scottish poetry

Catalogue of library exhibition about the Scottish poet and folk musicologist Hamish Henderson (1919-2002), covering Henderson\u27s career during World War II, with the 51st Highland Division in the Western Desert and with the Italian resistance, and after the war as prize-winning poet, as political theorist and translator of Gramsci, as a champion and collector of Scottish traditional song, and as folk performer and composer. Includes information on the Henderson manuscripts in the G. Ross Roy Collection at the University of South Carolina, including drafts of his poem Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica (1948)

Scotland in European Perspective: the Mainz-Germersheim Conference Before the Referendum

Reviews the published papers on political, literary, and cultural aspects of Scottish cultural identity from a conference held at Johnannes Gutenberg University-Mainz at Germersheim, Germany, in October 2013, before the narrowly-unsuccessful Scottish Independence referendum of the following year [ Indyref ], and discusses their continuing relevance in Scottish attitudes to the upcoming United Kingdom referendum on British withdrawal from the European Union [ Brexit ]

\u27As I Walk\u27d by mysel\u27: A Burns Autograph Manuscript and the Problem of Attribution

Describes and illustrates Robert Burns\u27s autograph manuscript of the song As I walk\u27d by mysel\u27 (Kinsley 686), reviews the issues and problems in attributing manuscript songs to Burns, traces the provenance of the unique manuscript, and compares the Burns version to that published by David Herd\u27s Antient and Modern Scotish Songs (1776 etc.), concluding that the manuscript was sent by Burns to James Johnson for possible inclusion in the Scots Musical Museum, and that, while the song is not original with Burns, he may have tinkered with specific phrases to improve it

Books Noted and Received

Short reviews or brief notices of seventeen books published or received since publication of Studies in Scottish Literature, 42:1 (Spring 2016)

Adam Smith for Our Time, I: Necroeconomics

Reviews a wide-ranging new American study of the Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith (1723-1790), examining its treatment of Smith as critic and rhetorical theorist, as well as of his better-known writings on moral philosophy in his Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and economic theory in The Wealth of Nations (1776), and discusses briefly the value for Scottish cultural history of interpretative practices developed originally in other national traditions, concluding that the book is important for scholars of 18th century Scottish literature... because it approaches Smith’s work through disciplinary practices that are common enough in other literary fields but not as commonly applied in this detail to non-literary Scottish texts

\u27Minds that Move at Large\u27: A Scottish Perspective on Collegiate Literary Societies, Past and Present

This paper contrasts two kinds of literary society, based on examples from eighteenth-century Edinburgh: the ludic or playful use of rhetoric in the early 18th century Easy Club, centred on the Scottish poet Allan Ramsay (1686-1758), and the agonistic or forensic rhetoric of the later 18th century Speculative Society, especially as seen in the Scottish lawyer and reviewer Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850) and in the influential Edinburgh Review for which he wrote. The paper originated as the keynote address to Rhetor \u2786: the Convention of the National Association of Collegiate Literary Societies, held in Columbia, SC, October 10, 1986