Those Scotch Imposters and their Cabal": Ossian and the Scottish Enlightenment (original) (raw)
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The Scottish Enlightenment refers to a historical event in northern Britain between approximately 1740 and 1790 that found expression in a significant body of literature which was embedded in changing political and economic conditions, novel institutional developments such as clubs, societies and academies, and a concurrent efflorescence of associational relations and public communication comparable to what characterised the Enlightenment elsewhere in Europe. The intellectual achievement of eighteenth century Scotland was so considerable that it not only impressed contemporaries such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Immanuel Kant, but is today still regarded as having been responsible for the remarkable distinction that Scotland attained among the countries that participated in the Enlightenment.
(guest ed.) Anglistik 23:2 (2012) - Special issue on "Scottish Studies: A New Agenda for the Field"
There is no such thing as an academic discipline that represents a stable field of knowledge -on the contrary, academic disciplines always are, and arguably have to be, contested domains. To argue on similar lines, there is no such thing as an academic discipline (or indeed, an epistemological practice) that can exist in even relative isolation from the global horizon of cultural production and knowledge formation. Scottish Studies, a relatively young discipline, whose field directly intersects and partly overlaps, among others, with English, Celtic and Nordic Studies (and, through its involvement in the British Empire, with postcolonial scholarship) is no exception. And yet, it is important to acknowledge here, at the very beginning of this special issue, the specific history of this discipline, both as a contested territory, and in its changing relationship with other established or emergent disciplines -it is in fact only through an awareness of its shifting borders, and of its many fissures and tensions, and also with a memory of its past that we can gauge our present concerns and look forward. It is indeed this double intent -to engage with a critical analysis of the discipline's history and to evaluate new paths and approaches -that underlies the present collection of articles.
giornale di storia costituzionale n. 20 / II semestre 2010 journal of constitutional history n. 20 / II semester 2010 Idee e principi costituzionali dell’Illuminismo scozzese / Ideas and Constitutional Principles of the Scottish Enlightenment 5 Introduzione: la costituzione della società / Introduction: the constitution of society luca scuccimarra Fondamenti 17 Il contesto costituzionale dell’Illuminismo scozzese / The constitutional context of the Scottish Enlightenment alessandro torre Ricerche 49 Creating Space for Civil Society: Conceptual Cartography in the Scottish Enlightenment / Creare spazio per la società civile: la cartografia concettuale dell’Illuminismo scozzese christopher j. berry 61 La “struttura ecclesiastica” dello Scottish Enlightenment. Le origini dell’Illuminismo scozzese fra religione naturale e teologia razionale / The “Ecclesiastical Structure” of Scottish Enlightenment between natural religion and rational theology francesco alicino 83 Statesmanship and Scottish Jurisprudence / Arte di governo e giurisprudenza scozzese oili pulkkinen 93 Il contratto sociale nell’Illuminismo scozzese: percorsi della ricezione e della critica di un’idea moderna / The social contract in Scottish Enlightenment: paths of the reception and the criticism of a modern idea marco geuna 121 The Scottish Enlightenment’s reflection on Mixed Government / La riflessione dell’Illuminismo scozzese sul governo misto craig smith 135 The Scottish Enlightenment and public governance of the economic system / L’Illuminismo scozzese e il governo pubblico del sistema economico maria pia paganelli Itinerari 147 Libertà e Ragione: connessioni e parallelismi tra illuministi lombardi e scozzesi sulla strada della modernità / Freedom and reason: connections and parallelisms between Lombard and Scottish Enlightenment followers of the path toward modernity claudio martinelli 165 La diffusione del pensiero di Thomas Reid in Italia meridionale agli inizi dell’Ottocento / The spreading of the thought of Thomas Reid in Southern Italy at the beginnings of the Nineteenth century francesco mastroberti 175 The influence of the Scottish Enlightenment on American Constitutionalism / L’influenza dell’Illuminismo scozzese sul costituzionalismo americano iain mclean, scot m. peterson Testi & Pretesti 197 Act of Union 1707 / Atto di Unione 1707 Librido 221 Trentacinque proposte di lettura / Thirtyfive reading proposals 251 Abstracts
Scots and the (re)invention of Scotland 1
2011
In this article, I intend to concentrate on one type of process by which Scots has found new legitimation as a language, and how discourses surrounding the issue of Scots might seek to contribute to the creation of a new Scottish society. I whish to show how history is used as a legitimating discursive device by the various components of the Scots language revitalisation movement. The question of the very possibility of a history of a language is in itself particularly interesting. History itself, serving as a people’s grand narrative in the context of modern nation states, has been described by anthropologists as ‘simply a modern myth’ (Eagleton, 1991: 188). In fact, according to Woolard, “representations of the history of languages often function as Malinowskian charter myths, projecting from the present to an originary past a legitimation of contemporary power relations and interested positions” (2004: 58) Histories of languages, as socially situated narratives, can thus be seen ...