The "Britishness" of Scotland is to take centre stage in a series of lectures as the independence debate gathers momentum, with historians, archaeologists and musicians joining in.
Glasgow University hopes the series, starting tomorrow, will attract people turned off by the economic analysis and regular political point-scoring of the Yes Scotland and Better Together campaigns in the run-up to the September 18 poll.
The Herald carries an extract from the first debate today, by historian Catriona Macdonald, challenging the traditional Whig/Jacobite analysis through the work of Andrew Lang.
The first event takes place at the university's Boyd Orr Lecture Theatre at 5.30pm and will be followed by a series looking at the constitutional question from a range of disciplines we do not normally consider during political discourse.
Professor Alan Riach will look at how literature provided a point of resistance to Anglification and Professor Lynn Abrams examines gender history.
Professor Bill Sweeney will examine the issues from the musical perspective, while Ewan Campbell and Professor Stephen Driscoll will look at the archaeological origins of Scotland. Professor Thomas Owen Clancy will look at the Celtic perspective, while Professor Murray Pittock will round the series off by looking at what happens next, whether there is a Yes or No vote.
The idea for the series of Tuesday evening lectures came from Dauvit Broun, professor of Scottish History at the university, after discussing with colleagues cultural and wider issues which never seemed to come up in political debate. "Questions about what makes for Scottish identity are not straightforward but they are fascinating and important in terms of how we approach the big decision next September," he said.
It was precisely because such cultural and identity issues pose problems for politicians that he felt a way had to be found to discuss them in a way that was not extreme, partisan or simplistic, which could not be reduced to crude soundbites.
"I suppose it was my brainwave while I was director of the Centre for Scottish and Celtic Studies and there was lots of chatting to ourselves around these issues," he said. "That was good, but rather than chatting over a pint we thought we should make an effort to put this series together and have a conversation with the public out there too."
So who might be interested enough to turn up on a Tuesday evening? "We hope it will appeal to anybody who has the time to take a serious look at some of the issues facing us on September 18.
"We think there is a demand for a whole debate, looking at issues in the round with a historical perspective."
Professor Riach's lecture on "Anglification" will touch on controversial ground given recent comments by Alasdair Gray. He will ask why the music of Vaughan Williams is still performed but that of Scot Robert Center is neglected.
"Hugh MacDiarmid in literature, and William McTaggart and JD Fergusson in the visual arts, were all fighting for the same thing, in their 'arts of resistance,'" he will argue.
Professor Sweeney will speak of how he rejected the "Sunday afternoon prison camp of Scottish Home Service accordions" and how pop music became an escape from Scottishness.
Professor Clancy will look back to Bede in 731, who saw "four nations and five languages" (one was Latin) and consider what the cultural implications might be of Britain without Scotland.
Professor Pittock's final lecture on June 10 will look at "competing national memories within the UK" and look forward to our cultural world beyond next September, whatever the result of the referendum.
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