[scots-l] scots-l-digest V1 #371
Message text written by INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Scotland: National Identity and the Politics of Culture Center for Global Education, George Mason University June 21-July 7 *How did Scotland become the quintessentially Romantic nation? What was the character of the nation before Romanticism remade it? To what extent is contemporary Scotland embracing, celebrating, or trying to live down that romantic image and heritage? *Why is the creation and consumption of the arts in Scotland always so political? Why is the issue of Scotlands languages -- who speaks what language where -- so contentious? What constitutes traditional music or Scottish theatre? Why are folk, popular and high arts so intertwined? *What forces contributed to the recent successful vote in favor of devolution and the re-creation, after nearly three hundred years, of an independent Scottish Parliament? How does contemporary Scottish nationalism help us understand the resurgent new nationalisms reshaping the politics and economies of the European Union? *How are technology and global mobility altering life in this microchip of a nation? Whos making money? Whos on the dole? Are stable nation-states of the twentieth century, like Great Britain, a thing of the past? *What are the multiple cultures that are creating 21st century Scotland? How are poets, singers, playwrights, historians, film-makers and popular novelists helping to create a new Scotland while defending the cultures of the old? Whether you want to study Scottish literature, understand the influence of nationalism on business and politics in the EU, or just enlarge your knowledge of a fascinating nation, this fifteen-day course will introduce you to the changing, the enduring, and the contested in Scottish culture. Our format will include site visits, lectures, public and private performances, and group discussions, and you will meet some of Scotlands leading poets, musicians, playwrights and scholars, as well as representatives of political parties. Excursions will include museums, galleries, castles, kirks, tenement museums, a housing estate, an underground medieval street, and a chapel where bodies of Reformation martyrs were prepared for burial. You will also tour the Trossachs area of the central Highlands, where the legend of Rob Roy is heavily promoted in one of Scotland's most beautiful landscapes. There, you'll visit the shores of Loch Lomand, take a cruise on Loch Katrine (scene of Scotts The Lady of the Lake), and, weather permitting, walk to Rob Roys birthplace. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Birlin'
Wendy, I heard you CB fiddle a bit last night. Playing last night pretty much sucked. It was as bad as Greg's session. There was a bunch of people there who frequent the City Steam session, and screw up the timing there also. It is not the hard. 1,2,3,4. As a rhythm player, I should have brought the guitar banjo, so I could be louder than them at least. I got into a discussion with Fred and Linda (or Laura-from Marlborough you sold the fiddle to) about timing and triplets and Greg, and they said that Greg's timing had improved immensely. I said basically crap, he was out of time with his own tapping foot, last time. Boy, I tell you, as soon as Mickey starts to play loud, she goes out of time too. Well, I'm off to the gym, and to my least favorite store these days. Lowe's. When I'm there it means that I have a home project going on. The insurance company says we must install a handrail on the front steps. We really do need to paint the upstairs hallway, stairway and downstairs hall. Probably the kitchen too. I hate painting. Regards to Bill. Jeff - Original Message - From: "Wendy Galovich" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 1:27 AM Subject: Re: [scots-l] Birlin' At 07:25 PM 1/13/2001 -0500, Jeri Corlew wrote: I was mostly joking about the "every now and then" bit, but I'm a long way from having mastered the technique. I figure if it feels right, I simply need more practice. This may sound weird, but I found it helped me to turn my hand so the movement was more up and down than sideways. (I noticed Harvey Tolman plays like that, and decided to try it.) It's not weird - he uses the old traditional Cape Breton way of holding the fiddle with the top nearly vertical and the instrument much more out in front of him than the standard classical hold, and that en- ables him to bow up and down rather than horizontally across the strings. It also neatly facilitates the way he uses his wrist. Many Cape Breton fiddlers play that way - John Campbell, Alex Francis MacKay, David Green- berg, to mention just a few. David and Harvey have got the most fluid wrists I've ever seen, and in spite of his huge hands, John Campbell is almost delicate in the way he handles the bow. I haven't seen Alex Francis play (maybe Toby can tell us about that), but judging from the broad variations in sound that he is able to draw from the instrument, I'd have to guess that it's similar to the others. I don't play with my hand that way most of the time, but it did help to learn the movement needed. Ah, we differ a bit there - for me adopting that bow hold was an end in itself. I made a point of learning it after getting some good advice, and seeing it used so effectively by many CB fiddlers. What I've found is that it really does make it easier to do the type of bowing called for in CB fiddling, with good deal less wear and tear on a number of joints that remind me in no uncertain terms when I batter them too much. BTW Jeri, are you in the New England area? (I'm in CT.) Wendy Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Scottish Study Tour
On Sat, 13 Jan 2001 19:09:55 -0700, Susan Tichy wrote: Rob MacKillop wrote: How about Old Worlders? - it sounds great. Anybody, everybody. For what it's worth, I'll persnally endorse Susan as being legit and good at whatever she does. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- - I am Abby Sale - in Orlando, Florida Boycott South Carolina! http://www.naacp.org/communications/press_releases/SCEconomic2.asp Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Birlin'
Wendy Galovich wrote: At 07:25 PM 1/13/2001 -0500, Jeri Corlew wrote: I was mostly joking about the "every now and then" bit, but I'm a long way from having mastered the technique. I figure if it feels right, I simply need more practice. This may sound weird, but I found it helped me to turn my hand so the movement was more up and down than sideways. (I noticed Harvey Tolman plays like that, and decided to try it.) It's not weird - he uses the old traditional Cape Breton way of holding the fiddle with the top nearly vertical and the instrument much more out in front of him than the standard classical hold, and that en- ables him to bow up and down rather than horizontally across the strings. It also neatly facilitates the way he uses his wrist. Many Cape Breton fiddlers play that way - John Campbell, Alex Francis MacKay, David Green- berg, to mention just a few. Yes, I hold my fiddle like that. Don't try to balance a marble on the top of my fiddle when I'm playing :-) It fundamentally changes the physics of how your bow draws sounds from the strings. David and Harvey have got the most fluid wrists I've ever seen, and in spite of his huge hands, John Campbell is almost delicate in the way he handles the bow. I haven't seen Alex Francis play (maybe Toby can tell us about that), but judging from the broad variations in sound that he is able to draw from the instrument, I'd have to guess that it's similar to the others. Alex Francis does some really weird stuff. His playing is unlike anyone else's currently alive on CB Island. He'll take a very stock tune out of one of the old collections and instantly apply Alex Francis-ism's to it. Then when he's done, he'll talk about how much money he hopes in win at Bingo this week. :-) Seriously, he has some very pipey left-hand stuff he does, and alot of his bowing seemed to vary in pressure at least three different places during the course of his bowstroke. I could put up a sound sample of a good clear piece of his playing if people would be interested in listening to it. He's also one of the few players left that spoke Gaelic before they spoke English. Toby Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Birlin'
Re many e-mails of the subject of "Birlin", here's my take on the subject. The birls are called "cuts" [translation from Gaelic] in Cape Breton. They are written in the Scottish books as three repeated notes, two sixteenth and one eight, [in my Irish books they are written as triplets] but in Cape Breton they are not played as written but more like two thirty-second notes followed by a dotted eight or followed by an eight and a sixteenth rest. [Someone mentioned that a classically trained player plays them differently than a fiddler; in my experience what the Classical player is doing is playing the tune exactly as written not as traditionally played.] As to execution, the arm, wrist and fingers are involved with the largest movement in the wrist with no tension present. Cape Breton fiddlers play the birls in the upper half of the bow. The specific placement of the bow on the string is a function of the bow hold. Fiddlers who grip the bow above the frog with the index finger and thumb tend to play at the tip whereas fiddlers who use a classical grip [all five digits, or at least four leaving out the pinkie, at the frog] place the bow anywhere from the middle to the tip depending on what effect they want. The desired effect is different not only from reel to reel but from strathspey to reel. The classical grip player has more control over bow weight and can lighten the natural bow pressure which exists at the middle of the bow due to bow weight but retain the more percussive sound obtainable there. On the other hand the thumb and index finger bow grip player must place the bow where the natural weight of the bow is suitable. Also because the birl occurs in strathspeys as well as reels, bow placement and accompanying effect are different for each. Almost all Cape Breton players play birls with a down-up-down bow. Up-down-up players are rare and players with both birls even rarer. The latter have distinct advantages. For example the inevitable slurring of notes which necessarily accompanies birls can be moved around or in some cases eliminated if desired, resulting in a variety of options in the playing of the tune. This is especially desirable in playing repeats; alternate bowing of the same notes making the tune sound "different" and have a pleasing effect on the ear. Some writers describe the birl as not being distinctive notes to the listener but as a sort of ripple resembling the grace notes on the pipes. I hear distinctive notes and the better the player the more distinctive they are. I am curious about the use of the birl in Scotland. Skinner in "A Guide to Bowing" describes the birl as "a feature of the best reels." David Johnson describe them as "still going strong at the present day" and yet in recordings I own they are missing, for example Ron Gonella. Also I have hand-written music notated by the leader of one of Scotland's best known Strathspey and Reel groups which included tunes composed by Dan R. Mac Donald in which the birls were eliminated. Astonishingly, one tune in particular "Trip to Windsor" had to have been copied from a commercial recording of Winston Fitzgerald because Winston's version differed from all published versions [parts of Winston's version are Mixolodian], did of course include birls, but in the notated version they were eliminated. Perhaps someone from Scotland would comment. Alexander Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] scots-l-digest V1 #371
Boy, they ask an awfy lot o questions, dae they naw? COLONEL IAN J. L. ADKINS - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Crown Malt Inspector Provost of the Village of Dunroamin Invernesshire, Scotland The Angry Scotsmen's Internet Asylum http://www.cyberhub.co.uk Blackmill Networks, Limited http://www.blackmill.net - Original Message - From: Charles Gore [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 6:50 AM Subject: [scots-l] scots-l-digest V1 #371 Message text written by INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Scotland: National Identity and the Politics of Culture Center for Global Education, George Mason University June 21-July 7 *How did Scotland become the quintessentially Romantic nation? What was the character of the nation before Romanticism remade it? To what extent is contemporary Scotland embracing, celebrating, or trying to live down that romantic image and heritage? *Why is the creation and consumption of the arts in Scotland always so political? Why is the issue of Scotland's languages -- who speaks what language where -- so contentious? What constitutes traditional music or Scottish theatre? Why are folk, popular and high arts so intertwined? *What forces contributed to the recent successful vote in favor of devolution and the re-creation, after nearly three hundred years, of an independent Scottish Parliament? How does contemporary Scottish nationalism help us understand the resurgent 'new' nationalisms reshaping the politics and economies of the European Union? *How are technology and global mobility altering life in this "microchip of a nation"? Who's making money? Who's on the dole? Are stable nation-states of the twentieth century, like Great Britain, a thing of the past? *What are the multiple cultures that are creating 21st century Scotland? How are poets, singers, playwrights, historians, film-makers and popular novelists helping to create a 'new Scotland' while defending the cultures of the old? Whether you want to study Scottish literature, understand the influence of nationalism on business and politics in the EU, or just enlarge your knowledge of a fascinating nation, this fifteen-day course will introduce you to the changing, the enduring, and the contested in Scottish culture. Our format will include site visits, lectures, public and private performances, and group discussions, and you will meet some of Scotland's leading poets, musicians, playwrights and scholars, as well as representatives of political parties. Excursions will include museums, galleries, castles, kirks, tenement museums, a housing estate, an underground medieval street, and a chapel where bodies of Reformation martyrs were prepared for burial. You will also tour the Trossachs area of the central Highlands, where the legend of Rob Roy is heavily promoted in one of Scotland's most beautiful landscapes. There, you'll visit the shores of Loch Lomand, take a cruise on Loch Katrine (scene of Scott's The Lady of the Lake), and, weather permitting, walk to Rob Roy's birthplace. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Birlin'
Happy New Year! Suzanne MacDonald asked: "Also I have hand-written music notated by the leader of one of Scotland's best known Strathspey and Reel groups which included tunes composed by Dan R. Mac Donald in which the birls were eliminated. Astonishingly, one tune in particular "Trip to Windsor" had to have been copied from a commercial recording of Winston Fitzgerald because Winston's version differed from all published versions [parts of Winston's version are Mixolodian], did of course include birls, but in the notated version they were eliminated. Perhaps someone from Scotland would comment." Commenting from Scotland, I would agree with Skinner and Johnson that the birl is an important and surviving component of fiddle music here. However, for many "refined" players and players of a "classical" background have worked to remove it from the music because 1. it is seen as something "coarse" and 2. becuase they just can't do it convincingly! Also, in fiddle ensemble playing, such as in strathspey and reel bands, the conductors have long frowned on the practice as it is impossible to get scores of fiddlers all birlin away at the same time and in the same manner. If only we could ask Scott Skinner! Well, can I offer the next best thing? I've been working on some old Skinner recordings, clearing out some of the noise so that you can hear just what he was doing and I've extracted a birl from his "The Devil in the Kitchen" and posted it as an MP3: www.sol.co.uk/w/whistlebinkies/birls/birl1.mp3 Through the wonders of modern science I also slowed the recording doen to twice the length while retaining the pitch (which is sharp of modern concert): www.sol.co.uk/w/whistlebinkies/birls/birl2.mp3 I've also posted an image of the wave pattern for the birl woth the notes attached: www.sol.co.uk/w/whistlebinkies/birls/birl1.gif The principal conclusions are: 1Skinner could certainly do it 2The birl is very fast ( 0.320 sec, approx) 3The third note is considerably longer than the first two in the proportions 1 : 1 : 3 This is a birl as part of the melody of the tune - for many fiddlers its an optional extra or ornament but I would suggest that the principal is the same. Any other thoughts and comments? Stuart Eydmann Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Birlin'
If I'm thinking correctly as to what a "birlin' " sounds like..I've head Alasdair Fraser play this ornament many times and each timeit sounds like a very fast, accurate "bow" triplet with the same "exact" number of notes ( triplet - 3 ) every time he plays it. Sometimes, serveral times in a row. This appears to be something that will take quiet a bit of hard practice to accomplish. The bow bounce seems to never have the same number of notes but does seem to have nearly the same effect. I suppose I would really have to "see" how these two are performed before I could ever work them out correctly. The written instructions help to some degree but not fully. Keith Dunn Marietta,Ga. GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Birlin'
On Sun, 14 Jan 2001 01:27:13 -0500, Wendy Galovich wrote: At 07:25 PM 1/13/2001 -0500, Jeri Corlew wrote: I don't play with my hand that way most of the time, but it did help to learn the movement needed. Ah, we differ a bit there - for me adopting that bow hold was an end in itself. I made a point of learning it after getting some good advice, and seeing it used so effectively by many CB fiddlers. What I've found is that it really does make it easier to do the type of bowing called for in CB fiddling, with good deal less wear and tear on a number of joints that remind me in no uncertain terms when I batter them too much. It's simply a different way of playing for me and I have to think about playing that way to keep doing it. I should put a bit of effort into making it a habit, as it seems a more natural movement and I have more control that way. The up-and-down motion is a lot safer in sessions, too. ;-) BTW Jeri, are you in the New England area? (I'm in CT.) I'm in New Hampshire - not too far away from you. Jeri Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Birlin'
Jeri Corlew wrote: On Sun, 14 Jan 2001 01:27:13 -0500, Wendy Galovich wrote: At 07:25 PM 1/13/2001 -0500, Jeri Corlew wrote: I don't play with my hand that way most of the time, but it did help to learn the movement needed. Ah, we differ a bit there - for me adopting that bow hold was an end in itself. I made a point of learning it after getting some good advice, and seeing it used so effectively by many CB fiddlers. What I've found is that it really does make it easier to do the type of bowing called for in CB fiddling, with good deal less wear and tear on a number of joints that remind me in no uncertain terms when I batter them too much. It's simply a different way of playing for me and I have to think about playing that way to keep doing it. I should put a bit of effort into making it a habit, as it seems a more natural movement and I have more control that way. The up-and-down motion is a lot safer in sessions, too. ;-) Keep in mind that playing with the fiddle tilted, fundamentally changes some things about the sound of the instrument and it does make it more difficult to do certain things, like for instance playing in the upper positions. Not that you can't do it, but I find shifting positions more difficult with the sideways fiddle tilt. So as with any other choice, it's a matter of compromise. I personally decided to start playing that way about 4 years ago because, for the specific things that I wanted to try to accomplish, that choice made it that much easier. Toby Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Birlin'
Derek Hoy wrote that Tommy Peoples "has a particular technique, which looks like he is flicking the pinkie of his bow hand." That is exactly what a piper does in a birl. The little finger of the right hand flicks over the bottom hole-between G and A. As he also said, it is one movement, not three. I never realized that some notes in piping have to be ornamented to be heard. Once the bag is filled, air comes out and cannot be stopped by tonguing as with other wind instruments. So to make a repeated note, like A, A, there has to be another note in between - hence the birl. Of course, sometimes ornaments are just for pleasure as well. Birls are easier on the pipes than on the fiddle, but _good_ birls are difficult on both. Jan Lane - Original Message - From: "Derek Hoy" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2001 10:49 PM Subject: Re: [scots-l] Birlin' Different styles do these differently- basically wee bowed triplets on the one note. Some folks like them nice and neat- 3 clear notes. As Toby mentioned, Tommy Peoples is famous for his- they're like electrical crackles. He has a particular technique, which looks like he is flicking the pinkie of his bow hand, but I think this is just something he puts in for effect when folks are watching :) The sound is more to do with having a tight bow and using more pressure than most players. But he's spent a lifetime perfecting it. The old Shetland players had more of a 'crunch'- you couldn't really hear a triplet at all. Scottish players generally like to get them nice and crisp, so you hardly hear the notes. It's the rhythm that's important. It's one of these things that's hard to learn when you just play/think of it as 3 bits. It needs to become one movement. Derek Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Birlin'
Almost all Cape Breton players play birls with a down-up-down bow. I've always played this ornament up-down-up but recently have been making an effort to learn the reverse, for pretty much the same reasons you listed above. I didn't realize the CB fiddlers played this ornament down-up-down, but now I understand why I was having trouble with certain tunes I've encountered! I'm curious though, does anyone know WHY the CB players play the birl this way, and not the reverse? Tradition, or is there some technical reason? I would guess it's because they prefer to have a downbow happening on the beat (think how in "Brenda Stubbert's Reel" the cuts strongly start out so many measures), which makes for stronger dance music. Then after that it becomes a habit. BTW cuts do happen on offbeats in reels such as "Molly Rankin's," so it would be interesting to take a survey of how fiddlers bow that one. - Kate D. -- Kate Dunlay David Greenberg Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada http://www.total.net/~dungreen Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Birlin'
Stuart Eydman said regarding his scientific analysis of Scott Skinner's birling technique as heard on one of his recordings: The principal conclusions are: 1Skinner could certainly do it 2The birl is very fast ( 0.320 sec, approx) 3The third note is considerably longer than the first two in the proportions 1 : 1 : 3 This analysis coincides completely with the Cape Breton birl which is described in my earlier e-mail today, i.e. two thirty-second notes followed by a dotted eight, 1: 1: 3, not two sixteenth notes followed by an eight or 1: 1: 2 as it is written. I can also appreciate the difficulty you refer to in getting a large group to play birls together. Many thanks for responding to my query. Alexander Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] forward: Subject: Orkney fiddling
Can anyone help this person. Email her directly. Thanks. -Original Message- From: aleder [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, January 05, 2001 9:04 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Orkney fiddling Hello: I am a Canadian fiddler and researcher who has done a fair amount of work on old Metis fiddling in Canada - mixed French, Native Indian and Scottish. I know that some of the influence in this music comes from the 19th century fiddle traditions of the Orkney Islands and would like to explore this as much as possible. Could you suggest any resources or people to contact who are knowledgeable on old Orkney Islands repertoire and dances? Are there any printed collections of Orkney Islands music, especially older repertoire? Any help you can give me in this area would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much. Anne Lederman Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] scots-l-digest V1 #371
Awricht, here's whit A say -- Feck th lot o they dunderheids an their stupit spiers, th answer's obvious tha we ur whit we ur an thare's nae uise in dissectin it acause ye canna dae a better job gin ye tried! We ur Scots, an tha's aw tha needs fer tae be said aboot it. Noo back tae birlin innat! :) COLONEL IAN J. L. ADKINS - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Crown Malt Inspector Provost of the Village of Dunroamin Invernesshire, Scotland The Angry Scotsmen's Internet Asylum http://www.cyberhub.co.uk Blackmill Networks, Limited http://www.blackmill.net - Original Message - From: Susan Tichy [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 11:33 PM Subject: Re: [scots-l] scots-l-digest V1 #371 ...and it would save us a lot of time and money if you'd just answer them! ;-) Ian Adkins wrote: Boy, they ask an awfy lot o questions, dae they naw? COLONEL IAN J. L. ADKINS - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Crown Malt Inspector Provost of the Village of Dunroamin Invernesshire, Scotland The Angry Scotsmen's Internet Asylum http://www.cyberhub.co.uk Blackmill Networks, Limited http://www.blackmill.net - Original Message - From: Charles Gore [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 6:50 AM Subject: [scots-l] scots-l-digest V1 #371 Message text written by INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Scotland: National Identity and the Politics of Culture Center for Global Education, George Mason University June 21-July 7 *How did Scotland become the quintessentially Romantic nation? What was the character of the nation before Romanticism remade it? To what extent is contemporary Scotland embracing, celebrating, or trying to live down that romantic image and heritage? *Why is the creation and consumption of the arts in Scotland always so political? Why is the issue of Scotland's languages -- who speaks what language where -- so contentious? What constitutes traditional music or Scottish theatre? Why are folk, popular and high arts so intertwined? *What forces contributed to the recent successful vote in favor of devolution and the re-creation, after nearly three hundred years, of an independent Scottish Parliament? How does contemporary Scottish nationalism help us understand the resurgent 'new' nationalisms reshaping the politics and economies of the European Union? *How are technology and global mobility altering life in this "microchip of a nation"? Who's making money? Who's on the dole? Are stable nation-states of the twentieth century, like Great Britain, a thing of the past? *What are the multiple cultures that are creating 21st century Scotland? How are poets, singers, playwrights, historians, film-makers and popular novelists helping to create a 'new Scotland' while defending the cultures of the old? Whether you want to study Scottish literature, understand the influence of nationalism on business and politics in the EU, or just enlarge your knowledge of a fascinating nation, this fifteen-day course will introduce you to the changing, the enduring, and the contested in Scottish culture. Our format will include site visits, lectures, public and private performances, and group discussions, and you will meet some of Scotland's leading poets, musicians, playwrights and scholars, as well as representatives of political parties. Excursions will include museums, galleries, castles, kirks, tenement museums, a housing estate, an underground medieval street, and a chapel where bodies of Reformation martyrs were prepared for burial. You will also tour the Trossachs area of the central Highlands, where the legend of Rob Roy is heavily promoted in one of Scotland's most beautiful landscapes. There, you'll visit the shores of Loch Lomand, take a cruise on Loch Katrine (scene of Scott's The Lady of the Lake), and, weather permitting, walk to Rob Roy's
