Regional Romanticism: Dumfriesshire and Galloway, 1770-1830

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship: This fellowship advances scholarship on Scottish Romanticism by bringing a new regional emphasis to bear. It interrogates literary engagements with Dumfriesshire and Galloway during a sixty-year period. This geographical context – severely underexplored in existing research – amplifies and challenges features of the current Romantic paradigm in Scotland and further afield. This includes the significance of ‘improvement’, the Enlightenment’s doctrine of progress, which Romantic narratives of the region consistently foreground. The fellowship combines archival research and single-authored publications with a programme of events, delivered with partners from the academy and the region’s resurgent arts scene. A web presence via blogging, social media and a digital map will further sustain a meaningful dialogue with the local community as well as broader scholarly and public audiences. The fellowship illuminates a key, neglected aspect of Scottish and British literary history, leveraging a regional perspective to reconsider the cultural politics of a formative period for modern Britain.