Protagonist v Antagonist – Scottish Heroes & Villains Month event
Published On Thu 9 Oct 2014 by Grant Hill
The conflict between the protagonist and antagonist in literature and history will be explored at the next event taking place as part of Scottish Heroes & Villains Month at the University of Dundee.
Professor Graeme Morton, Director of the University’s Centre for Scottish Culture, will lead the symposium, which will be held at the Baxter Suite, Tower Building, from 10am on Saturday, 11th October. In addition to Professor Morton’s plenary address ‘On Wallace’, attendees will be joined by 16 speakers from across the UK and beyond. There will also be a special JOOT Theatre Company performance of poetry from the Great War.
It is one of eight events that comprise the month-long exploration of historic and contemporary representations of good and evil, themes that Professor Morton says are long-standing features of Scottish literature and art.
“Literature thrives on conflict between a protagonist and an antagonist. Political, military and media history pits victors against failures. Art lingers on the fame and infamy of its subject matter in equal measure. But what marks out a hero or a villain? How have hallowed and maligned figures contributed to lingering national myths in Scotland and elsewhere? What is their role in the modern world?
“Scotland in particular has a long history of hero worship, often wryly so, from Blind Harry’s long and often improbable ballad ‘The Wallace’ to Hugh McMillan’s playful poem ‘The Spider’s Legend of Robert the Bruce’.
“Scotland has its villains, too. Early modern plays recount in grisly detail the story of the cannibal and mass murderer ‘Sawney’ Bean. Edinburgh city counsellor and swindler Deacon Brodie influenced Stevenson’s iconic ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ and a wave of other Gothic tales in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the infamous grave-robbers Burke and Hare similarly inspired ‘The Body-Snatcher’.”
The Centre for Scottish Culture and partner organisations are running Scottish Heroes & Villains Month throughout October. A series of academic and creative word-and-image events will explore the role and impact of real-life and fictional Scottish heroes and villains, from Wallace to Ossian, Dr Jekyll to Saltire, Scotland’s First Superhero.
The project brings together staff and students in English and Film Studies, Comics, Theatre Studies, Creative Writing, Scottish History, Archives, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design and other departments across the University, as well as Dundee Literary Festival, JOOT Theatre Company, Great War Dundee, and other local groups.
Other events set to take place include:
• 15th October – The Imaginarium of Dr George: A Student Theatre Workshop.
• 18th October – Heroes & Villains: A Creative Writing Workshop.
• 25th October – Dundee Literary Festival Bookclub Lecture: Frankenstein.
• 25th October – Comics Exhibition and Q&A on Saltire, Scotland's first superhero.
• 26th October – Heroes & Villains: A Walking Tour.
More information about Scottish Heroes & Villains Month can be found at http://dundeescottishculture.org/activities/shvm/.
For media enquiries contact:
Grant Hill
Press Officer
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: g.hill@dundee.ac.uk
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