The Scots Imagination and Modern Memory - Softcover

Blaikie, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0748617876 ISBN 13: 9780748617876

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2013

Synopsis

Andrew Blaikie explores how different, but connected, ways of seeing infuse relationships between place and belonging. He argues that all memories, whether fleeting glimpses or elaborate narratives, invoke imagined pasts – be these of tenement life, island cultures, vanished moralities, even the origins of social science. But do these recollections share a common frame of reference? Are our perceptions conditioned by a collective social imaginary?
We see the impact of modernity on Scottish culture in visions of nation and community from the late eighteenth century on, from Adam Ferguson’s ideas on civil society through John Grierson’s pioneering of documentary film to structures of feeling in popular fiction. Landscape as the symbolic ‘face of Scotland’, with its attendant mental contours have been produced and debated in genres including travel literature, social commentary, novels and magazines, but it is the changes in how we capture and present images, particularly given recent technological changes in photography, which have affected the ways we identify and remember.
Broadly sociological in approach, the range of Blaikie’s analysis lends itself equally to those interested in social history, cultural geography and visual or memory studies.
Key Features
Analyses relationships between memory and local and national identitiesProvides interpretive connections between sociology, history, cultural geography and visual studiesContains 25 black and white illustrations and numerous case studies

About this title

About the Author

Andrew Blaikie is Professor of Historical Sociology at the University of Aberdeen. He is author of Illegitimacy, Sex and Society: Northeast Scotland, 1750-1900 (1994) and Ageing and Popular Culture (1999).

From the Back Cover

This highly original study explores how different, but connected ways of seeing infuse relationships between place and belonging. Its argument is that all memories, whether fleeting glimpses or elaborated narratives, necessarily invoke imagined pasts - tenement life, island cultures, vanished moralities, even the origins of social science. But do these multiple recollections share a common frame of reference? Are perceptions conditioned by a collective social imaginary?Visions of nation and community, from Adam Ferguson’s ideas on the development of civil society through John Grierson’s pioneering of documentary film to the structures of feeling in popular fiction, reflect the impact of modernity on Scottish culture since the late eighteenth century. While landscape as the symbolic ‘face of Scotland’ and its attendant mental contours have been produced and debated in many genres, including travel literature, social commentary, novels and magazines, changes in the means of capturing and presenting images, particularly the emergent possibilities of the photograph, have affected the ways we identify and remember. The analysis adopts a broadly sociological approach, but its range lends equal appeal to social historians, cultural geographers, and particularly those pursuing visual or memory studies.Key Features*Analyses relationships between memory and local and national identities*Interpretive connections provide links between sociology, history, cultural geography and visual studies*Contains 25 black and white illustrations and numerous case studiesAndrew Blaikie is Professor of Historical Sociology at the University of Aberdeen. His publications include Illegitimacy, Sex and Society: Northeast Scotland, 1750-1900 (1994) and Ageing and Popular Culture (1999). He is co-editor of the journal Cultural Sociology.

Edition details

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0748617876
• ISBN 13: 9780748617876
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272