International Review of Scottish Studies
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Women, Gender, and the Kirk Before the Covenant
No full textThis article explores the ways women interacted with the Scottish kirk in the decades prior to the National Covenant of 1638, mainly focusing on urban areas especially Edinburgh and environs. The written records, especially those of the kirk session, are skewed toward punishing women who engaged in sin, especially sexual sins such as adultery and fornication. Indeed, these records show that while women’s behavior and speech was highly restricted and women were punished more frequently than men for their sexual behavior or for speaking out of turn, there were moments when women had a significant public voice, albeit one that was highly restricted and required male sanctioning. For example, women were often called on to testify before kirk sessions against those who had committed sins, even if the accused sinners were male or social superiors or both. Perhaps the most important moment where women used their male-sanctioned voice to speak out in public came at the Edinburgh Prayer Book Riots of 1637, which was led by women. This article argues that women were given the opportunity to act in public because the church had been characterized by many Scottish male preachers in gendered language – they called the church a “harlot mother” and a “whore” that needed correction. Therefore, the women of the Prayer Book Riot were sanctioned to speak out against a licentious sinner, much in the way women were called on to testify against sinners in front of kirk sessions
Egypt, Empire, and the Gaelic Literary Imagination
No full textThis article presents an edition, translation, and analysis of a Scottish Gaelic song by the Reverend Seumas MacLagain [James McLagan] (1728-1805) about the battle of Alexandria of 1801. This text, which has not received any previous scholarly attention, is a rare illustration of an attempt of a member of the Gaelic intelligentsia to re-frame Gaelic identity and history so as to reconcile them with the agenda of British imperialism. While largely unmentioned in analysis of Gaelic Scotland, the victory in Egypt was a crucial moment that was used by McLagan and others to draw the Gaidhealtachd into a British sphere more completely than ever before. By exploring the motifs, formulas, and devices used by McLagan in his song, and contrasting them with other Gaelic and pan-British approaches to the victory in Egypt, this article challenges assumptions about the nature of Gaelic military song in this era and suggests the importance of British imperialism to the Gaelic literary imagination in the early nineteenth century
Esther Barbara Chalmers\u27s Scottish International Lives
No full textThe archive compiled by Esther Barbara Chalmers (1894-1983), now in the National Library of Scotland, is an extraordinary work which contains not only records but implicit and explicit arguments about the variety of relations between Scotland, Europe, and empire. The history of the archive’s creation and transmission, as well as the histories of individuals and networks it preserves, including accounts other Scottish women, constantly draw attention to larger histories in ways which reflect deliberate political and intellectual decisions by Esther Chalmers
Lizanne Henderson. Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment: Scotland, 1670-1740.
No full textLizanne Henderson. <i>Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment: Scotland, 1670-1740.</i> Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016. Pp. 382. ISBN: 978-1-403-99566-7 (HB); ISBN: 978-1-403-99567-4 (PB); ISBN: 978-1-137-31324-9 (EB). €94.99 / €79.99
John W. Arthur. Brilliant Lives: The Clerk Maxwells and the Scottish.
No full textJohn W. Arthur. <i>Brilliant Lives: The Clerk Maxwells and the Scottish.</i> Edinburgh: Birlinn Ltd., 2016. Pp. 357. ISBN 978-1- 906566-97-5. £25.00
Marilyn Laura Bowman. James Legge and the Chinese Classics: A Brilliant Scot in the Turmoil of Colonial Hong Kong.
No full textMarilyn Laura Bowman. <i>James Legge and the Chinese Classics: A Brilliant Scot in the Turmoil of Colonial Hong Kong.</i> Victoria: Friesen Press, 2016. Pp. viii and 614. ISBN 978-1-4602-8882-5. $45.99
Alexander D. Campbell. The Life and Works of Robert Baillie (1602-1662): Politics, Religion and Record-Keeping in the British Civil Wars.
No full textAlexander D. Campbell. <i>The Life and Works of Robert Baillie (1602-1662): Politics, Religion and Record-Keeping in the British Civil Wars.</i> St. Andrews Studies in Scottish History. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell and Brewer, 2017. Pp. 259. ISBN: 978-1-78327-184-9. USD $120.00.
 
Michael Newton, ed. Seanchaidh na Coille~Memory Keeper of the Forest: Anthology of Scottish Gaelic Literature of Canada.
No full textMichael Newton, ed. <i>Seanchaidh na Coille~Memory Keeper of the Forest: Anthology of Scottish Gaelic Literature of Canada</i>. Sydney: Cape Breton University Press. 2015. pp. i-xix; 1-570. ISBN-13: 978-1-77206-016-4; ISBN-10: 1-77206-016-X. $27.9
Step Dancing in Cape Breton and Other Complicated Relationships: A Review Essay
No full textJohn G. Gibson, Gaelic Cape Breton Step-Dancing: An Historical and Ethnographic Perspective Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen\u27s University Press, 2017. Pp. 464. ISBN 978-0-7735-5059-9. CDN $55.0