Academics to study ‘Outlander effect’ at university seminar
OUTLANDER has triggered more interest in Scotland and its history than any other cultural work in recent years, according to academics.
The hit TV series has brought hoards of tourists to Scotland and now the University of Glasgow is to host a conference on the show.
Academics will look at the history, customs, politics, culture, clothes and music featured in the series at a fourday conference in June next year.
The event has been given a seal of approval by the American author, Diana Gabaldon, who has also agreed to give a keynote speech at the five-day event to run from June 2-6.
The historical time travel series has been credited with bringing the landscape and scenery of Scotland to a new worldwide audience since it first aired in 2014.
The university, which awarded an honorary degree to Outlander star
Sam Heughan, said Glasgow would be “taken over by Outlander fever” during the event.
A programme of events open to the general public on the four main days of the conference is also being planned by the university and its partners.
Professor Willy Maley, Professor of Renaissance Studies (English Literature) at the University of Glasgow, said: “The globally successful Outlander series has triggered more interest in Scotland and its history than any other cultural artefact in recent years. Interest continues to grow as Outlander moves into its fifth season.
“While hundreds of fan-based gatherings and interest groups around the world promote and encourage Outlander fandom, and thousands of media articles ponder its reach and appeal, there has not yet been an event which takes an academic approach to the series and brings together the multiple areas of expertise involved in its creation.
“The University of Glasgow plans to do just this: hosting a major international Outlander conference in 2020 will offer the chance to debate, discuss and dissect the elements that make up this remarkable phenomenon.”
Gabaldon’s romantic adventures were introduced to readers in 1991.
A further seven novels and nine spin-off books have been published in 43 countries and in 39 languages, selling more than 35 million printed copies worldwide.
Outlander was adapted for television by Sony Pictures and film production continues to be based in Scotland, starring Dumfriessshire born Heughan as Jacobite Highlander Jamie Fraser, opposite Caitriona Balfe as Claire Randall, a Second World War combat nurse transported back to the 18th century and the eve of the Battle of Culloden.
The “Outlander effect” has seen visitors flock to locations associated with the series, including a number of sites in Glasgow.
The University of Glasgow itself doubled as Harvard in the third series.
Gabaldon has previously admitted she was originally attracted to
Scotland by “a man in a kilt”, in an episode of Doctor Who.
She said she had later become “enchanted to discover a country and a people like no other, whose traditions and history are as strikingly beautiful as its landscapes”.
Glasgow academics from a range of disciplines have been directly involved in the TV production, playing key roles as researchers, advisors and even cast members.
Among the academics taking part will be Gillebride Macmillan, a Celtic and Gaelic Lecturer who played Gwyllyn the Bard in Outlander Season One, in which the character regaled viewers with traditional songs and tales.
Mr Macmillan said: “It has been an amazing journey since I was first cast as Gwyllyn the Bard in Outlander.
“It has opened huge opportunities for me, and I just love that through Outlander I have been able to bring new songs and the Gaelic language to a whole new and worldwide audience.”
MARTIN Green, head of whisky at Bonhams, takes a look at the whisky bottles which are to be sold next week in Edinburgh.
The sale will take place on Tuesday at the auction house in
Queen Street. It includes is a 50-year-old Macallan Millennium Decanter which has an estimated value of £25,000.
Also up for sale is a bottle of Hanyu Ichiro’s Malt-queen of
Hearts, from the famous Card Series, which is expected to sell for £10,00-£12,000. Distilled in 1990 and bottled in 2006, it is bottle number 44 of a limited edition of 324.