Kelman at 80
James Kelman at 80. Conference, Spring 2027, Glasgow
2026 sees Glaswegian writer James Kelman reach his 80th year. In a career lasting over fifty years, Kelman has pioneered a highly distinctive literary practice across genres including the novel, the short story, the essay, and drama. But it is as a writer of fiction that Kelman’s influence looms largest. Kelman’s work in fiction is distinguished for its uncompromising formal stances and for the writer’s insistence on the directly political significance of those stances. As Kelman put it in an early interview, ‘Getting rid of [the] standard third party narrative voice is getting rid of a whole value system. You have to start examining every term’. His work has been hugely influential on generations of artists, and his reception has often been controversial. But his artistic commitments remain determinedly in place, and he continues to write and publish unique work.
This international conference sets out to consider the living legacy of Kelman’s writing, especially in the genres of the novel and the short story, and examines and reassesses his ongoing significance in the cultural and political worlds of the twenty-first century. We invite paper proposals on the innovations of Kelman’s fiction and its political significance, focusing on any period or aspect of Kelman’s work. The conference will be held at the University of Glasgow, in the spring of 2027 (exact date to be confirmed). More information to follow.
Please send c. 200-word paper proposals to Andrea Brown, Executive Support Assistant in the School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow, via email <[email protected]>, by the deadline of Tuesday 30th June 2026.
See also:
US OR THEM: Kelman’s ‘The State is Your Enemy’ Reviewed by Federica Giardino – The Drouth
The Right to Exist – Bella Caledonia
Go West: James Kelman’s American Odyssey – The Bottle Imp
The Literary Politics of Scottish Devolution: Voice, Class, Nation – Bella Caledonia
Well, I am.not going to do something pompous and suggest a paper about J Kelman, but I would say he is a figure opposed in so many ways to the absolute certanties of the Scottish Enlightenment…
In terms of race, the stadial view of History and progress, Kelman has no time for any of that, he sees the human being for whzat he is.
In that sense, he is like Goya y Lucientes, who, like JK, was absolutely au fait with the ideas of hos time, but deeply comitted to the people…
Sammy, in How Late, which I take to be a direct critique of a culture based on seeing and knowing, ie, the Enlightenment., is blind after all..
In any case, we can be sure, Scottish academics will.come up with a version of JK acceptable for further study and PhD grantable, manageable and packagable within their stupid and corrupt regime…
Can I point out that Simone Weil called for the end of all political parties not even 100 years agon cause they makee citizens corrupt, stupid and buyable? Just like academics…
Anyway, I am obviously overstating the case against Academia, which is also full of decent, nice, hard working people, but the idea Kelman’s career should be celebrated with a confab of specialists as opposed to a series of articles in a relevant public, cultural publication is so very obviously unacceptably elitist, narrow and sterile…
The 400 K Peter M squandered on absurd knick-knacks could have obviously paid for such a review…
As for Simone Weil, due to her untimely death, she didn’t write much, but what she did write is startlingly original…one of the most lucid and cogent voices of the 20th century, unaccountably passed over more often than not…
avoid academia post 1998 would be my advice for any aspiring writer or artist, after that all was superficial, & quite frankly shite as per UK/Scottish NATO party state political protocol, therefore any writer/artist flirting with academic institutions these days is I hate to say it, automatically suspect despite their years of service
Nothing elitist about a call for papers. Why not give it a go, if you care as much as your first comment indicates.