Dana Van Kooy

National Library of Scotland Scholar Award, National Library of Scotland - Literature

I’m an associate professor in the Humanities Department at Michigan Technological University, where I teach courses in English literature and have been the Director of the English program. My first book, Shelley’s Radical Stages (Routledge 2016) explores the radical history and the theatrical culture that Percy Bysshe Shelley engaged when writing his dramas in the early nineteenth century. Since then, I’ve become more concerned with Atlantic theatre and, more particularly, with how literary narratives and those in the visual and performing arts shaped our inherited conceptions of colonialism, slavery and modernity in the early Atlantic world. As a Fulbright scholar, I will examine the textual and visual culture that evolved in response to the Scottish Clearances and the legislative and military actions taken to secure Scotland’s place within the imperial constructs of Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Additionally, I will situate Scotland and place its cultural productions in dialogue with the complex geo-cultural landscape of the Atlantic world. While I will miss shovelling more than a couple of feet of the 200+ inches of snow that fall along the shores of Lake Superior, I will find consolation in hiking Arthur’s seat, exploring the Highlands of Scotland, and visiting Edinburgh’s art galleries.