kelman projects
James Kelman and Lyric Freedom: Language, Action, Silence
My current monograph project draws together some earlier essays and ideas on James Kelman, with a focus on lyric action and subjectivity.
Kelman aligns his work with American Realist and European Existentialist traditions; both strongly informed by the Romantic valorisation of the personal, vernacular and quotidian.
Viewed from this angle, Kelman’s fiction of liberty, disenchantment and the swallowed cry of protest may be productively linked to Romantic political and aesthetic ideals, and to the linguistic philosophy of ‘the Romantic performative’ (Angela Esterhammer).
James Kelman Bibliography
This Kelman bibliography isn’t routinely updated so please email me with things to add.
My own writing on Kelman includes:
Hames, Scott. 2024. “Interview with James Kelman.” In All We Have Is the Story: Selected Interviews 1973-2022, 242-273. Oakland, CA, PM Press. [https://www.stir.ac.uk/research/hub/publication/2035406]
Hames, Scott. 2022. “James Kelman and Everyone Else.” Honest Ulsterman, February 2022. [https://humag.co/features/scott-hames]
Hames, Scott. 2016. “‘Maybe Singing into Yourself’: James Kelman, Inner Speech and Vocal Communion.” In Community in Modern Scottish Literature, edited by Scott Lyall, 196-213. Leiden, Brill. [http://hdl.handle.net/1893/22942]
Hames, Scott. 2010. “Kelman’s Art-Speech.” In Edinburgh Companion to James Kelman, edited by Scott Hames, 86-98. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [http://hdl.handle.net/1893/2852]
Hames, Scott. 2009. “Eyeless in Glasgow: James Kelman’s Existential Milton.” Contemporary Literature 50.3: 496-527. [https://doi.org/10.1353/cli.0.0073]
Hames, Scott. 2007. “Dogged Masculinities: Male Subjectivity and Socialist Despair in Kelman and McIlvanney.” Scottish Studies Review 8.1: 67-87. [http://hdl.handle.net/1893/837]
Edinburgh Companion to James Kelman
Edited collection published in 2010:
James Kelman is one of the most important Scottish writers now living. His fiction is widely acclaimed, and widely caricatured. His art declares war on stereotypes, but is saddled with plenty of its own.
This book attempts to disentangle Kelman's writing from his reputation, clarifying his literary influences and illuminating his political commitments. It is the first book to cover the full range and depth of Kelman's work, explaining his position within genres such as the short story and the polemical essay, and tracing his interest in anti-colonial politics and existential thought. Essays by leading experts combine lucid accounts of the heated debates surrounding Kelman's writing, with a sharp focus on the effects and innovations of that writing itself.
Kelman's own reception by reviewers and journalists is examined as a shaping factor in the development of his career. Chapters situate Kelman's work in critical contexts ranging from masculinity to vernacular language, cover influences from Chomsky to Kafka, and pursue the implications of Kelman's rhetoric from Glasgow localism to 'World English'.
CONTENTS
1. Early Kelman: Influences and Experiments (Paul Shanks)
2. How late it was, how late and Literary Value (Mary McGlynn)
3. Narrative Limits: Kelman's Later Novels (Peter Boxall)
4. Kelman and the Short Story (Adrian Hunter)
5. Kelman’s Critical and Polemical Writing (Mia Carter)
6. Kelman's Drama (David Archibald)
7. Kelman's Glasgow Sentence (Cairns Craig)
8. Kelman's Art-Speech (Scott Hames)
9. Kelman and World English (Michael Gardiner)
10. Kelman and Masculinity (Carole Jones)
11. Kelman and the Existentialists (Laurence Nicoll)