Melville in Scotland: From the Pacific to Glasgow, to Fife and Beyond

Herman Melville is one of the greatest writers in world literature and his own quest to understand more of his Scottish ancestry has been noted but rarely explored to any depth. The Scottish recognition of Melville’s ancestry was established by Hugh MacDiarmid in the 1920s and extends into present-day scholarship and evolving understanding of his significance as a world-traveler, ecological thinker and original initiator of geographical poetics. 

For this presentation, Alan Riach, Professor of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University, draws on his reading of Melville’s original works and biography, as well as his own experiences studying and teaching Melville in New Zealand, his personal relationships with Glasgow and Fife, and his visit to  Arrowhead. This accessible, illustrated talk is presented via Zoom and brings a new engagement with Melville’s life and work into vivid focus.

FREE, email melville@berkshirehistory.org to receive the zoom link

About Alan Reach
Alan Riach, Professor of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow, is a poet, critic, and one of the leading interpreters of Scotland’s cultural imagination. Born in Airdrie in 1957, he studied at Cambridge and Glasgow before spending over a decade in New Zealand, returning to take up his chair in Scottish literature. His publications span both poetry — This Folding Map, An Open Return, First & Last Songs, Clearances, Homecoming, The Winter Book, and The MacDiarmid Memorandum — and criticism, most notably as General Editor of the Carcanet Collected Works of Hugh MacDiarmid and author of Hugh MacDiarmid’s Epic Poetry and Representing Scotland in Literature, Popular Culture and Iconography. His work continually explores the intersections of literature with art, music, and national identity. Co-authored with Alexander Moffat, Arts of Resistance: Poets, Portraits and Landscapes of Modern Scotland (Luath, 2008), was described in the Times Literary Supplement as ‘a landmark book’ and Riach’s 734-page Scottish Literature: An Introduction (Luath, 2022) was described in The Times as ‘magisterial.’ Beyond his own writing, Riach has been a cultural leader: former Convener of the Saltire Society, he also served as President of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies (2006-2010) and remains active in literary and educational trusts. He has contributed widely to newspapers, debates, and public discussions, championing the role of the arts in shaping Scotland’s sense of self. Combining scholarship with a poet’s sensibility, and rooted in both family and community, Riach embodies the conviction that literature is a living conversation between people, place, and history.