Scottish Ethnology and English Literature

Scottish ethnology and English literature is a genuinely distinctive combination that invites you to think about culture through two complementary lenses. Ethnology is the scholarly study of traditional and contemporary culture, examining folk practices, oral traditions, material culture, and the ways in which communities construct and transmit their identities over time. In the Scottish context, this means engaging with a rich and complex heritage of Gaelic and Scots traditions alongside the cultural changes brought about by industrialisation, urbanisation, and the global spread of Scottish diasporic communities.

English literature brings a different set of tools to the table, developing your ability to read and interpret written texts with precision and critical sophistication. Together, the two subjects give you a rich understanding of how culture is made, how it changes, and how it functions in social life.

At the University of Edinburgh, this four-year programme includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to experience another academic and cultural environment and to bring a comparative perspective back to your study of Scottish and English cultural traditions. Edinburgh is an outstanding place to pursue Scottish ethnology: the university holds significant collections in this area, has a distinguished scholarly tradition, and is situated in a city and country where the cultural questions the discipline asks are alive and contested in ways that enrich the academic study of them.

You will develop skills in close reading, archival research, fieldwork, and cultural analysis, moving between written texts and other forms of cultural expression including song, story, material culture, and oral testimony.

Graduates of this programme work in museums and heritage organisations, cultural policy, education, journalism, archival and library work, and community arts. The combination of literary and ethnological expertise is particularly valued in organisations concerned with Scottish culture, heritage, and national identity, and postgraduate study in Scottish studies, ethnology, or literary disciplines is a natural route for those who wish to go further.