A weekday of SUISS would start with a 60 minute long lecture by one of the
speakers whose names and lecture subjects were announced well in advance,
which provided the students with a plenty of time not only to get ready for
the lecture itself, but also to think about a question to ask the speaker
in the time given to discussion. The lectures were extremely diverse both
as to subject matter and presentation, however, what they all shared was the
benefit of highly qualified speakers who were capable of mediating their experience
and above all their enthusiasm to the audience. Literature was not merely
talked about in theory, it was directly experienced, often by the means of
an almost theatrical performance on the part of the speakers. An engaging
lecture would be followed by a short coffee break, in fact rather a time for
immediate feedback on the lecture among the students and an occasion to approach
the lecturer for further individual consultation. The discussion would continue
in the next two hours of an intensive seminar, which was otherwise built up
on a variety of challenging tasks, including close reading sessions, small
group workshops or individual student presentations. A great addition to the
tutorials was the fact that the students attending SUISS were gathered virtually
from all over the world, so that people from such different countries as for
instance Canada, Turkey or South Korea met in one classroom and were able
to contribute to the discussion with fresh points of view springing from their
different cultural backgrounds. This exciting coming together of all the different
people and their transformation into a small autonomous community held together
simply by their shared love for literature could be hardly experienced anywhere
else outside SUISS.
Besides an invaluable academic experience, the Summer School offered an extensive
cultural and social programme of more general interest. Greatly appreciated
were the evenings with distinguished literary personalities, including the
crime fiction writers Denise Mina and Louise Welsh, the Irish poet Sinead
Morrissey and even the most admired Alasdair Gray, who allowed the audience
the unique pleasure of listening to the author’s reading from his newest,
yet unpublished book. Another chance to talk to one’s favourite authors
or to come to know just emerging talents was at the Edinburgh International
Book Festival, which was running parallelly with the second term of the School
and was a part of the arranged programme for the Creative Writing course students.
Among the non-literary events prepared specially for the SUISS students, there
was for instance the enjoyable gallery tour, several film screenings (also
such relevant to the studied literature) or, certainly one of the highlights,
the wonderful ceilidh dancing evening.
The overall atmosphere of SUISS was remarkable especially for the sensitive
and highly stimulating approach on the part of the tutors, excellent organisation
on the part of the School authorities and an enormous friendliness on everyone’s
part, all of which made the summer in Edinburgh simply an unforgettable experience.
To me, SUISS was the most enlightening experience of my life so far, and I
feel greatly obliged to everyone who made it possible: namely, the lecturer
from my home university who first suggested my attending the programme, Mrs
Ema Jelínková, and all the members of the SCSSS Fund who kindly
provided me with the grant. As a student, I benefited from the fact that I
could obtain credits for the course and use them towards degree in my home
country; furthermore, I derived much helpful information, both from the SUISS
lecture/tutorial programme itself and the library resources available in Edinburgh,
which will be of great use for my intended MA thesis and which would be otherwise
impossible to get at in the Czech Republic. As a person, I had the unique
chance to enjoy myself in the delightful company of other literature lovers
from all over the world, and those three impressive weeks spent in Edinburgh
were of great importance to me also in that they confirmed my decision to
pursue further academic career in the given field.