Abstract: Ian Duncan is a professor and Florence Green Bixby Chair in English at the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently a Vice-President of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies, a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a member of the editorial board of Representations. Dr. Chen Yanxu, while working as a visiting scholar at UC. Berkeley (2017-2018), interviewed Professor Duncan on a wide range of issues concerning the most recent research interests in Romantic studies. In this interview, Professor Duncan comments on the themes of the recent NASSR conventions, including the connection of political concerns and eco-criticism to Romanticism. In his forthcoming book, Human Forms: Fiction in the Age of Evolution, he talks about how literature may be understood anthropologically as a human evolutionary phenomenon. Professor Duncan posits that Walter Scott’s novels not only help to build English national identity but also prove influential as pioneering literary works of world literature. Besides, Professor Duncan maintains that Scottish literature contributes to global circuits of literary interaction and cultural production, and promotes deeper understandings of English Romanticism.

Key words: English romanticism, Walter Scott, national identity, Scottish romanticism, Ian Duncan