He was awarded a PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 1978 for his thesis W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot and the Associationist Aesthetic.^[4]

He has published on authors including W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Iain Banks.^[5]

His 1984 book on Yeats, Eliot, and Pound was described by Seamus Deane as lacking a little clarity, panache and focus, but offering an "engrossing" exploration of the relationship between modernism and reactionary politics, which he links via memory, and particularly Archibald Alison's theory of associationism; Deane called it "a complicated story, illustrated by Craig with such well-chosen and well-timed quotations that it is difficult to resist."^[5]

In 1991 he wrote "Rooms without a view", an influential article attacking "heritage film".^[6]

The Modern Scottish Novel: Narrative and the National Imagination (1999) brought a "modern, inclusive, skeptical intelligence" to the question of Scottish literature.^[7]

He was general editor of the four-volume series History of Scottish Literature (published 1987-89).

He has also been involved as editor or publisher with magazines including Cencrastus, Edinburgh Review and Radical Scotland.

• The Body in the Kit Bag: History and the Scottish Novel, in Cencrastus No. 1, Autumn 1979, pp. 18 – 22, ISSN 0264-0856
• Fearful Selves: Character, Community and the Scottish Imagination, in Cencrastus No. 4, Winter 1980-81, pp. 29 – 32, ISSN 0264-0856
• Going Down to Hell is Easy: Alasdair Gray's 'Lanark', in Glen Murray (ed.), Cencrastus No. 6, Autumn 1981, pp. 19 - 21, ISSN 0264-0856
• Yeats, Eliot, Pound and the Politics of Poetry (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982), ISBN 9781138999343^[5]
• Peripheries, in Cencrastus No. 9, Summer 1982, pp. 3 - 5, ISSN 0264-0856
• Giving Speech to the Silent, which reviews Continuous: 50 Sonnets from The School of Eloquence by Tony Harrison and From the Domain of Arnheim by Alastair Fowler, in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 10, Autumn 1982, pp. 43 & 44, ISSN 0264-0856
• Visitors from the Stars: Scottish Film Culture, in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 11, New Year 1983, pp. 6 - 11, ISSN 0264-0856
• An Interview with Kurt Vonnegut in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 13, Summer 1983, pp. 29 - 31, ISSN 0264-0856
• Lourd on My Hert, which reviews Chapman 35/36: The State of Scotland - A Predicament for the Scottish Writer?, edited by Joy Hendry; Scotland: The Broken Image by Norman Allan; The State of Scotland: A Poem, by Duncan Glen; and Europa's Lover, by Douglas Dunn, in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 15, New Year 1984, pp. 54 & 55, ISSN 0264-0856
• George Orwell and the English Ideology (Part 1), in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 16, Spring 1984, pp. 12 - 17, ISSN 0264-0856
• George Orwell and the English Ideology (Part 2), in Parker, Geoff (ed.), Cencrastus No. 17, Summer 1984, pp. 10 - 15, ISSN 0264-0856
• Nation and History, in Parker, Geoff (ed.), Cencrastus No. 19, Winter 1984, pp. 13 - 16, ISSN 0264-0856
• General editor, History of Scottish Literature (1987–89)
• Out of History: Narrative Paradigms in Scottish and English Culture (Polygon,1996), ISBN 9780748660827
• The Modern Scottish Novel: Narrative and the National Imagination (Edinburgh UP, 1999)
• Iain Banks's Complicity: A Reader's Guide (Continuum, 2002)
• Associationism and the Literary Imagination: From the Phantasmal Chaos (2007)
• Intending Scotland: Explorations in Scottish Culture since the Enlightenment (Edinburgh UP, 2009).^[8]
• The Wealth of the Nation: Scotland, Culture and Independence (Edinburgh UP, 2018), ISBN 978-1-4744-3558-1

• 2003: Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE)^[9]
• 2005: Fellow of the British Academy (FBA)^[10]
• 2007: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)^[11]

• Morgan, Edwin (1983), The Politics of Poetry: review of Yeats, Eliot, Pound and the Politics of Poetry, in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 12, Spring 1983, p. 44, ISSN 0264-0856

• Cairns Craig's Aberdeen University Page