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The Joys of Bibliography
“Once you have approached the mountains of cases in order to mine the books from them and bring them to the light of day – or, rather, of night – what memories crowd in upon you!” — Walter Benjamin, “Unpacking My Library” This year I’ve been teaching a series of masterclasses on descriptive bibliography to…
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Interview with Talking Intellectual History
I’m delighted to have recently been interviewed by the excellent Robin Mills of QMUL on “Talking Intellectual History“. The topic, unsurprisingly, is The First Scottish Enlightenment.
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A New Project
My last book, The First Scottish Enlightenment, was published in February and since then Covid, lockdown, and their attendant upheavals have meant that I’ve had very little time to blog or write anything publicly about my next steps. Even if I’d had the time, I’m not sure I’d have known what to say. For several…
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Interview with Historically Thinking
I was tremendously pleased recently to be interviewed by Al Zambone at Historically Thinking about The First Scottish Enlightenment. You can listen to us chat about Enlightenment, intellectual culture, and the challenges of doing history here.
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Book Launch Tomorrow!
Last week, I had the joy of receiving the first copies of The First Scottish Enlightenment from OUP: This week marks the first of what I hope will be several book launch events around and furth of Scotland. If you’re at all interested, please do join me and my colleagues Scott Hames and Michael Shaw…
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Whaur’s Scots academic scrievin?
Ilka bodie kens there’s academic scrievin in the Gaelic – jist keek at the wark o Aonghas MacCoinnich or Domhnall Uilleam Stiubhart. Folk may speir an croup it’s no accessible tae Anglophones, but that didnae stop a Gaelic scholar yit. Wha’s keerious, though: ye maun scrimge hard tae find the like in Scots. Wha’s mair…
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A Scottish Regiment in Catholic Riga?
While skimming through Haralds Biezais’s 1957 edition of the church book of St. Jakobskirche in Riga during its brief tenure by the Jesuits (1582-1621), I found an unexpected entry: None of these individuals appear elsewhere in the church book unless the Albertus Kromeus who witnessed a 1606 baptism is to be taken as one and…
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A Mysterious Box, Part V
After decades of separation, I am tremendously pleased to write that Dr. Alfred Huhnhäuser’s photograph albums are now once again in the same archive – the University of Stirling’s Special Collections – as his other papers! And that concludes this series on the “Mysterious Box”, which turned out to be more remarkable, implausible, and serendipitous…
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Probative Quarters in Cupar
The final post in the series on Alfred Huhnhäuser’s photographic archive is coming soon, but in the meantime here’s a lighter one – the fruits of some field work in Fife over the weekend. Part of my preparatory work for the first volume of the Scottish Corpus of Carved Stones (which may or may not…
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A Mysterious Box, Part IV
This evening I’ve been sorting through the remaining photo albums in advance of handing Dr. Huhnhäuser’s collection over to the university. There are so many volumes I haven’t even mentioned here and so many wonderful photos, like the Christmas family group above or the interior shot below, that I haven’t touched on. Of the remaining…
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Kelsey Jackson Williams 