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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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A Mysterious Box, Part III
Last week I was reading Jo Catling’s translation of the late W. G. Sebald’s A Place in the Country. In it Sebald writes that: I have slowly learned to grasp how everything is connected across space and time . . . the echo of a pistol shot across the Wannsee with the view from a…
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A Mysterious Box, Part II
Today I have returned to the box of photograph albums (see my previous post). The first album I open is another snapshot of the family at Davos: photos of snow, laughing young people, and warm hostels. There is a wonderful candour and freedom about the photographs here and elsewhere in this collection. When one thinks…
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A Mysterious Box, Part I
Several years ago, I moved into an office being vacated by a professor close to retirement. Our areas of interest were a few hundred years apart, but still close enough that he kindly gave me various books and runs of journals for which he no longer had any use. Along with these he also gave…
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The Scholar as Collector
I am always entranced by other academics’ bookshelves. Whenever I have the occasion to meet someone in their office, I find my mind wandering from the conversation at hand as I squint at the titles of their books and inwardly commend this or that especially intriguing-looking volume. Most often, the books I see are pragmatic…
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Letterpress: Art or Craft?
Anyone who has spent much time in the world of visual and material culture will be familiar with the so-called “art vs. craft debate”. Rooted in early modern and modern western European distinctions between (fine) “art”, e.g., Michelangelo’s David, and (not so fine) “craft”, e.g., a Toby jug, this perceived duality continues to echo through…
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Kelsey Jackson Williams 