Scottish History: The Making of a Discipline

Our final talk of the session will be on Thursday, 8 March at 7.30, in the Lecture Room of Paisley Museum and Art Gallery. The speaker will be Dr Catriona M.M. Macdonald, Reader in Late Modern Scottish History and Director of the Centre for Scottish and Celtic Studies at the University of Glasgow. Visitors are welcome, at a cost of £3.00,

Please note this meeting will be proceeded by the AGM at 7.15.

Dr MacDonald has given the following information about her talk:

Tonight Dr Macdonald will address the Paisley Philosophical Institution on ‘Scottish History: the making of a discipline’. She will examine the way in which Scottish history emerged in the universities in the nineteenth century but also explore its cultivation in associations and civic institutions across Scotland. She will address the thorny question of the extent to which a genuinely British history emerged in the nineteenth century and the role of literary approaches to Scotland’s past. She raises what for an academic is a troubling prospect – namely, that generations of  historians were in part to blame for the Scottish public’s lack of awareness of their own past.

Prehistoric Pots to Modern Mansions: Archaeology in the National Trust for Scotland

Our next speaker on Thursday 22 November will be Derek Alexander, Head of Archaeology, NTS. It will be held in the Lecture Room of the Paisley Museum and Art Galleries. The talk will commence at 7.30 pm. Visitors are welcome at a cost of £3.00.

We thank Derek for providing the following information:

Biog. Derek Alexander grew up in Paisley and Neilston. He studied prehistoric archaeology at Edinburgh University from 1986-1990. He then worked for the University's commercial field unit CFA. He joined the NTS in 2000 as the West Region Archaeologist and was made Head of Archaeological Services in 2011. He manages a small team of in house archaeologists who provide advice on the protection and promotion of the properties in the Trust's care. He has always had an interest in the archaeology of Renfrewshire and in 2011 published a book on the history and archaeology of the county.

In his talk he will focus on recent examples of archaeological work from across the Trust from Culzean Castle to Culloden battlefield from Fingals Cave to Glencoe.