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‘Beware of the ninnies!’ – Thoughts on ballet history
Read more: ‘Beware of the ninnies!’ – Thoughts on ballet historySebastian Cody explores the challenges of ballet historiography, emphasising the need for rigorous scholarship amidst widespread inaccuracies
Glasgow Archaeological Society Celebrates 150 Years of Publishing
Glasgow Archaeological Society has been committed to publishing papers and disseminating information on archaeological findings and discoveries since it was founded in December 1856. The first part of what was to become the first volume of the Transactions of Glasgow…
Hamish Henderson and our Historical Moment
What’s the artist for in modern Scotland? Curating our accumulated history? Envisioning our possible and impossible futures? Diagnosing the ills of our present and prescribing treatment for the body politic? Showing us who we are, or who we ought to…
Viking Law and Order
My new book, Viking Law and Order, paints a rather different picture of Viking Age society from the one we are used to. We often hear discussions of violent raids and systematic pillaging by warriors arriving in long ships. It…
John M. MacKenzie on ‘Bogeys’ Past and Present
It would seem that elements of the Anglosphere have always required a bogey or a multiplicity of bogeys. Perhaps other spheres do too. It is certainly the case that the notion of coping with the feared evil ‘Other’ has also…
Celebrating 70 Years of the Edinburgh International Festival
An extract from The Edinburgh Festivals: Culture and Society in Post-war Britain by Angela Bartie On Sunday 24 August 1947, the first Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama opened with a service of praise in St Giles’ Cathedral, the…
George Mackay Brown and the Scottish Catholic Imagination
What do you imagine when you think about great Catholic art? Perhaps you call to mind the gilded pages of illuminated medieval manuscripts and the glories of Renaissance painting and sculpture. Maybe you recall more recent cinematic masterpieces, such as…
Scottish Migration Since 1600
Migration today is an increasingly contentious, even toxic, issue. It is being held responsible for Brexit, the coming to power of United States President Donald Trump and a rise in hate crimes. In such a climate we tend to forget…
Gaelic Satire and 18th Century Highland History
The benefit of studying Gaelic poetry in conjunction with conventional documentary sources to obtain a fuller understanding of the past is illustrated in Ellen L. Beard’s article in Northern Scotland, Volume 8.1. She presents newly-compiled information and perspectives on two…
Secularisation and religious decline in 21st-century Scotland
By Ben Clements. My Scottish Affairs research looks in detail at recent survey data on religious decline and secularisation in Scotland, using Scottish Social Attitudes and British Social Attitudes surveys to analyse affiliation and attendance in Scotland across 1992-2014. Historically,…