379: Murray Pittock | Scotland And The World In “Scotland: The Global History”

In this wide-ranging, deeply researched account, Murray Pittock examines the place of Scotland in the world. Pittock explores Scotland and Empire, the rise of nationalism, and the pressures on the country from an increasingly monolithic understanding of “Britishness.” From the Thirty Years’ War to Jacobite risings and today’s ongoing independence debates, Scotland and its diaspora have undergone profound changes. This ground-breaking account reveals the diversity of Scotland’s history and shows how, after the country disappeared from the map as an independent state, it continued to build a global brand.

Professor Murray Pittock (MA D.Litt. Glasgow; D.Phil Oxford) is Bradley Professor and Pro Vice-Principal. He has worked at the universities of Manchester (where he was the first professor of Scottish literature at an English university), Edinburgh, Oxford, Aberdeen and Strathclyde, and has held visiting appointments at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies (2002), New York University (Visiting Professor of English, 2015); Charles University, Prague (Ministry of Education Visiting Professor in Languages, 2010), Trinity College, Dublin (Visiting Professor in English and History, 2008), Auburn (History and Equality and Diversity, 2006), Notre Dame (NEH seminar visiting scholar in Irish Studies, 2014), USC (Roy Lecturer in Scottish Studies, 2015) and Yale (Senior Warnock Fellow, 1998 and 2000-1).

Murray is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the English Association, the Royal Historical Society, the Royal Society of Arts and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland among other bodies, and an honorary Fellow of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. Murray’s books are set on courses in English, History, Irish Studies, theology and politics in around twenty-five countries, and he has been awarded or shortlisted/nominated for a number of literary and historical prizes and prize lectureships. He is one of the few UK academics to be a prize lecturer of both the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy, and has acted as an external assessor for chairs and grants from the Ivy League to the Middle East.

Murray is Scottish History Adviser to the National Trust for Scotland, has acted as adviser to the National Galleries and has held grants in English, History, Museology, Tourism and the creative economy. In 2014, he became the founding convenor of the International Association for the Study of Scottish Literatures, and remains chair of its Trustees.

Murray has appeared in the UK and overseas media in over 50 countries on some 1500 occasions to comment on history, literature and current affairs, including scripting and presenting radio series ( The Roots of Scottish Nationalism -Radio 4, 6.25M aggregate audience, 81% UK wide approval rating) and has co-curated a number of exhibitions. He regularly acts as a consultant to national institutions. Murray supervises PhDs in the areas of Burns, Cultural History, Irish Studies, Jacobitism, Romanticism, Scott, Scottish Studies and other fields.