Dr Bradford Bow is a lecturer in history at the University and an intellectual historian of America, Scotland and Britain during the long eighteenth century, with a broader interest in the global contexts of Enlightenment intellectual and moral culture.
2020 has been a challenging year. The celebration of Thanksgiving in the United States is no exception to the necessary practise of social distancing from family and friends. As an American, I anticipate that the absence of family from Thanksgiving festivities will be distressing for many of us. Yet the nature of this holiday presents a wonderful opportunity to extend our gratitude to remarkable people, who have supported alumni, current students, and staff at the University of Aberdeen in various ways during this extraordinary year. We thank you.
Having previously worked at a university in Korea, I joined the University of Aberdeen in August 2019 as a lecturer in the global intellectual history of the Scottish Enlightenment. Since the University played a significant role in the Scottish Enlightenment—producing common sense philosophy as Scotland’s most successful invisible export throughout the late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Atlantic world—it is an ideal place to work in my field of study. World renowned scholars and engaging students in the History Department and the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies welcomed me as a new member of our academic community. Shortly thereafter, I witnessed colleagues and students rally in support of one another during a global pandemic. I am thankful and proud to be part of this community.
Given the institutional legacy of the Scottish Enlightenment, the creative ways in which the University of Aberdeen reacted to a global crisis is somewhat unsurprising. The pursuit to improve the human condition and civic welfare through different trains of Scottish Enlightenment thought typically followed a disastrous catalyst of some sort. For instance, the professoriate of Marischal and King’s Colleges set forth a new method of cultivating natural knowledge in the aftermath of the abortive Jacobite Risings of 1715 and 1745. A distinctive Aberdeen Enlightenment emerged from the curriculum reform of 1753 and the proceedings of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society (known as the Wise Club) between 1758 and 1773. The seminal publications produced by the Aberdeen Enlightenment transcended the North East of Scotland. While guiding moral and intellectual improvement throughout the British imperial world, the Aberdeen Enlightenment had a particular influence on the formation of early American culture, which went beyond the Marischal alumnus William Small, who taught Thomas Jefferson at the College of William & Mary. The University harbours other fascinating connections with the United States and the wider world as shown in the forthcoming volume entitled, 525 Years in the Pursuit of Truth: A new history of the University of Aberdeen, published by Aberdeen University Press. I observed that this institutional legacy lives on in the remarkable work of alumni, students, and staff during a challenging year. I will be celebrating thanksgiving this year with my wife and daughters in Aberdeen, and I would like to wish everyone in our community a Happy Thanksgiving.
