The internationally renowned writer and thinker, Tom Nairn MA, is to take up an honorary research fellowship at the University of Aberdeen’s Research Institute for Irish and Scottish Studies.
Mr. Nairn currently teaches Nationalism Studies at the Graduate School in Social and Political Studies in Edinburgh. While at the University of Aberdeen, he will contribute to the Master’s programme in Irish and Scottish Studies on an occasional basis through teaching and research, as well as discussions about nationalism in a comparative historical context.
Mr. Owen Dudley-Edwards, Reader in History at the University of Edinburgh said: “Tom Nairn is at once the most profound and the most amusing philosopher of nationalism in Scotland today.”
Mr. Nairn said: “I think that the Research Institute for Irish and Scottish Studies is a very valuable initiative and I am keen to do anything I can to get it established and make sure that it lives up to the mighty expectations of Mary McAleese’s visit.”
A native of Dunfermline, he was educated at Dunfermline High School, the Edinburgh College of Art and the University of Edinburgh. He graduated as M.A. (first class honours) in 1956, afterwards studying at Oxford with Iris Murdoch in philosophical aesthetics, then in Pisa and Rome University on a Carnegie Scholarship from 1959-1960.
He lectured at Birmingham University and Hornsey College of Art (now part of Middlesex University) from 1962-69 and was a Research Fellow at the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam from 1973-79.
During the 1980’s, he worked with Scottish Television in Glasgow before returning to academic life at the Prague College of the Central European University in 1993-4. Recently he and Professor David McCrone were responsible for setting up a new ‘Nationalism Studies’ MSc degree for the Graduate School of the University of Edinburgh.
In addition to his academic responsibilities, Mr. Nairn has also published widely throughout his career. Major publications include The Break-Up of Britain (1977) and The Enchanted Glass: Britain and the Monarchy (1994), Faces of Nationalism (1998). His latest work, After Britain: New Labour and the Return of Scotland was published in January, 2000, and has received respectful attention.
Mr. Nairn lives in the Republic of Ireland in County Roscommon and commutes to Scotland. He said: “As a result, I have a vested interest in both places.”
Professor Tom Devine, Director of the Research Institute for Irish and Scottish Studies said: “The appointment of Tom Nairn to the position of Honorary Fellow is a further important step in the recruitment of high-calibre staff to the Institute. Tom’s international reputation in Nationalism Studies will do much to enhance our work in that key area.”