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The School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture

Professor Alison Lumsden

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Professor Alison Lumsden
Professor Alison Lumsden
Professor Alison Lumsden

Professor

Regius Chair of English Literature

About
Email Address
a.lumsden@abdn.ac.uk
Telephone Number
+44 (0)1224 273925
Office Address

F03, Old Brewery

School/Department
School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture

Biography

Alison Lumsden is a graduate of the Universities of Aberdeen (MA Hons) and Edinburgh (PhD).  She worked for Aberdeen University as AHRB research fellow for the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels before taking up her appointment as lecturer.  She was appointed to senior lecturer in 2006 and to a chair in 2012. She is now a General Editor of the Edinburgh Edition and the lead editor for an edition of Walter Scott's poetry. She is also co-director of the University of Aberdeen's Walter Scott Research Centre, which exists to promote all aspects of research on Walter Scott. She has published extensively on Walter Scott and on other aspects of Scottish literature, including Nan Shepherd and Lewis Grassic Gibbon. She was  President of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies from 2015 - 19  and is currently Honorary Librarian of Scott's library at Abbotsford. In 2010 she was awarded grants from the British Academy and from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland to begin work on a scholarly edition of Walter Scott's Poetry. The preliminary stages of this project are now complete and the main stage of this project underway. The first volume, Marmion, appeared in 2018.

Memberships and Affiliations

Internal Memberships

Arts Lead, Aberdeen-Curtin Alliance

Senior Women's Network representative on Advisory Group on Equality and Diversity

LLMVC Mentoring Co-ordinator

Co-lead LLMVC Athena Swan

Co-convener of the  Strategic Plan International Work Stream

External Memberships

In the past Alison Lumsden has been a member of the judging panel for the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award and has chaired the Saltire Society Research Book of the Year judging committee. She has also served on the council of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. She was also chair for the Universities Committee for Scottish Literature. From 2015 - 19 she was  President of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. She is also the Honorary Librarian of Walter Scott's library at Abbotsford and a Trustee of the Abbotsford Trust. She is on the advisory boards of the Oxford Edition of the Works of Robert Burns and of the New Edinburgh Edition of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson. She is on the Steering Group of the Walter Scott Minstrelsy Project, which is run jointly between the School of Scottish Studies in Edinburgh and the University of Mainz. She is also on the Editorial Board of Studies in Scottish Literature.

Research

Research Overview

Alison Lumsden's main research interests are Walter Scott, nineteenth-century Scottish fiction, Scottish women's writing and textual editing. She has published on Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alasdair Gray, Nan Shepherd, Robert Burns  and Lewis Grassic Gibbon and is co-editor of Contemporary Scottish Women Writers (2000). She is also co-editor of Scott's The Pirate (2001), The Heart of Mid-Lothian (2004), Reliquiae Trotcosienses (2004), Woodstock (2009) and editor of Peveril of the Peak (2007) for the Edinburgh Edition. In 2010 she published a monograph entitled Walter Scott and the Limits of Language, which draws on her experiences of editing Scott to explore the creative potential generated by a concern with language that runs throughout his work. She is currently the principal investigator for a scholarly edition of Scott's poetry.  Alison Lumsden  is happy to supervise PhD theses on all aspects of nineteenth century Scottish writing, Scottish women's writing and textual editing. She particularly welcomes proposals on Walter Scott, James Hogg and Robert Louis Stevenson and is eager to supervise theses that draw on Aberdeen's outstanding collections of rare material in the Bernard C. Lloyd Walter Scott Collection.

Current Research

Alison Lumsden's main research project is a scholarly edition of Walter Scott's poetry, to be published in ten volumes over the next twelve years. A preliminary stage of this project was funded by the British Academy and the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and the main editing work is now underway. The project will draw on the rich resources of the Bernard C.Lloyd Collection of Scott material at the University of Aberdeen and will bring together an international team of scholars.

Collaborations

The Walter Scott Research Centre has collaborated with the Universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stirling to run a series of workshops on textual editing. It is also in partnership with the University of Edinburgh's SWINC group (Scottish Writing in the Nineteenth Century) and has participated in a number of seminars in collaboration with it. Seminars have been held on Civic and Secret Scotland and talks on textual editing have been given at the National Library of Scotland in the series 'What are you Reading?' Alison Lumsden also collaborated with SWINC on a 'Writing the North' parternship, which brought writers from Orkney and Shetland together with academics in a creative partnership. As Honorary Librarian of Scott's library at Abbotsford she also works in partnership with Abbotsford and the Faculty of Advocates to take forward projects related to the collections.

Funding and Grants

Alison Lumsden received grants from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and the British Academy for work on a preliminary investigation into editing Walter Scott's poetry. the poetry is now supported by a privated donation and other sources of funding are being sought.

Teaching

Teaching Responsibilities

Alison Lumsden teaches at all levels in the areas of Scottish and Romantic literature and was Director of Teaching and Learning for the College of Arts and Social Sciences from 2012 - 2015.

Publications

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  • 10. Major Play IV: Walter Scott, The Theatre Royal and Rob Roy (1819)

    Lumsden, A.
    Oxford Companion to Scottish Theatre. Stevenson, R., walker, G. (eds.). Oxford Univerity Press; Oxford
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters (Peer-Reviewed)

  • Walter Scott at 250

    Lumsden, A., Archer-Thompson, K.
    Studies In Scottish Literature, vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 3-24
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Dabbling Among the Unhallowed Relics of the Grave: Waking the Dead in Scott's Castle Dangerous and Count Robert of Paris

    Lumsden, A.
    The Wenshan Review of Literature and Culture, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 129-149
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Towards the Edinburgh Edition of Walter Scott's Poetry

    Lumsden, A.
    Walter Scott: New Interpretations. Oliver, S. (ed.). Modern Humanities Research Association, pp. 127-142, 16 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters

  • Scottish literary review

    Carruthers, G., Lumsden, A.
    Scottish Literary Review, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. v-vi
    Contributions to Journals: Editorials

  • Walter Scott war journalism from the Waterloo battlefield

    Lumsden, A.
    The Conversation
    Contributions to Specialist Publications: Articles

  • Walter Scott was no bland tartan romantic, he was dumbed down

    Lumsden, A.
    The Conversation
    Contributions to Specialist Publications: Articles

  • The Narrative Poems

    Lumsden, A., McIntosh, A.
    The Edinburgh Companion to Sir Walter Scott. Edinburgh University Press, pp. 35-46, 12 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters

  • Stevenson, Scott and Scottish History

    Lumsden, A.
    The Edinburgh Companion to Robert Louis Stevenson. Fielding, P. (ed.). Edinburgh University Press, pp. 70-85, 16 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters

  • Walter Scott and the Limits of Language

    Lumsden, A.
    Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, UK. 256 pages
    Books and Reports: Books

  • Walter Scott

    Lumsden, A.
    The Cambridge Companion to English Novelists. Poole, A. (ed.). Cambridge University Press, pp. 116-131, 16 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters

  • Burns, Scott and Intertextuality

    Lumsden, A.
    The Edinburgh Companion to Robert Burns. Carruthers, G. (ed.). Edinburgh University Press, pp. 125-136, 12 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters

  • Walter Scott

    Lumsden, A.
    The Cambridge Companion to English Novelists. Poole, A. (ed.). Cambridge University Press, pp. 116-131, 16 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters

  • Peveril of the Peak

    Scott, W., Lumsden, A. (ed.)
    Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. 704 pages
    Books and Reports: Books

  • 'Beyond the Dusky Barrier': Perceptions of the Highlands in the Waverley Novels

    Lumsden, A.
    Mìorun Mòr nan Gall, ‘The Great Ill-Will of the Lowlander’? Lowland Perceptions of the Highlands, Medieval and Modern. Broun, D., MacGregor, M. (eds.). pp. 158-186, 29 pages.
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Other Contributions

  • 'To Get Leave to Live': Negotiating Regional Identity in the Literature of North-east Scotland

    Lumsden, A.
    Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature, Volume 3: Modern Transformations - New Identities (from 1918). Brown, I., Clancy, T. O., Manning, S., Pittock, M. G. H. (eds.). Edinburgh University Press, pp. 95-105, 10 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters

  • Reliquiae Trotcosienses: or The Gabions of the Late Jonathan Oldbuck Esq. of Monkbarns

    Scott, W., Carruthers, G. (ed.), Lumsden, A. (ed.)
    Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. 168 pages
    Books and Reports: Books

  • The Heart of Mid-Lothian

    Scott, W., Hewitt, D. S. (ed.), Lumsden, A. (ed.)
    Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. 592 pages
    Books and Reports: Books

  • 'Women's Time': Reading the Quair as a Feminist Text

    Lumsden, A.
    A Flame in the Mearns: Lewis Grassic Gibbon: A Centenary Celebration. Palmer McCulloch, M., Dunnigan, S. (eds.). Association for Scottish Literary Studies, pp. 41-53, 12 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters

  • The Pirate

    Scott, W., Weinstein, M. (ed.), Lumsden, A. (ed.)
    Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. 592 pages
    Books and Reports: Books

  • ' Journey Into Being': Nan Shepherd's The Weatherhouse'

    Lumsden, A.
    Scottish Women's Fiction: 1920s - 1960s: Journeys Into Being. Christianson, A., Anderson, C. (eds.). Tuckwell Press, pp. 59 - 71, 13 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters

  • 'Jackie Kay's Poetry and Prose: Constructing Identity'

    Lumsden, A.
    Contemporary Scottish Women's Writing. Christianson, A., Lumsden, A. (eds.). Edinburgh University Press, pp. 79 - 91, 13 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters

  • 'Scottish Women's Short Stories: Repositories of Life Swiftly Apprehended'

    Lumsden, A.
    Contemporary Scottish Women's Writing. Christianson, A., Lumsden, A. (eds.). Edinburgh University Press, pp. 156 - 169, 14 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters

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