Professor
Regius Chair of English Literature
- About
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- 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
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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
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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
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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
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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.