PAST POSTINGS
A selection of items that have appeared on the site over the years
2023. On February 11, fellow board member, Dr. Kate Ashley (Acadia University), gave a talk based on her latest book: Robert Louis Stevenson and Nineteenth-Century French Literature Relations at the Fin de Siècle, which looks at French literature from Stevenson's perspective and at Stevenson from a French perspective. Details including a recording of the session can be accessed here.
2023. On Saturday, January 14, Dr. Elizabeth Ewan presented A Brewing Storm: Alewives in sixteenth-century Inverness.
This talk looks at the lives of the brewsters and alewives as they appeared in the surviving town court records of Inverness from 1556 to 1586, and examines what they can reveal more generally about women's contributions to urban society. Details including a recording of the session can be accessed here.
2022. The Revival of Evangelicalism — Mission and Piety in the Victorian Church of Scotland a talk by Andrew Jones PhD; the third in our 2022–2023 series of online Zoom Talks recorded on Saturday, September 17, 2022. Details here.
2022. On Saturday, June 11, Dundee University PhD student Remigio Petrocelli gave an online talk titled The Italian community in inter-war Scotland — The Fascist Project. Details here.
2020. The Department of History and the Centre for Scottish Studies at the University of Guelph announced the establishment of a scholarship to recognize the accomplishments of Professor Elizabeth Ewan who retired from the Department of History at the end of 2020. Details here.
2020. We were delighted when Dr. Kevin James was appointed to the position of Scottish Studies Foundation Chair and Director of the Centre for Scottish Studies in the Department of History at the University of Guelph, effective June 1, 2020. The position was endowed by the Scottish Studies Foundation in 2004. More information here.
2020. The Scottish Studies Foundation has been integral to the University of Guelph's robust graduate programs, intensive research and learning, and its coveted international reputation in the field of Scottish Studies at the Centre for Scottish Studies. You can read more about the Centre's recent activities in this Annual Endowment Report.
2020. "From Parchment to Pixels: A Celebration of Midieval Manuscripts." This synopsis of the March 12, 2020 colloquium on this topic was prepared by Richard MacFarlane, Director, Scottish Studies Society. More.
2020. Alan McKenzie, our good friend and past-President died of cancer on January 2. You can read more about Alan here.
2020. "Celebrating Arbroath, 1320-2020" by Prof. Ted Cowan: A paper written on the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath. More.
2019. Should Scotland become Canada's 11th Province? This is the question posed by Bruce Simpson's talk at the "Oor Club" on April 5, 2019. The idea of whether Scotland and Canada should combine, politically was first suggested by Canadian author Ken McGoogan. But Canada is 127 times bigger geographically and Scotland is a long way away. How could governance work? Could historical and cultural bonds, with the aid of technology, trump geography? More.
2018. The Scottish Studies Society's annual Scot of the Year Award took place at the Arts & Letters Club on Friday, October 26, during which tribute was paid to this year's recipient: Graham Fraser, Canada's sixth Commissioner of Official Languages, a former Canadian journalist and a writer whose Scots ancestry can be traced to the north of Scotland. More information here.
2018. Doug Gibson CM, former board member and Scot of the Year 2005, is pictured above at Rideau Hall with Her Excellency the Right Honourable Julie Payette, Governor General of Canada when, on January 25 at Rideau Hall he was inducted into the Order of Canada. Congratulations to Doug from all of us at Scottish Studies!
2018. We are delighted to announce that award-winning professor, researcher and arts and humanities advocate Samantha Brennan (pictured above) has been named the next dean of the University of Guelph's College of Arts (COA). Samantha began a five-year term on January 1, 2018. Details here.
2017. The Scottish Studies Society's 25th Annual Tartan Day Dinner and Scot of the Year Award presentation took place at the University of Toronto's Hart House on April 20. The recipient of the 2017 award was Bruce Simpson and the award was presented by Rob McEwen who was the 2015 recipient. Originally from Scotland, Bruce Simpson is a Senior Partner of McKinsey & Company, the leading consulting firm, where he has worked for 30 years. He moved to Canada from Paris with his wife Tracy and three sons in 2000. He is a business leader deeply committed to innovation and Canadian competitiveness, and a community leader engaged in the arts, human rights, healthcare, the environment, women's advancement, and other social causes. Pictures of the event have been posted here.
2017. Scottish Chapbook Digital Humanities website. Thanks to funding from the Scottish Studies Foundation, this collaborative project between the University of Guelph Library and Centre for Scottish Studies provides unprecedented free online access to a hidden collection of over 600 chapbooks housed in Archival & Special Collections, as well as essays and exhibits to interpret and contextualize them. (Read more about chapbooks here.)
2017. From Scotland, Scottish Studies Foundation President David Hunter provides a video update to attendees at the University of Guelph's 2017 Fall Colloquium. View the video here.
2017. In remembrance of our former board member, the late Duncan Campbell, we invite you to make a donation to the Scottish Studies Foundation to be used to provide scholarships to students to travel from Canada to Scotland to further their research, or to assist lecturers from Scotland in travelling to Canada. Details here.
2016. At the Fall Colloquium: Prof. Ted Cowan delivers the Scottish Studies Annual Jill McKenzie Memorial Lecture: "Caledonian Canada: Building the Foundations."
2016. At the Fall Colloquium: Dr. Katie McCullough presents her paper entitled "Scottish Studies in Canada: Notes from the Pacific Northwest."
2016. Scenes from the Scottish Studies Foundation's 25th Annual Tall Ship Cruise on the Empire Sandy. Toronto, September 4, 2016. View the video here.
2016. On Friday, January 8, our Burns celebrations got off to an early start with a special "Oor Club" lunch at the Duke of York pub in Toronto. Our piper was St. Andrew's Society President, Rory Sinclair and David Campbell gave his famous "Address to the Haggis" and entertained us with some of Burns's best-loved songs. Oor Club co-ordinator, Pearl Grieve-Nixon, gave the "Selkirk Grace." Scottish Studies Foundation President, David Hunter, delivered the "Immortal Memory" which you can listen to here.
2016. A transcript of the "Immortal Memory" given by David Hunter at the Oor Club Burns Lunch on January 8. More
2016. On May 13, we celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Scottish Studies Foundation at our annual Scot of the Year Award event during which we paid tribute to this year's recipient, Canadian author and Nobel Prize winner, Alice Munro. Video taken during the event including the speech given by Author and Publisher Doug Gibson can be seen here.
2015. "The Secret Songs of Lady Nairne." Selected songs from an "Oor Club" talk by David Hunter on September 4, 2015. On June 2nd, 1806, at age 41, she married her second cousin, Major William Murray Nairne, and they remained in Edinburgh until his death in 1830. It was upon coming to Edinburgh that she became involved in her lifelong project to preserve and foster the songs of Scotland. More.
2015. The Rural Diary Archive showcases over 130 diarists from across Ontario and is available online beginning September 24, 2015. It broadcasts the availability of diaries in archives across the province and makes these hand-written and fading sources accessible to all. The full text of the diaries of nineteen men and women are available to read, search and transcribe and more are continuously being added as new collections are located. Read, transcribe and enjoy old Scottish-Canadian diaries online.
2015. All of us at the Scottish Studies Foundation were saddened to hear of the passing of our good friend, Pipe Major John Wakefield, on Saturday September 5. John was a great supporter of the Foundation and was our piper of choice at all of our events going back many years. (More here.)
2015. At the Oor Club on March 4, Pearl White teamed up with pianist David Restivo to entertain us with a repertoire of jazz classics. Pearl White is none other than our own Oor Club coordinator, Pearl Grieve-Nixon, originally from the historic Scottish east coast town of Arbroath. (Listen to Pearl singing here.)
2013. Mary MacMillan signs her new book of poetry entitled "Intermezzo" for fellow author and Scottish Studies Foundation Director Douglas Gibson Mary MacKay MacMillan is a Prince Edward Islander living in Toronto and returning often to the island. The loves of her life are her family and friends, art, music, history, theatre, dogs — "We had ten wonderful boxers." (Details here.)
2013. Farewell to Graeme After nine years as the Scottish Studies Foundation Chair at the University of Guelph, Professor Graeme Morton returns hame. He is off and awa to Dundee, the town known for its jute, jam and journalism — the place of the Broons, Oor Wullie and Desperate Dan, where he will take up the position of Chair in Modern History at Dundee University. More.
2013. We were delighted to have radio broadcaster Denis Snowdon as our guest speaker at the "Oor Club" on March 6, 2013. You can listen to his talk here. Denis has now arranged for his show, "A Little Breath of Scotland" to be available as a weekly podcast.
2011.The Sept/Oct 2011 issue of History Scotland featured an article about the Foundation co-authored by SSF Directors, John B. McMillan and David Hunter and includes many other items of particlar interest to Canadians. A transcript is available here
2009. The 2009 season at the "Oor Club" got underway at noon on Friday January 9, when Scottish Studies President David McConnell Hunter gave a talk on photography entitled "The Highlands of Scotland" which also featured this audio-video presentation of Highland landscapes in all their glory. In the presentation, David also used his photographs in a tribute to the late Tom Weir, author, photographer, mountaineer and TV personality who contributed to the Scots Magazine for many decades. (Details here.)
2007. Thanks to the efforts of Jean Watson, Tartan Day April 6th, has become a yearly event not only in Canada but all over the world. Jean became "Scot of the Year 2007" at the Scottish Studies Society's Tartan Day Dinner at Casa Loma in Toronto on 18th April 2007. More.
1993. Rare Books Library (video made in 1993). At that time Professor Cowan was Chair of the Scottish Studies program at the University of Guelph. This portion of the video includes footage of the McLaughlin Library's Scottish collection, which is now the largest collection of Scottish materials outside the UK. More.
1993. Professor Stanford Reid speaking in 1993, W. Stanford Reid was the first chair of Guelph's Department of History and the founder of its Scottish studies program. During his time as chair, Reid launched the master's and PhD programs in history and established the graduate program in Scottish studies. It was one of Guelph's first graduate programs in the liberal arts and is still one of the most popular. More information here.
1993. David Hunter visits Scottish Studies faculty and students at the University of Guelph. View video here.
1992. The Scottish Studies Foundation's Annual Tall Ship Cruise on the Empire Sandy commemorates the historic voyage of pioneer ship "Hector" which arrived in Pictou, Nova Scotia in 1773. Footage shown here is from the first event which took place in 1992. Members of the The Royal Canadian Yacht Club were invited to dress up for the occasion and participate in an informal "sailpast." Prizes were awarded for the "Best Dressed Boat."
Scottish Studies Genealogy Research Repository
The Repository will be an important research tool for anyone interested in the history of the Scottish Canadian community, be they academic historians, genealogists, research students, population scientists, journalists, heritage workers, writers, or any Canadian proud of their Scottish ancestry and heritage. Details here.
We have gathered a number of radio programmes that we trust will be of interest to Scottish Studies enthusiasts.
All books in the Guelph series in Scottish Studies are now available for purchase online. Details here.
Thanks to the initiative of Scottish Studies Foundation Director Doug Ross, the Foundation has sponsored the concept of a "Clan Passport" to be used at various Highland Games. These have been enthusiastically received as you can see here.
Since 1998, our newsletter has been published under the title of The Scots Canadian. We are now pleased to have all issues posted online as pdf files pdf files.
The Scottish Studies Foundation Digital Archive Project at the University of Guelph . (Details here.)
The Jill McKenzie Memorial Lecture. The Scottish Studies Foundation has created the Jill McKenzie Memorial Lecture in Scottish Studies at the University of Guelph. In honour of Jill and her husband Alan McKenzie, an annual lecture will be delivered by one of Scotland's foremost historians at the Fall Colloquium. Jill and Alan McKenzie were prominent were members of the Scottish Studies community over many years. More.
"The Lass of Lochroyan" — A Scottish Studies Foundation "chapbook." the story centres on "The Lass" who, along with her infant child, has been separated from Lord Gregory, her lover and father of her child; and her quest to reunite with him. Why they are being kept apart is not clear, although it has been assumed that he may either have been unwell or is being kept against his will — confined by fairy charms in an enchanted tower situated in the sea. More.
The Scottish Studies Society's "Scot of the Year Award" was initiated in 1993 to honour individuals with a Scottish connection who have achieved distinction through their contribution to Canadian society or the international community at large. It is awarded on an annual basis during a presentation at the Society's annual Tartan Day Celebration usually held in April or May of each year. We are pleased to introduce you to the recipients of this prestigious award. More.
This new book by Sam Allison is a provocative account of the 78th Fraser's Highlanders and its crucial place in history. It tells the remarkable story of the men of the 78th Fraser's Highlanders as they move from the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland, through the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution, to the War of 1812. More.