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rhonabrown.bsky.social
Rhona Brown
@rhonabrown.bsky.social
2K followers 1.3K following 100 posts
Professor of Scottish Textual Cultures, University of Glasgow
18th-century Scottish poetry, early Scottish periodicals, textual editing.
Working on a new edition of the poetry of Robert Fergusson (1750-74). 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿📚📖🗞️📰
@rfergussonpoet.bsky.social
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Rhona Brown
ginorgym.bsky.social
Edwin Muir’s The Day

#edwinmuir
#scottishliterature
#poetry
November 8, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
scotsman.com
🔴 Muriel Spark to be honoured in first ever memorial dedicated to a woman in Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens

www.scotsman.com/arts-and-cul...
Muriel Spark to be honoured in first ever memorial dedicated to a woman in gardens
The memorial will be the first dedicated to a woman in Princes Street Gardens
www.scotsman.com
November 4, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
jennyrichards.bsky.social
Do we need humanities graduates to deliver the industrial strategy? Yes we do. www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/do-we-n...
Do we need humanities graduates to deliver the industrial strategy?
Policymakers should take a broad view of the value of degree courses when building our future workforce, says Charlotte Hallahan
www.timeshighereducation.com
November 5, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
katekane1542.bsky.social
I went on my first solo trip to the NLS last week! Great Mary finds in their collection, including Emily Hahn’s biography for children ‘Mary Queen of Scots’ (1956).

An American (and feminist?) perspective on a Scottish Queen:

‘Fifty years after Columbus discovered America Mary Stuart was born.’
Emily Hahn, Mary Queen of Scots (London: MacDonald, 1956), p.1.
November 3, 2025 at 3:55 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
I'm chuffed to be appointed Director and Board member for Braw Clan, an award-winning theatre company making new Scots language plays for audiences in southern Scotland. Find out more about their brilliant plays, events and laudable community work: brawclan.com
Can't wait to see where we go next.
Braw Clan
The Scots language theatre company
brawclan.com
October 27, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
scotunipress.bsky.social
Listen to this wonderful podcast with SUP Editorial Board member Dr Brianna Robertson-Kirkland @breerob-kirk.bsky.social, recorded for #OAWeek!

Brianna discusses why #OpenAccess is so important, especially for smaller arts institutions and ECRs 🔓

Thanks to @sahavoice.bsky.social for arranging 🙏
sahavoice.bsky.social Scottish Arts and Humanities Alliance (SAHA) @sahavoice.bsky.social · 22d
To mark International Open Access Week, we had the pleasure of having a SAHA Conversation with Dr Brianna Robertson-Kirkland (@breerob-kirk.bsky.social),member of the Editorial Board of the Scottish Universities Press (@scotunipress.bsky.social)

Full episode available wherever you get your podcast
October 23, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
hennakarhapaa.bsky.social
Wilkes was a proto-populist, who utilized pictorial propaganda to gain popularity and drive public political conversation & opinion to his benefit.

He and his Wilkite faction remain useful examples when studying how political propaganda proliferate through different social orders.
historytoday.com History Today @historytoday.com · 23d
Parliament’s champion of the people or scandalous, self-serving politician? #Georgian radical John Wilkes kept a foot in both camps.

⌛️ Last chance to read this recent History Matters for free

www.historytoday.com/archive/hist...
The Radical John Wilkes
www.historytoday.com
October 21, 2025 at 12:11 PM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
asls.org.uk
Dreaming the Daily Darg: Working Lives in Scottish Writing since 1918
Studies in Scottish Literature 50/1, 2025

A special issue exploring work & working life in Scottish writing chiefly of the 20th & 21st centuries – available now on Open Access
#litstudies
scholarcommons.sc.edu/ssl/vol50/is...
Articles Introduction: Dreaming the Daily Darg Corey Gibson Jute mill songs: Mary Brooksbank and industrial tradition in a dying industry Erin Farley ‘And On One Toils, Into The Hill’: Working and Walking in Nan Shepherd’s North East Sarah Leith Labour and (Class) Struggle in James Barke’s Compositionist Imaginaries: Dreaming with Rob Roy, Marx & Burns Arianna Introna Proletarian Nights in Archie Hind’s The Dear Green Place Corey Gibson Agnes Owens and the Parliament of Insignificant Lives Marie-Odile Pittin-Hedon Writing Loss, Culture and Change: Deindustrialisation and Community Writers’ Groups In Glasgow Kate Wilson James Kelman and the Impossibility of Managerial Souls Joseph H. Jackson ‘Just Get It On The Table’: Gendered Food Labour in Janice Galloway’s Fiction Gina Lyle Scottish Workers’ Stories of Life and Labour during Covid-19 from the Workers’ Stories Project Hailey Maxwell, Ruth Gilbert, Suki Sangha, and Ewan Gibbs
October 20, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
asls.org.uk
Robert Fergusson (1750–1774) died #OTD, 17 Oct, aged just 24. Notable for his poetry in both Scots & English, his works include “Auld Reikie”, “The Daft Days”, & “Hallow Fair”. His legacies are broad, from the literary & cultural to the medical.
#C18 #litstudies
1/5
robert-fergusson.glasgow.ac.uk
A head and shoulders portrait in oils of Robert Fergusson by Alexander Runciman (1736–1785). Runciman has painted his friend, a young poet, lost in creative thought. His exaggerated features – huge eyes, full lips – suggest brilliance and intensity.
October 17, 2025 at 4:58 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
#OTD in 1774, Edinburgh poet Robert Fergusson died in the city’s asylum for pauper lunatics at 24. Despite the tragedy, his works are full of life, laughter and satire. My new edition of his works is out next year, but for now enjoy some treats from Project Fergusson
robert-fergusson.glasgow.ac.uk
A statue of Robert Fergusson outside Edinburgh’s Canongate Kirkyard. He is not on a plinth, but walking along the street, his coattails blowing and a book in his hand. A plaque commemorating Robert Fergusson in St Giles Kirk, Edinburgh. He is in profile, looking to his right.
October 17, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
murrayp.bsky.social
Quotes from reviews of Collected Ramsay: ‘could hardly be surpassed' (Tea-Table Miscellany)
'deeply nuanced and illuminating’ (Gentle Shepherd);
‘exemplary’ (Ever Green, Prose)
‘groundbreaking’ (edition). Well done @stevenewman.bsky.social @rhonabrown.bsky.social @breerob-kirk.bsky.social & all.
asls.org.uk Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 29d
Allan Ramsay (1684–1758) – poet, playwright, founder of modern #Scots writing, & with a claim to be the father of #Romanticism – was born #OTD, 15 Oct. A 🎂 🧵 …
#C18
1/6
🖼️ Allan Ramsay, 1684–1758, by William Aikman – Scottish National Portrait Gallery
www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-arti...
Portrait of Allan Ramsay (1684–1758), by William Aikman. Oil on canvas. Ramsay is clean-shaven, and looks out at the viewer with a half-smile. He wears a collarless dark green velvet coat, unbuttoned, and has an orange silk cloth wound about his head like an improvised turban.
October 16, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
asls.org.uk
Allan Ramsay (1684–1758) – poet, playwright, founder of modern #Scots writing, & with a claim to be the father of #Romanticism – was born #OTD, 15 Oct. A 🎂 🧵 …
#C18
1/6
🖼️ Allan Ramsay, 1684–1758, by William Aikman – Scottish National Portrait Gallery
www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-arti...
Portrait of Allan Ramsay (1684–1758), by William Aikman. Oil on canvas. Ramsay is clean-shaven, and looks out at the viewer with a half-smile. He wears a collarless dark green velvet coat, unbuttoned, and has an orange silk cloth wound about his head like an improvised turban.
October 15, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
asls.org.uk
A gifted writer of #gothic & #horror fiction, Dorothy K. Haynes (1918–1987) was born #OTD, 12 Oct. Haynes & her twin brother spent 4 years in Aberlour Orphanage, from 1929 to 1933: last year, we republished her long out-of-print childhood memoir, HASTE YE BACK
💙📚
1/4
asls.org.uk/publications...
Annual Volume 53 (2023)
Edited by Craig Lamont Paperback, 240 pages Association for Scottish Literature, March 2024 Price £14.95 ISBN: 9781906841591 Order from our bookshop First published in 1973, Haste Ye Back is a lively…
asls.org.uk
October 12, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
bars.bsky.social
BARS 2026 First Book Prize: Calls for Nominations
Awarded biennially for the best first monograph in Romantic Studies, this prize is open to first monographs published between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2025.
Deadline: 12th January 2026.
More info: www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6174
October 10, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
rfergussonpoet.bsky.social
Reminder: Get your ticket's for next Wednesday's event in Edinburgh at Golden Hare Books!
We look forward to celebrating our wonderful collection with you then!
rfergussonpoet.bsky.social Robert Fergusson (1750-74) @rfergussonpoet.bsky.social · Sep 26
Thanks to all who read at and attended yesterday's online launch - what a fantastic event!

Our final launch (for now!) is in Edinburgh on 15 October
at Golden Hare Books with Scotland's Makar Pàdraig MacAoidh | Peter Mackay
and a range of lovely poets!
Get your tickets ⤵️
shorturl.at/Xg3XC
October 10, 2025 at 10:45 AM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
ottoenglish.bsky.social
Badenoch and Co see education only as a means to a massive income in some soul destroying career.

Devoid of imagination and the power of knowledge they view life entirely through the prism of the CV.

My advice always is to study what interests you and the rest will follow
October 8, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
scotunipress.bsky.social
Calling library and professional services staff! Do you want to learn more about open research and how it impacts on your role?

Join us during #OAWeek for 'A Practical Guide to Open Research'!

Find out more and register: www.sup.ac.uk/news/upcomin...

@scurlscottish.bsky.social
An advert for the Scottish Universities Press webinar 'A practical guide to open research'. Date: Wednesday 22 October Time: 09:30am to 12:30pm Register: https://bit.ly/4q6n2pl
October 7, 2025 at 3:11 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
It's #NationalPoetryDay! The perfect opportunity to share Robert Fergusson's translation of Horace's ode on the importance of seizing the day. In rich Scots, Fergusson gives us the keys to a good life: staying in the moment and surrounding ourselves with friends and conviviality.
#RobertFergusson
Ne'er fash your thumb what gods decree To be the weird o' you or me, Nor deal in cantrip's kittle cunning To spier how fast your days are running, But patient lippen for the best, Nor be in dowie thought oppressed, Whether we see mair winters come, Than this that spits wi canker'd foam. Now moisten weel your geyzen'd was Wi couthy friends and hearty blaws; Ne'er lat your hope owrgang your days, For eild and thraldom never stays; The day looks gash, toot aff your horn, Nor care yae strae about the morn. A close-up of the statue of Robert Fergusson outside Edinburgh's Canongate Kirk, which can be seen in part in the background. The bronze sculpture shows Fergusson, with 18thC hair and dress, looking ahead while holding a book in his right hand.
October 2, 2025 at 3:15 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Good luck to @wilcocksonamy.bsky.social as she starts a new post at Queen Mary University of London, where she'll work as a Research Assistant on the Shelley Letters project. It has been a massive pleasure to work with Amy as RA on the @rfergussonpoet.bsky.social project, and there's more to come!
The Fergusson project logo, which features Fergusson's loopy and whorly signature and his portrait superimposed over an 18thC drawing of Edinburgh. Fergusson is looking to his right, with a quill in his right hand.
October 1, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
profelainechalus.bsky.social
For anyone who is #teaching #18thcentury politics and/or electoral culture, or is doing #localhistory or #familyhistory, do check out our ECPPEC web resource : it's chock-full of short informative essays, polling data, and artefacts #skystorians ecppec.ncl.ac.uk
Eighteenth-Century Political Participation & Electoral Culture
18th-century Britain is notorious for corrupt and restrictive politics, when few could vote, bribery and debauchery were commonplace. But it was also an age when modern democracy was being shaped.
ecppec.ncl.ac.uk
September 27, 2025 at 6:25 AM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
rfergussonpoet.bsky.social
Thanks to all who read at and attended yesterday's online launch - what a fantastic event!

Our final launch (for now!) is in Edinburgh on 15 October
at Golden Hare Books with Scotland's Makar Pàdraig MacAoidh | Peter Mackay
and a range of lovely poets!
Get your tickets ⤵️
shorturl.at/Xg3XC
September 26, 2025 at 9:40 AM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
iassl.bsky.social
Congratulations to IASSL members @rhonabrown.bsky.social and @wilcocksonamy.bsky.social on their new edited publication: '‘O’er a’ my labours sey your skill’: Poetic Responses to Robert Fergusson' (Taproot Press), published as part of the @rfergussonpoet.bsky.social project.
rfergussonpoet.bsky.social Robert Fergusson (1750-74) @rfergussonpoet.bsky.social · Aug 8
We're thrilled to announce 'O'er a' my labours sey your skill: Poetic Responses to Robert Fergusson.
Across Scots, English and Gaelic, a wealth of contemporary poets respond to Fergusson's work, proving that, 250 years since his death, his song immortal lives!
taprootpressuk.co.uk/product/oer-...
September 26, 2025 at 11:07 AM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
tommyreckless.bsky.social
Took part in a fabulous online launch last night for 'O'er a' my labours sey your skill' with a bunch of other poets. Many thanks to @rhonabrown.bsky.social and @wilcocksonamy.bsky.social for organising. I did a Scots version of this song from the book which I've also provided a link to. #BowieBard
Robert Fergusson | Daily Reckless
Wake up ya dunderheids Smell the flowers not the weeds Put another barb in your books for me I'll make my own kind of poetry I look out my window, what do I see? A crack in the sky and a hand reaching...
www.dailyreckless.com
September 26, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
leverhulme.ac.uk
The Leverhulme Trust has teamed up with @britishacademy.bsky.social to produce Confessions of an Early Career Researcher, a new podcast by ECRs for ECRs. Tune in now: www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/audio-video/...

Read more about this collaboration: www.leverhulme.ac.uk/news/confess...
White text on magenta background: Confessions of an Early Career Researcher. leverhulme.ac.uk/news "We are excited to be collaborating with the British Academy on this new podcast to help early career researchers navigate every stage of their career journey."
September 22, 2025 at 8:46 AM
Reposted by Rhona Brown
paulmalgrati.bsky.social
Pleased to receive @rhonabrown.bsky.social and @wilcocksonamy.bsky.social’s brilliant collection of poems responding to Robert Fergusson, the bard of ‘Auld Reekie’. I’m also glad to have a wee Franco-Scots piece in there (riffing on Fergusson’s Jacobite/apocalyptical eclogue, ‘The Ghaists’). 🇫🇷🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
September 20, 2025 at 12:29 PM