Professor Alison Wiggins
- Professor of English Language and Digital Editing (English Language & Linguistics)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1513-2669Research interests
Research interests
- Textual scholarship and editing
- Archives and materiality
- Handwriting; scribal and manuscript cultures
- Digital humanities
- History of letter-writing
- History of the English language
- Middle English literature
I work primarily on Middle and Early Modern English handwritten texts and their archival contexts. My most recent book, co-edited with Prof. Andrew Prescott, Archives: Power, Truth, and Fiction, was published in 2023 for the Oxford University Press series, 21st-Century Approaches to Literature. Since 2022 I have been collaborating with colleagues from across the University on a virtual reconstruction of Adam Smith's library that includes marginalia and annotations, in my role for the Templeton Smith@300 project.
During 2017-19 I held an AHRC Leadership Fellowship to lead the project Archives and Writing Lives, which examined the impact of digital scholarship on archival research. The research focused upon the letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Tudor financial accounts of Chatsworth House. Related resulting activities have included my role on the Steering Group for the Chatsworth House Devonshire Inheritance Project, 2021-23.
In 2017 I completed my monograph on Bess of Hardwick's Letters: Language, Materiality and Early Modern Epistolary Culture for the series Material Readings in Early Modern Culture (Routledge), one of the outputs of AHRC-funded project that I led as PI, The Letters of Bess of Hardwick. Other outputs from this project included an Open Access interactive online edition with images and annotated transcripts of c.250 letters www.bessofhardwick.org (243k page views during 2013-17; data shared with and a landing page created within Women's Early Modern Letters Online; assignment to the OED Historical Reading Programme) and an exhibition at National Trust property Hardwick Hall and The National Archives.
Another strand of my research and teaching focuses upon Middle English literature, its meanings and appropriations over time. I am currently co-editing, with Prof. Rory Critten, a student edition of the Middle English Seven Sages of Rome for the TEAMS series (Teaching Association for Medieval Studies, University of Rochester). I have published on Middle English romance, medieval literary manuscripts and the afterlives of Chaucer's works. In 2012 I co-authored a book on medieval romance and its cultural, material and manuscript contexts (with Dr Nicholas Perkins) to accompany the Bodleian Library Romance of the Middle Ages exhibition.
Since 2018 I have been co-director of the University of Glasgow Textual Editing Lab. I am a member of the University's Centre for Gender History and an advisory board member for Studies in Variation Contacts and Change in English (University of Helsinki) and the AHRC Manuscript Pamphleteering in Early Student England Project (Universities of Birmingham and Bristol). I regularly review for journals that have most recently include The Library, Archives, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, English Studies, Review of English Studies, New Medieval Literatures, The Journal of the Early Book Society, Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, and The Yearbook of Langland Studies. Since 2017 I have served as a member of the AHRC Peer Review College.
I joined the English Language & Linguistics Subject Area at the University of Glasgow in 2006. I was previously (2002-6) Research Officer and web manager at the AHRC Centre for Editing Lives and Letters (CELL) at Queen Mary, University of London (now located at UCL), where I contributed to a range of digital archival projects that included the The Letters of William Herle (with Dr Robyn Adams). Prior to my appointment at CELL, I was employed at the University of Sheffield as Research Associate for The Auchinleck Manuscript, one the National Library of Scotland's Digital Resources (2003; data shared with JISC/HRI for Manuscripts Online, 2013). I am a graduate of the University of Kent (BA English Literature, 1st Class; MA Medieval and Tudor Studies, distinction) and the University of Sheffield (PhD, funded by a three-year full University Scholarship).
Grants
2022-24: Smith@300: Celebrating Adam Smith as Scholar, Educator, and Citizen. Templeton Foundation, co-lead of the Scholar Pillar.
2017-19: AHRC Archives and Writing Lives Principal Investigator: Alison Wiggins (100%). Institution: University of Glasgow, College of Arts, English Language & Linguistics. Funder: AHRC, Leadership Fellowship. Project Reference: AH/P009735/1. Funded value: £125,923 (£155,719 total). Plus contributions in kind from The Folger Shakespeare Library and The Bodleian Library.
2008-12: AHRC Letters of Bess of Hardwick Project. Full title: A Corpus of Renaissance Correspondence: The Letters of Elizabeth Talbot, c.1527-1608, known as 'Bess of Hardwick'. Principal Investigator: Alison Wiggins (100%). Institution: University of Glasgow, College of Arts, Department of English Language. Funder: AHRC, Research Grant. Project Reference: AH/F017308/1. Funded value: £260,472 (£331,825 total). Plus funding awards and contributions in kind from The National Trust, The National Archives, The Folger Shakespeare Library and The Bodleian Library.
2009: Folger Shakespeare Library Grant-In-Aid, Teaching Palaeography Workshop, $1k
2005: Folger Shakespeare Library Short-Term Research Fellowship, 'What Did Renaissance Readers Write in Their Printed Copies of Chaucer?', $2k
Supervision
I would be pleased to discuss supervising research degrees within my research areas, which are listed above under 'Research Interests'.
Current PhD students:
Nicola Estrafallaces, 'Translating Devotional Texts for Medieval Religious Women'
Claire Elder, 'Recovering Early Modern Scottish Voices: A Socio-cultural Analysis of the Language of the Stewart and Erskine Family Correspondence, Including Marie Stewart, Countess of Mar'
Former PhD students (primary supervisor):
Emma Osborne, 'Reading Women: Models of Behaviour and Womanhood in the Auchinleck Manuscript' (with Prof. Beth Robertson), 2017
Jade Scott, AHRC, 'The Letters of Lady Anne Percy, 1538-96' (first supervisor; second supervisor: Prof. Alex Shepard). Completed: 2017.
Felicity Maxwell, SSHRC, 'Household Words: Textualising Social Relations in the Correspondence of Bess of Hardwick's Servants, c.1550-1590' (first supervisor; second supervisor: Dr Rob Maslen). Completed: 2014.
Imogen Marcus, AHRC, 'An Investigation into the Language and Letters of Bess of Hardwick (c.1527-1608)' (first supervisor; second supervisor: Prof. Jeremy Smith). Completed: 2012.
Graham Williams, University of Glasgow Scholarship, 'Pragmatic Readings of the Letters of Joan and Maria Thynne, 1575-1611' (first supervisor; second supervisor: Prof. Jeremy Smith). Completed: 2009.
- Elder, Claire
An Early Modern Scottish Community of Practice: A socio-cultural analysis of formulaic features in the Stewart and Erskine family correspondence, including the letters of Marie Stewart, Countess of Mar. - Estrafallaces, Nicola
Translating Devotional Texts for Medieval Religious Women
Teaching
At Honours level (third/fourth year undergraduate), I have convened the courses Editing Historical English Texts (ENGLANG4036), Reading the Past: From Script to Print (ENGLANG4051) and Middle English Literature 1 (ENGLANG4041). I have also previously contributed to teaching on History of English (ENGLANG4037) and Middle English Literature 2 (ENGLANG4042).
At pre-Honours level (first/second year undergraduate), I have previously convened Level 1 and Level 2 English Language (ENGLANG1001, ENGLANG1002, ENGLANG1003, ENGLANG2004, ENGLANG2005). I have delivered the lecture blocks on Middle English and Early Modern English language and literature including Chaucer and Shakespeare.
At post-graduate level I convene the course Early Modern Manuscripts for Research (College-wide, ENGLANG5040) and Early Modern Manuscripts for Research (ENGLAND5095). I have formerly contributed with modules on Palaeography and Renaissance Reading.
I provide dissertation supervisor for Honours and Level 5. I welcome applications for research degrees to supervise within my research areas, which are listed above under 'Research Interests'.
