Current Projects
- Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time (DePOT)
This is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada-funded Partnership project consisting of 33 partner organizations and 24 co-applicants and collaborators from six countries in Western Europe (Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom) and North America (Canada, United States). The partnership examines the historical roots and lived experience of deindustrialization as well as the political responses to it. The overall goal is to understand deindustrialization in transnational and comparative perspective, its causes, the responses to it, its effects, and its legacies. Dr Jackie Clarke is leading the thematic strands on Gender and Family (with Professor Arthur McIvor) and Working-Class Expression (with Professor Tim Strangleman). - How-to Books: Instructions, Problem-Solving, and Practical Knowledge
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinscheft.
The proliferation of how-to books from the first centuries of printing is striking; instructional literature flooded the book market – on distillation, medicine, dyeing, cosmetics, glassmaking, ceramics, metallurgy and many other subjects. Printers and other versatile lay people made specialist knowledge accessible to a wider public in as catchy a way as possible. What is innovative about tracts from all areas of learning acquisition that take the user by the hand, step by step, to operationalise complex processes? Knowledge can arise directly from action – knowing and doing form a symbiosis: Take me and make it happen!
How do you learn practical skill from a book? Why were these books so popular, who used them and how, are they even a clearly defined genre, etc. – those are the issues that this project will address. Two famous libraries joined forces to create this rather inconspicuous book genre: The University of Glasgow Library (UoGL) and the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel (HAB). The special collections in Glasgow also include the Ferguson Collection, probably the world’s best collection of practical knowledge literature from the early modern period. This will be analysed in more detail in the light of supplementary holdings from Wolfenbüttel. - Strategies to Strengthen European Linguistic Capital in a Globalized World (MultiLX)
Funded by Horizon Europe.
This research project will collect evidence to inform language policy in Europe. It will explore the effects of mobility of people across territories and how this has altered the linguistic make-up of Europe. It will also examine the effects of AI and other digital technology on the way people communicate so as to better inform EU language policy on how to respond to these changes. It will address the challenges facing an increasingly diverse, digital and multilingual Europe and how language policies can be used to shape an inclusive, democratic and equitable future for young people in Europe. The project examines how young people use language in multiple locations in Europe, focusing on their communication in digital, creative and everyday contexts, zoning in on six cities in five countries. Bernie O’Rourke and Research Associate Dr Alejandro Dayán-Fernández, will focus on Galician language revitalisation initiatives in Santiago de Compostela in the Autonomous Community of Galicia in north-west Spain.