Editing Burns for the 21st Century: Dr Pauline Mackay
Issued: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 11:22:00 BST
While studying as an undergraduate in Scottish Literature at Glasgow, Pauline Mackay’s interest in Burns led academics to encourage her to continue her studies at postgraduate level. She took their advice, and is now establishing a promising career in the Centre for Robert Burns Studies.
After completing her thesis, Dr Mackay successfully applied for a research assistantship in the centre to work on a major project called Robert Burns: Inventing Tradition and Securing Memory. The role involved supporting the creation of a unique online catalogue of public monuments of Burns erected worldwide by 1909, along with images and souvenirs relating to the poet.
‘I spent a year going around various museums and repositories digitising Burns memorabilia and creating a web presence,’ explains Dr Mackay. ‘After spending my PhD immersed in manuscripts it was really interesting to branch out into material culture.’
Having caught the Burns bug, Dr Mackay applied for her second research assistant post in Spring of 2011 and is now assigned to Editing Burns for the 21st Century. Her role provides support to the academics editing the complete works edition and she is responsible for updating the global Burns community on the project’s progress by helping develop a new web resource and with the use of social media.
‘Glasgow is wonderful because of the amount of opportunities available to PhD students,’ she says. ‘It’s great to be part of a huge community of experts who can not only support you but feed your interests. I don’t think it gets much better than that.’
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