Murray G. H. Pittock MAE FRSE (born 5 January 1962) is a Scottish historian, Bradley Professor of Literature at the University of Glasgow and Pro Vice Principal at the University, where he has served in senior roles including Dean and Vice Principal since 2008. He led for the University on the University/City of Glasgow/National Library of Scotland Kelvin Hall development (kelvinhall.org.uk), and has chaired Glasgow’s unique early career development programme, which has been highly influential in the sector, since 2016. He has also acted as lead or co-lead for a range of national and International partnerships, including with the Smithsonian Institution, and plays a leading role in the University’s engagement with government and the cultural and creative industries (CCIs), organizing the ‘Glasgow and Dublin: Creative Cities’ summit in the British Embassy in Dublin in 2019, and working with the European network CIVIS on the creation of a European policy document on universities and civic engagement, on which he gave a masterclass for La Sapienza University. He also produced a major report on the impact of Robert Burns on the Scottish Economy for the Scottish Government in 2020; a Parliamentary debate was held at Holyrood on the recommendations, which have been cited in policy debate many times since. In 2022, he was declared Scotland’s Knowledge Exchange Champion of the year. Outside the University, he served on the Research Excellence Framework (REF) Institutional Environment Pilot Panel in 2018-22, and on the National Trust for Scotland Board (2019-27) and Investment Committee, as well as acting as Co-chair of the Scottish Arts and Humanities Alliance (SAHA) and chair of the Governance Board of the Scottish Council on Global Affairs. He also serves as Scottish History Adviser to the NTS and as an adviser to a wide range of other national heritage bodies and the Scottish Parliament; recently he has provided expert advice to both the Scottish and British parliaments on promoting Scotland abroad. He is on the Advisory Board of NISE, the Europe-wide research group bringing together over 40 research centres working on national identities and was President of the Edinburgh Walter Scott Club in 2019-20 and 2021-22. He has given a number of major lectures, most recently the Magnusson, MacCormack and Caledonian lectures
Previously he was Professor of Scottish and Romantic Literature and Deputy Head of Arts at the University of Manchester, becoming the first ever professor of Scottish Literature at an English university. He has also held visiting appointments at universities worldwide in Celtic Studies, English, History, Languages and Equality and Diversity including: New York University (2015), Notre Dame (2014), Charles University, Prague (2010); Trinity College, Dublin (2008); Auburn (2006) the University of Wales in advanced Welsh and Celtic studies (2002) and Yale (1998, 2000–01). He has been invited as a visitor or to speak at leading universities including Berkeley, Columbia, Harvard, Stanford and the Sorbonne.
Pittock’s books deal with a variety of subjects including English, History, Art History, Politics and VR/XR. His research includes groundbreaking books on the Jacobite literature and the Jacobite armies, and on the nature of national culture, the construction of Celtic identities and the existence and nature of a distinctive Scottish Romanticism. His work has appeared in Braille, French, Hebrew, Mandarin and Spanish as well as in English. His study of Culloden was selected by Jeremy Black as his choice for one of the ten “best history books of the year” by History Today and was recommended by Conservative MP Keith Simpson for reading by all non-Scottish MPs. In 2018, Pittock published the first ever scholarly edition of Robert Burns and James Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum in two volumes and a book which challenges the conventional dates for the Enlightenment and uses Smart City theory to explore the early modern city. In 2022, he published Scotland: The Global History with Yale University Press (Spectator Book of the Year choice among other awards, and continues to act as General Editor of the Edinburgh Edition of Allan Ramsay, which received a major Arts and Humanities Research Council grant for 2018-23. He is also a co-investigator on the Museums in the Metaverse Innovation Accelerator and has led some 20 grants in his career. In 2013, he planned and secured agreement for the development of a national graduate school of arts and humanities in Scotland. In 2014, he founded the first International Association for the Study of Scottish Literatures, which has held or is planning a sequence of international Congresses, at Glasgow (2014), Vancouver (2017), Prague (2022), Nottingham (2024) and Columbia SC (2026).
Pittock gave evidence in November 2021, on behalf of SAHA to the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood) Europe Committee on Scotland’s international strategy, that the country’s image is two centuries old, one of ‘castles, mountains, heather and whisky’ and less external awareness exists of a modern ‘cutting edge’ brand image, with a focus on the country’s scientific innovation including developments on ‘climate change, digital, cultural, progressive and humanitarian legislation.’
Pittock is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Member of Academia Europaea and has been awarded or shortlisted for numerous prizes. He is one of few academics to have given a prize lecture at both the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy, where he gave the Chatterton lecture in poetry in 2002. In 2011–13, he convened the National Champions’ Group, supporting the introduction and development of Scottish Studies in schools. Pittock has appeared in the media in over 50 countries and has been described as “Scotland’s leading public intellectual”, by Christopher Goulding as “probably Scotland’s leading cultural commentator” and by the Joan McAlpine as “Scotland’s leading cultural historian”.
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