Dr Kate Wilson from the University of Strathclyde was awarded the Ross Roy Medal at the Saltire Society’s Scotland National Book Awards in Edinburgh.
The Medal is awarded annually to the best PhD thesis submitted on a subject relating to Scottish literature and judged by the University Committee for Scottish Literature.
Dr Wilson’s’s thesis, ‘Current Living Places and Future Utopias: Community Writing in Glasgow, 1967-1990,’ used oral history and archival research to look at community writing and community activism in Glasgow. It explored how community newspapers and writers’ groups helped people to navigate and contest top-down urban regeneration projects from the post-war period onwards.
It was supervised by Dr Eleanor Bell, a senior lecturer in English at Strathclyde and Dr Angela Bartie from the University of Edinburgh and funded by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities.
Dr Wilson said: “I’m so pleased to have won this award for my research. I’d like to thank all of the writers, activists and community workers who took the time to speak with me for this project, and my supervisors Dr Eleanor Bell and Dr Angela Bartie for their unending support and kindness.
“I’d also like to thank Professor Arthur McIvor and Dr Yvonne McFadden at the Scottish Oral History Centre for their invaluable expertise.”
The Saltire Society is an independent non-political body promoting Scottish heritage.