Andrew Struan
I am the Head of Student Learning Development (SLD) at the University of Glasgow. My role involves leading on the enhancement of students' academic abilities. I work across all four Colleges at the University of Glasgow in the development of students' academic writing, academic literacies, and researcher skills.
I am the Programme Co-ordinator for the largest writing course in the United Kingdom Higher Education sector, the Academic Writing Skills Programme (AWSP). I further co-ordinate and convene a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, including History of Argumentation, Western Political Thought, and T2G: Transition to Glasgow. In addition, I jointly convene a postgraduate-level academic literacies course, Academic Study @ Glasgow, as well as the PGCAP module on Dissertation Supervision.
I manage a large team of Learning Developers, Maths and Stats advisers, and Peer Learning Facilitators who work to promote student academic literacies across all subject areas. I am also the University's Royal Literary Fund co-ordinator. My team teaches and assesses undergraduate and postgraduate taught students in all subject areas; the team has been recognised in a variety of national awards, e.g. Herald Higher Education Awards (2017, 2018), the Times Higher Education Awards (2017), and the Guardian Higher Education Awards (2019). I was the joint founder of the University's undergraduate research conference, Let's Talk About [X], and undergraduate research journal, [X]position; I now lead the team in the development of undergraduate students' multidisciplinary research communication.
Prior to my current role, I held positions in Glasgow as Effective Learning Adviser for the College of Arts, Effective Learning Adviser for the College of Social Sciences and Effective Writing Adviser for Postgraduate Research Students. I have also held posts at the University of Aberdeen (Academic Writing Adviser), the University of Ulster (Lecturer in International Politics and History), and the University of Virginia's International Centre for Jefferson Studies (Gilder-Lehrman Research Fellow). I also led a Higher Education Academy (HEA) project, called The Language and Sentiment of Their Times: Teaching the Language of Historical Texts, and was an Early Career Representative for the HEA.
Address: Student Learning Development
McMillan Reading Room
University of Glasgow
G12 8QQ
I am the Programme Co-ordinator for the largest writing course in the United Kingdom Higher Education sector, the Academic Writing Skills Programme (AWSP). I further co-ordinate and convene a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, including History of Argumentation, Western Political Thought, and T2G: Transition to Glasgow. In addition, I jointly convene a postgraduate-level academic literacies course, Academic Study @ Glasgow, as well as the PGCAP module on Dissertation Supervision.
I manage a large team of Learning Developers, Maths and Stats advisers, and Peer Learning Facilitators who work to promote student academic literacies across all subject areas. I am also the University's Royal Literary Fund co-ordinator. My team teaches and assesses undergraduate and postgraduate taught students in all subject areas; the team has been recognised in a variety of national awards, e.g. Herald Higher Education Awards (2017, 2018), the Times Higher Education Awards (2017), and the Guardian Higher Education Awards (2019). I was the joint founder of the University's undergraduate research conference, Let's Talk About [X], and undergraduate research journal, [X]position; I now lead the team in the development of undergraduate students' multidisciplinary research communication.
Prior to my current role, I held positions in Glasgow as Effective Learning Adviser for the College of Arts, Effective Learning Adviser for the College of Social Sciences and Effective Writing Adviser for Postgraduate Research Students. I have also held posts at the University of Aberdeen (Academic Writing Adviser), the University of Ulster (Lecturer in International Politics and History), and the University of Virginia's International Centre for Jefferson Studies (Gilder-Lehrman Research Fellow). I also led a Higher Education Academy (HEA) project, called The Language and Sentiment of Their Times: Teaching the Language of Historical Texts, and was an Early Career Representative for the HEA.
Address: Student Learning Development
McMillan Reading Room
University of Glasgow
G12 8QQ
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Papers by Andrew Struan
My research primarily aims to describe the ways in which imperial members of Parliament in London were connected (through trading networks, and political, social and cultural ties) to the American colonies and the extent to which the concept a shared Atlantic Empire – comprising the British Isles, the thirteen colonies and the West Indies – can be explored in the period of the American Revolution. By this, I aim to augment our understanding of the ‘Atlantic Community’ in the eighteenth-century by providing a coherent picture of the nature of the relationships between members of Parliament classed by contemporaries as ‘American experts’ and their colonial counterparts.
To establish the ways in which these so-called American MPs truly were representative of, and knowledgeable about, the colonial situation, I will compare and contrast their imperial thinking against that of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson’s opinions on empire are well known and documented, but I wish to establish the precise nature of how, if at all, he related his experiences and perceptions of empire with the ways in which the Americanist members of Parliament in London viewed the Atlantic World. That is to say, I aim to use the Jefferson Papers in order to establish some of the primary counterpoints to the proposals for a grand imperium as put forward by several of the imperial members of Parliament.
This paper uses the HTOED to examine the terms recorded as being used by English speakers across time to discuss foreignness, civilization (and the act of civilizing), and empire, most notably during the early colonial period (c.1600-1783). For example, there are implications for the study of history in the movement of words into, and out of, the thesaurus categories which detail all the words used for concepts such as colonization, colonies, colonials, the act of civilizing, the idea of foreignness, the exercise of delegated or imperial authority, and travelling throughout the empire.
In this way, the HTOED can provide an oversight of the broad sweep of the shifting and changing culture experienced by English speakers, through tracking the emergence of new terms in the language which reveal contemporary perspectives on the nature of civilization and colonialization. In so doing, it also aims to demonstrate the potential of the thesaurus as a source of evidence for historical analysis.
Key words:
Colonization, civilizing, foreignness, linguistics, empire.
Subthemes:
Notions of ‘civilisation’
The ‘English-speaking peoples’
Travellers in colonial and postcolonial worlds
Perspectives on Britain, the West and the rest of the World
Looking specifically at the passing of the Coercive Acts in 1774, this paper analyses the ways in which MPs with significant American connexions, and thereby with important personal knowledge and experience of the colonies, sought to reorder and restore the Empire after the events of the Boston Tea Party. Focusing primarily on Thomas Pownall, Isaac Barré and Edmund Burke, the paper demonstrates that while the majority of the Commons might have been ignorant of the American situation, a small but vocal group attempted to prevent imperial catastrophe and argued from a position of knowledgeable authority. As events became more extreme, however, even these American MPs.
What these works have sometimes failed to take into account, however, is the ways in which British politicians and political thinkers were connected with the rest of the Empire. The primary work to provide any form of list of MPs with American connexions can be found in Namier’s England in the Age of the American Revolution. His self-proclaimed ‘unfinished chapter’ on the House of Commons and America provided a very brief oversight of the main MPs who had significant political connexions to America, through birth, residency or their military, political or financial interests in the colonies.
This paper focuses on two of those MPs: Thomas Pownall and Anthony Bacon. Pownall, a prolific writer and life-long politician, provides us with an interesting and vivid narrative of the nature of the British Empire through the 1760s and 1770s by his various editions of his life’s work, the Administration of the Colonies. This work provides us with the imperial plans and designs of a contemporary who viewed the Atlantic Community as the most important and vital aspect of Great Britain, and the only way to ensure long-term British success. By analysing Pownall’s works we can, therefore, catch a rare glimpse into the ways in which a man of the Anglo-American empire viewed the Atlantic World.
Bacon, likewise, had significant connexions throughout the British Empire. Unlike Pownall, whose main interest lay in the Americas, Bacon had financial interests in Africa, India, the West Indies, the Americas, and even places as far-flung as Merthyr Tydfil. He also published three pamphlets on the crises of empire faced by Britain during the 1760s and 1770s: particularly of note is his suggestion, before the publication of Adam Smith’s famous work, that mercantilism ought to be abolished.
Bacon and Pownall particularly, although not exclusively, provide the historian with a thus far underdeveloped aspect of Atlantic history. They were both actively connected with much of the Empire, and sought to increase and improve British participation in colonial affairs (particularly with regards to trade and finance) and to increase colonial participation in the empire.
This paper looks at: the views these men had of empire; the outlook they held on nationality and nationalism; the impact of the crises of the 1760s and 1770s on their imperial and colonial vision; and the role finance and commerce played in shaping their political outlook.
This paper analyses how the problems faced by the British in their colonies were dealt with by one of the leading American experts in Parliament: Thomas Pownall. Pownall’s Administration of the Colonies went through several reprints and enlargements from 1764 to 1777, providing a narrative of the changing nature of Anglo-American relations, and shifting national and local identities, during this period. Furthermore, it describes Pownall’s proposals for a strong, centralised Atlantic Empire based in Britain but spreading across the ocean and the Americas. Drawing on various historical sources and using new perspectives on the fluid nature of empire, social perception, and revolution in the eighteenth-century Anglophone community, this research aims to provide a way of looking past the traditional nationalistic views of British and American history, and of colonialism in general, towards a more faceted view of Empire which is of value to the emerging new consensuses in modern historiography.
My paper looks at the experience of teaching outside my own dissertation topic. I aim to discuss the various successes and failures of my approaches to teaching areas of history in which I have little knowledge or experience. I will also reflect on the ways in which teaching outside my usual field of study has improved both my teaching techniques and, perhaps surprisingly, my research.
This paper analyses for the first time how the highest military appointee in the American colonies from 1763 to 1775, Thomas Gage, dealt with the ideas of ‘Empire’, ‘Britishness’, and ‘Americanness’, and how each influenced his military command. I will examine how the ideas of American revolution and independence were dealt with by the British élite by exploring Gage’s communications – both official and private – with several Secretaries of State in the United Kingdom. Drawing on various historical sources and using new perspectives on the nature of empire and revolution in the eighteenth-century Anglophone community, the paper aims to provide an understanding of how those involved in the ‘establishment’ reacted to, and dealt with, the American Revolution.