Dr Emma Macleod

Senior Lecturer

History University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA

Dr Emma Macleod

Contact details

About me

After completing both undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Edinburgh, I taught in the History Department there (1994-6) before joining the University of Stirling in 1996, where I teach eighteenth-century British political history (parliamentary and popular) and the history of gender in Britain (c.1750-1930). I am currently studying the state trials for sedition and treason in the 1790s in Scotland, England, Ireland, Canada and America, from the perspective of the state in the age of Enlightenment; and co-editing the fabulous correspondence (1750-1810) between the Ayrshire Church of Scotland minister, James Wodrow, and the Midlands banker, Samuel Kenrick, held at the Dr Williams Library in London.

My research interests lie mainly in later eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century British political history, particularly British attitudes to international events such as the American and French Revolutions. My publications include A War of Ideas? British Attitudes towards the French Revolutionary Wars, 1792-1802 (1998); British Visions of America, 1775-1820: Republican Realities (2013); Political Trials in an Age of Revolutions (2019, co-edited with Davis and Pentland); and The Wodrow-Kenrick Correspondence, vol. 1, 1750-1783 and vol. 2, 1784–1790 (2020 and 2024, co-edited with Fitzpatrick and Page). I am currently engaged in two major research projects. The first compares the state trials of the 1790s in Scotland, England, Ireland, Canada and America, from the perspective of the state in the age of Enlightenment. The second is a collaboration with Dr Anthony Page (University of Tasmania) and Dr Martin Fitzpatrick (University of Aberystwyth) to publish an edition of the important correspondence (1750-1810) between the Ayrshire Church of Scotland minister, James Wodrow, and the Midlands banker, Samuel Kenrick, held at the Dr Williams Library in London. We are currently working on volume 3, 1791–1797. I co-edited the Scottish Historical Review in 2018–2023, and I am now president of the Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society (2024–2026).

Award

Invited visiting professorship at the Université Bordeaux Montaigne
March 2025

Peter Nicolaisen International Fellowship at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, Monticello, Virginia
University of Virginia
August 2017

Divisional / Faculty Contribution

Deputy Associate Dean for Graduate Studies (PGT)

Associate Dean for Graduate Studies

Head of Division, History, Heritage and Politics

Jan. 2019–July 2023

External Examiners and Validations

External examiner, MRes thesis, University of Edinburgh

External panel member, History Periodic Subject Review, University of Dundee

External examiner for non-advanced British history, University of Edinburgh
2002–2007

External examiner for non-advanced History, University of Glasgow
2017–2020

External examiner for non-advanced Scottish History, University of Edinburgh
2003–2008

External examiner of PhDs
Universities of SUNY, Stony Brook (2024); St Andrews (2021); Edinburgh (2021, 2019, 2014, 2013, 2003); Glasgow (2014); Leeds (2016); Birmingham (2010)

External examiner, Church History, BA and MTh: Edinburgh Theological Seminary
2018–2022

External examiner, M.Res. in Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh
2008–2011

External examiner, MSc in Modern British and Irish History, University of Edinburgh
2005–2011

Other Academic Activities

Co-editor of the Scottish Historical Review

https://euppublishing.com/loi/shr
2018–2023

President of the Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society

https://ecsss.org/
2024–2026

Co-director, Eighteenth-Century Studies at Stirling
https://www.stir.ac.uk/…century-studies/

Member of the editorial board of the Statistical Accounts of Scotland Online
Statistical Accounts of Scotland Online

Trustee for the Research Institute for Irish and Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen
University of Aberdeen
https://www.abdn.ac.uk/riiss/
Trustee and member of the academic advisory board for RIISS.

Professional membership

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Higher Education Academy

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
Royal Historical Society

Supervision of Research Assistants

PhD supervision (lead)
Valerie Honeyman (completed 2012), Sheena Bedborough (2015), Fiona Duncan (2015), Elizabeth McFarlane (2015), Calum Cunningham (2023), Josh Smith (2024), Lucy Henry

Research themes