Elected: 1992
Discipline: Language, Literature and History
Professor Roderick Watson
Emeritus Professor of English Studies, University of Stirling
Roderick Watson was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School, Aberdeen University and Peterhouse Cambridge where he did a PhD on the poetry of Hugh MacDiarmid. As professor at the University of Stirling he was Director of the Centre of Scottish Studies. He was General Editor of the Canongate Classics from the start of the series in 1987 and co-edited the Journal of Stevenson Studies with Linda Dryden from 2005 to 2016. His publications include Hugh MacDiarmid (1976; 1985); The Poetry of Norman MacCaig (1989); The Poetry of Scotland ed., (1995); The Literature of Scotland (1984; second edition 2007) and Into the Blue Wavelengths (poetry 2004). He has written widely on the modern Scottish literary renaissance, on Scottish writing and identity, on the poetry of Hugh MacDiarmid, Norman MacCaig, Edwin Morgan and others.