The aim of the Scottish Arts and Humanities Alliance is to highlight the creative, social and economic value of arts and humanities as we tackle the challenges of our times. Innovative and imaginative solutions to real-world challenges will necessarily involve the input of arts and humanities scholars and practitioners. In the SAHA Launch Webinar Programme, November-December 2020, three areas were chosen in which to underline our contribution to discussions of current social importance.
The Arts and Humanities and Covid-19
The first webinar, on Monday 30 November 2020, was on the Arts and Humanities and Covid-19. Chaired by Dame Seona Reid DBE FRSE, it features contributions by Dr Katherine Champion, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Stirling; Samuel K. Cohn Jr, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Glasgow, fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and honorary fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh; Dr Azadeh Emadi, a researcher and video maker at the University of Glasgow; Caron Gentry, Professor in the School of International Relations at St Andrews; Nicolas Le Bigre, Teaching Fellow and archivist at the University of Aberdeen’s Elphinstone Institute; and Katey Warran an AHRC-funded PhD student at the University of Edinburgh.
The Arts and Humanities and the Environment
The second webinar, on Monday 7 December 2020, was a discussion of The Arts and Humanities and the Environment. Professor Claire Squires, Director of the Scottish Graduate School of the Arts and Humanities (SGSAH), chaired the session and the contributors are John Burnside, writer and professor of Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews; Dr Dominic Hinde, Lecturer in Digital Media and Communications, Queen Margaret University; Hannah Imlach, SGSAH PhD Researcher in collaboration with RSPB Loch Lomond at the University of Edinburgh and Prof. Máiréad Nic Craith, Chair of Cultural Heritage & Anthropological Studies, Heriot-Watt University.
The Arts and Humanities and Education Policy
The third webinar, on Monday 14 December 2020, focused on the Arts and Humanities and Education Policy. The Chairperson, Professor David Stevenson, Queen Margaret University, discusses the arts and humanities perspective with Dr Gemma Robinson, Senior Lecturer in English Studies, University of Stirling; Dr Robert Munro, Lecturer in film and media at QMU; Dauvit Boun, Professor of Scottish History at the University of Glasgow and Tawona Sithole, artist in residence and research associate in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow.
