📅 Thursday, 10 April, 2025
📍 Royal Society of Edinburgh (22-26 George Street Edinburgh EH2 2PQ)
🎫 Free
Join the Scottish Arts and Humanities Alliance (SAHA) and the US Consulate General in Edinburgh for an evening talk on Tartan Day, the history and future of the famous celebration of Scottish heritage in the US.
The event, chaired by SAHA co-Chair Professor Catherine O’Leary (University of St Andrews), promises to be an unmissable chance to learn more about the history and future of the famous celebration of Scottish heritage in the US. The panel will include Professor Murray Pittock (University of Glasgow and SAHA co-Chair), Leonie Bell (V&A Dundee Director) and Billy Kay.
Ms Kathryn Porter, US Consul General, will provide the opening remarks.
Chair: Professor Catherine O’Leary
AVP Dean of Arts and Divinity, Director of the Cultural Identity and Memory Studies Institute Universtity of St Andrews, and Co-Chair of the Scottish Arts and Humanities Alliance
Catherine O’Leary is Professor of Spanish and Dean of Arts and Divinity at the University of St Andrews.
She has published widely on contemporary Spanish literature, and has particular interests in theatre censorship, gender and identity, and exile and cultural memory.
She is Director of the St Andrews interdisciplinary Cultural Identity and Memory Studies Institute (CIMS). A graduate of Dublin City University and University College Dublin, she worked at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, before moving to Scotland in 2013.
Professor O’Leary was a founding member of the Scottish Arts and Humanities Alliance (SAHA) and is currently its co-chair.
Speaker: Professor Murray Pittock MAE FRSE
Pro Vice Principal and Bradley Professor of Literature at the University of Glasgow, and Co-Chair of the Scottish Arts and Humanities Alliance
Murray Pittock is co-Chair of SAHA and Bradley Professor at the University of Glasgow, where he has served in senior leadership roles since 2008. He is currently Pro Vice-Principal, with responsibilities ranging from directing early career development for over 500 academic staff in Glasgow, Dumfries, China and Singapore, to external partnerships with a particular focus on the Glasgow Riverside Innovation District . He leads the Kelvin Hall development for the University as well as chairing its Advanced Research Centre XR Strategy Board. Murray is a Trustee (Research and Education) and Scottish History advisor to the National Trust for Scotland and an advisor to many other organizations. He has held visiting appointments at Yale, New York University, Notre Dame, Trinity College, Dublin, Charles University, Prague, South Carolina and other institutions. Murray has made around 2000 media appearances in 55 countries on culture, politics, history and society.
Speaker: Leonie Bell
Director of V&A Dundee
Leonie Bell is director of V&A Dundee, Scotland’s Design Museum. As Director, she leads the organisation from its spectacular home on Dundee’s reimagined waterfront and delivers the museum’s vision to inspire and empower through design and to champion design and designers. Leonie is responsible for ensuring that V&A Dundee continues to grow and evolve as a world-class design museum, for deepening the museum’s social and civic reach and for welcoming visitors from around the world. The museum’s unique architecture is animated through an ambitious and dynamic programme that generates joy and sparks curiosity in design as well as creating spaces and ways to explore, reflect and learn.
Leonie is an Honorary Professor of Design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee, a Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellow, a Design Economy Ambassador with the Design Council, a member of the Bonnetmakers Craft, one of the Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee, a member of the Policy Evidence Centre for Creative Industries Advisory Board and a trustee of the Edinburgh International Festival.
Speaker: Billy Kay
Writer, broadcaster and language activist
Writer and broadcaster Billy Kay was born in Galston, Ayrshire in 1951, and educated at Galston High School, Kilmarnock Academy and Edinburgh University. His company Odyssey Productions produced documentaries on Scottish cultural history for BBC Radio Scotland, winning five international awards for series like The Complete Caledonian Imbiber. Television series he has presented include Haud Yer Tongue for Channel 4 Schools and Miners for BBC Scotland. He has written two plays for radio and one for Dundee Rep, while his poetry and short stories appear in several anthologies. He is co-author, with Cailean Maclean of the book Knee Deep in Claret and his work promoting wine has been recognized with awards in Britain and France.
He is a passionate advocate of the Scots language and author of the classic work Scots: The Mither Tongue. In 2022 he recorded and released an audio version of the book on Audible.
His book on the phenomenal global influence of the Scottish diaspora The Scottish World was published in 2006. A gifted communicator, Billy Kay has been invited to speak on Scottish culture at venues ranging from the Library of Congress in Washington DC to the Moscow Caledonian Club, and from the Great Hall of Stirling Castle to Universities in Heidelberg, Warsaw and Belfast. In November 2023 he published his memoir in Scots, Born in Kyle, which he describes as a love letter to an Ayrshire childhood. It is also available on Audible.
Billy was given an honorary Doctorate by the University of the West of Scotland in 2009, the Oliver Award by the Scots Independent newspaper in 2010 and later that year became Honorary Preses of the Scots Language Society. In 2015 the Association for Scottish Literary Studies made him an Honorary Fellow “in recognition and admiration of the valued and major contribution which you have made to the support and enrichment of the tradition of Scottish literature.” In 2016 he was inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame for his Services to Scots. In 2019 he was voted Scots Media Person of the Year at the Scots Language Awards in Glasgow. In November of that year he addressed the 263rd Annual Banquet of the St Andrew’s Society of the State of New York. There, the Society gave him their Mark Twain Award for the promotion of Scotland internationally. In addition to his native languages, Scots and English, Billy speaks French, German and Portuguese. He is married to Maria João de Almeida da Cruz Diniz and they have three children and five grandchildren.
