Department of History, University of Aberdeen

03/06/2026

New books from Aberdeen historians: today we celebrated two recent publications from the Department of History, with fellow staff and students ⤵️

➡️ Northern Isles No More: The story of emigration from Orkney and Shetland since 1700 by Professor Marjory Harper (Luath Press, 2026) https://luath.co.uk/products/emigration-from-the-nothern-isles

➡️ Commerce and the Commonwealth: Business Association, Political Culture, and Economic Governance, 1886–1975 by Dr Andrew Dilley (Oxford University Press, 2025) https://global.oup.com/academic/product/commerce-and-the-commonwealth-9780198807544?cc=gb&lang=en

10/05/2026

07/05/2026

🎮 Calling Aberdeen & Abertay students for 𝗝𝗮𝗺 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀, a game jam tournament this June! In collaboration with the Library of Scotland, teams from University of Aberdeen and Abertay University will design games inspired by a curated set of historical artefacts housed in each institution’s own archive collections 📜. The winning teams from each uni will advance to a final 𝗝𝗮𝗺 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 at the National Library of Scotland. We are seeking to inspire new avenues of engagement with historical collections, to see where this will lead in future.📍 Get in touch if you would like to take part - see flyer for details.

05/05/2026

Meeting point update for tomorrow’s exclusive tour of the St Nicholas Kirk! 🤩
Meet us in front of Five Guys at 4:15, then we will head to the tour together!
If you are having trouble locating us or running a tad late, please DM us!
We look forward to seeing you tomorrow, because a small break in between exams is important! 🤓

05/05/2026

Come along to this academic year’s final session of the History Through Games workshop!👾
Here, we‘ll be discussing huge-scale multiplayer games or events and how these reveal popular understandings of history as well as the player-made historiographies they have produced. Our key case study of interest will be the recently popular Minecraft ‘Civilisation’ genre in addition to Foxhole. Come along if you find the time, and we look forward to discussing with you!

The key optional reading for those that have the time is doubtlessly Ish’s ‘Civilisation’ video, which at the point of writing has been viewed 43 million times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef568d0CrRY&t=7773s
Take note that the first 3 min will prove perfectly sufficient in providing basic context for our session.

27/04/2026

🏆 Congratulations to our colleagues Dr Alessandra Cecolin and Dr Cecilia Brioni at the Excellence Awards on Thursday evening! Alessandra won the category of Personal Tutor of the Year, and Cecilia was among the nominees for Best Undergraduate Lecturer. These were in the Students' Union and University of Aberdeen Excellence Awards prizes👏 The Principal's Excellence Awards are an annual celebration of the outstanding achievements of University of Aberdeen staff, students and alumni. In this photo Alessandra (R) and Cecilia (L) celebrate with Final-year Honours students Anna Dvořáková (runner-up for Best Student Ambassador) and Conrad Funk.

See all the details of the nominees, winners, and ceremony photos here: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/students/events-news/awards/excellence-award-results/