Laura Hedrick

BA (Mary Baldwin Coll.), MLitt (St Andrews)

Contact Details
Email: lh453@st-andrews.ac.uk

Research Interests
My research interests focus primarily on historical identities on both a personal and national level, focusing on the early modern period in Scotland.  Specifically, I   am interested in the ways individuals form their own social and gender identities, and the ways in which nations enforce group identities.  I utilise modern psychological theories to re-examine the past in an attempt to provide the most thorough analysis possible.

Thesis Title: Reaffirming Stereotypes and Scotching Myths: European Perceptions and the Formation of Scottish Identity, 1560-1714
Supervisor:  Professor Steve Murdoch [link to: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/staff/stevemurdoch.html]

Throughout history, cultures have defined themselves by demonstrating what they are not long before they determine who they are.  This sociological and historical fact has been neglected in Scottish historiography, and historians have failed to examine the ways in which Europe classified the Scots as indicator of how the Scots would come to class themselves.  Using the Calendar of State Papers Foreign and Domestic, Scottish and European broadsheets, illustrations, and contemporary literature, this research intends to analyse systematically how Early Modern Europeans felt about the Scots, what factual occurrences may have triggered their perceptions, and finally how this stereotyping impacted Scottish national myth and identity. Additionally, previous historians themselves have propagated many historical myths without thought for their origin. This new analysis of Scottish perceptions will help to paint a definitive picture of ‘the Scot’ in Europe and allow for a re-examining of prevailing biases in historical work.

Publications:

  • “`Male and Female He Created Them': Female Cross Dressing, Gender Disparity, and Social Order” in Journal of Scottish and Irish Studies. (Aberdeen: Forthcoming, c. 2013).

Principal Academic Papers:

  • “`Male and Female He Created Them': Female Cross Dressing, Gender Disparity, and Social Order” in Workshop on Social Order and Social Ordering  (RIISS, University of Aberdeen, March 2011)
  • `Perceptions of History: Using External Perception to Understand Scottish Historical Identity’. St Andrews and Aberdeen Postgraduate Conference (University of St Andrews, 21 May 2011).

Administrative Experience:

  • Wine and reception organiser, Institute of Scottish Historical Research, 2010-2012.
  • Organiser for the Institute of Scottish Historical Research Reading Weekend, 4-6 March 2011.

Other: