Professor Robert Crawford recognised for high achievement

Professor Robert Crawford of the School of English is one of only 38 academics to be elected a Fellow of the British Academy at its Annual General Meeting this year.

This is in recognition of his six collections of poetry, and such prose books as The Savage and the City in the Work of T S Eliot (1987), Devolving English Literature (1992), Identifying Poets (1993), The Modern Poet (2001), Scotland’s Books (2007), and The Bard (2009), a biography of Robert Burns. His most recent book is Simonides (2011).

The British Academy is the UK’s national academy for the promotion of the humanities and social sciences. It is an independent, self-governing body of more than 900 Fellows, including Marina Warner, Seamus Heaney, Eric Hobsbawm and Lord Bragg.

Professor Crawford said:

“When I was in my twenties and facing unemployment the British Academy saved my bacon by awarding me a Postdoctoral Fellowship. This also allowed me to return to Scotland. It changed my life. More recently, I’ve seen the Academy as a champion of what remains the international gold standard in arts and humanities scholarship, i.e. crafting books. So for those and other reasons I’m delighted and honoured to have been elected an FBA.”

The Academy’s President, Sir Adam Roberts, said:

“I congratulate all the distinguished Fellows who have been elected to the Academy this year, on achieving this peer group recognition of the outstanding contribution they’ve made to scholarship and research in the humanities or social sciences.  Election is not only an honour, but also a beginning. I look forward to their active participation in the life and work of the Academy.”