Dr John McCallum (BA MLitt PhD; FRHistS FHEA)
Lecturer in Early Modern Scottish History
Address
- Street
-
Room 2.21
William Robertson Wing, Teviot Place - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH8 9AG
Availability
Student Drop-In Hours (Semester One): Mondays 2-3.30, Thursdays 4-5.
Background
As my accent if not my surname attests, I was brought up in the south of England, before my natural inclinations and educational interests moved me steadily northwards, via undergraduate study at York and postgraduate study at St Andrews. After completing my PhD at St Andrews on the Reformation in Fife in 2008, I worked in a variety of temporary roles at the Universities of Dundee, Lancaster and St Andrews, before taking up my first permanent lectureship in History at Nottingham Trent University in 2012. Excited to return physically as well as intellectually to Scotland, I joined the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at Edinburgh in 2024.
Undergraduate teaching
Special Subject: Reformation and Society in Scottish Communities, 1530-1650
Themes in Scottish History Since 1560
Postgraduate teaching
Scottish Reformation Culture, c. 1540-c.1640
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
Yes
Areas of interest for supervision
I would be very keen to hear from prospective students interested in PhD study in early modern Scottish religious and social history.
Research summary
I am a historian of early modern Scotland, with particular interests in the social and cultural history of the Scottish Reformation. My previous work in this area has focused primarily on the local experience of Reformation (in the county of Fife), poor relief and the socio-economic context and impact of religious reform, and more recently on emotions history. Following from my 2022 micro-monograph on the emotional worlds of James Melville (1556-1614), I am currently undertaking a wider study of the role of emotions in religious conflict in sixteenth and seventeenth century Scotland.
Books (authored)
- Exploring Emotion in Reformation Scotland: The Emotional Worlds of James Melville, 1556–1614 (Palgrave MacMillan: Cham, 2022).
- Poor Relief and the Church in Scotland, 1560-1650 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018).
- Reforming the Scottish Parish: The Reformation in Fife, 1560-1640 (Ashgate: Farnham, 2010).
Books (edited)
- N. Hodgson, A. Fuller, J. McCallum and N. Morton (eds), Religion and Conflict in Medieval and Early Modern Worlds: Identities, Communities, and Authorities (Routledge: Abingdon, 2021).
- J. McCallum (ed.), Scotland’s Long Reformation: New Perspectives on Scottish Religion, c. 1500-c.1660 (Brill: Leiden, 2016).
Articles
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‘Charity and Conflict: Poor Relief in Mid-Seventeenth Century Dundee’, Scottish Historical Review, 95:1 (2016), pp. 30-56.
- ‘“Nurseries of the Poore”: Hospitals and Almshouses in Early Modern Scotland’, Journal of Social History, 48:2 (2014), pp. 427-449.
- (With Alan MacDonald) ‘The evidence for early seventeenth-century climate from Scottish ecclesiastical records’, Environment and History, 19 (4) (2013), pp. 487-509.
- ‘Charity doesn’t begin at home: Ecclesiastical poor relief beyond the parish, 1560- 1650’, Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, 32:2 (2012), pp. 107-26.
- ‘Poverty or Prosperity?: The Economic Fortunes of Ministers in Post-Reformation Fife, 1560-1640’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 62:3 (2011), pp. 472-490.
- ‘The Reformation of the Ministry in Fife, 1560-1640’, History, 94:3 (2009), pp. 310-327.
Book Chapters
- ‘Local and Regional Experiences of Reformation’, in I. Hazlett (ed.), A Companion to the Reformation in Scotland, c.1525–1638: Frameworks of Change and Development (Brill: Leiden, 2022), pp. 128-45.
- (With Helen Gair), ‘The Protestant Clergy and Poor Relief’, in C.R. Langley, C. McMillan and R. Newton (eds), The Clergy in Early Modern Scotland (Boydell and Brewer: Woodbridge, 2021), pp. 52-69.
- ‘From Dissenting Groups to Evangelical Churches in Scotland: an Overview’, in D. Wenderbourg (ed.), Sister Reformations III (Mohr Siebeck, Tubingen, 2019), pp. 39-50.
- ‘“Fatheris and provisioners of the puir”: Kirk Sessions and Poor Relief in post-Reformation Scotland’, pp, 69-86 in J. McCallum (ed.), Scotland’s Long Reformation: New Perspectives on Scottish Religion, c. 1500-c.1660 (Brill: Leiden, 2016).
- ‘“Sone and servant”: Andrew Melville and his nephew, James (1556-1614)’, in R.A. Mason and S.J. Reid (eds), Andrew Melville (1545–1622): Writings, Reception and Reputation (Ashgate: Farnham, 2014), pp. 201-14.
Other
- ‘The Emotions of a Calvinist in Early Modern Scotland’, History Scotland, Jan/Feb 2024, pp. 30-35.
- ‘Henry Forrester, The paithe way to salvatione, 1615’, in Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, Volume XIV (Boydell and Brewer, 2013 for 2010), pp. 61-85.
- ‘Prentit at Sanct Androus’ in Norman H. Reid (ed), Treasures of St Andrews University Library (Third Millenium Publishing: London, 2010).