Participant Info
- First Name
- Gillian
- Last Name
- Macdonald
- Country
- United States
- State
- MI
- macdo313@msu.edu
- Affiliation
- Michigan State University
- Website URL
- https://gilliansmacdonald.hcommons.org/
- Keywords
- Early Modern Europe, Scotland, British Atlantic World, Borderlands
- Availability
- Media Contact
- Additional Contact Information
- PhD
- PhD
Personal Info
- Photo
- About Me
I am an Assistant Professor of History in the history department and Interim Director of the Lab for the Education and Advancement in Digital Research (LEADR) at Michigan State University. I am also a member of the DH@MSU core faculty.
As a historian of the early modern world, medieval civilization, and the United States, I completed my Ph.D. in Transnational and Comparative History at Central Michigan University in 2021. I’m originally from Scotland and am a graduate of the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.
Broadly I study people and their relationship with governments, how individuals are conceptualized by administrations during warfare, and their relationship with the space around them. How we define people in conflict is a reflection of politics and political determinism in the period.
- Recent Publications
“Scrollytelling, Storytelling, and StoryMaps: Folding in the Story,” Gillian Macdonald, Dani Willcutt and Aubree Marshall, ACRL Critical Digital Humanities Cookbook (forthcoming, 2025).
“Sailors, Spies, and Sovereignty: Greenock’s Revolutionary Turmoil, 1688-1691,” Britain and the World 17, no.1 (2024): 23-41, https://doi.org/10.3366/brw.2024.0411.
“Bestowing charity: war widows and the privy council during the Williamite revolution in Scotland (1688-91)” Parliaments Estates & Representation (2024), https://doi.org/10.1080/02606755.2023.2279382.
Digital Exhibit Creator, Abundant Waters: Our Relationship with Michigan’s Most Precious Resource, Exhibit, Clarke Historical Library, 2022.
“Black-boxes, flying packets, and espionage: the information trade and Scottish governance, 1689-91” Parliaments Estates & Representation 40, no. 3 (December 2020): 269-289, https://doi.org/10.1080/02606755.2020.1853882.* (published as grad student)
- Media Coverage
- Invited Author Interview, BBC Radio Scotland, “Time Travels: Motorbikes and McDonalds” (May 2022); Invited Appearance, “Truth or Treason? Sources for the Study of Jacobitism,” University of Guelph Special Collections (2023).
- Social Media
- gilliansmac92
- Country Focus
- Scotland
- Expertise by Geography
- Atlantic, British Isles, North America, United Kingdom, United States, Western Europe
- Expertise by Chronology
- Pre-17th century, 17th century, 18th century, Early Modern, 20th century
- Expertise by Topic
- American Revolution, American Founding Era, Diplomacy, Migration & Immigration, Politics, Rebellion & Revolution, Technology
