The Highs and Lows of 2025

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

As I’ve mentioned before, I have mixed feelings about this kind of thing. Outwardly, it smacks uncomfortably of, ‘Look at all my Achievements!!!’  Inwardly, I ask myself if I’ve done enough. Could I have tried harder? (I was brought up with, ‘So long as you know you’ve done your best’, but the unspoken suggestion was often that maybe I could and should have tried harder still!)

In a year of highs and lows, this really has been a rollercoaster.  I joyously welcomed the publication of my second Routledge monograph. I was also delighted to accept a visiting Fellowship at IASH (the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, at the University of Edinburgh), where I explored the Thomas Nelson archives – with more ideas arising out of this.

  • A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951 (Routledge, 2025)

I saw three articles published, gave a paper at a conference in Surrey, and have another two articles and a contributed book chapter in the pipeline.

  • Article, ‘Heart-Moving Stories’ illustrated by Magic Lantern’, The Magic Lantern no.45, December 2025, pp. 11-12 (ISSN 2057-3723)
  • ‘Sir John Macgregor Murray: Preserver of Highland Culture, Music and Song’. Folk Music Journal vol. 13 (2025) no.1, pp.50-63.
  • ‘The ‘Scottish Soprano’ and the ‘Voice of Scotland’: the Importance of Nationality to Flora Woodman and Robert Wilson’, History Scotland Vol.25 no.1 (Spring 2025), 74-81 (accessible online via public library e-magazine apps, or you may be able to order a paper copy online.)
  • Conference paper,  ‘Comparing the Career Trajectories of Two Scottish Singers: Flora Woodman and Robert Wilson’, at the University of Surrey: Actors, Singers and Celebrity Cultures across the Centuries, Thursday 12 to Saturday 14 June 2025,  organised under the aegis of the University’s Theatrical Voice Research Centre.

I also finished supervising and assessing some Honours students’ research projects – an enjoyable new experience.  Having been an ‘Alt-Ac’ since gaining my doctorate in 2009, I had acquired a PGCert and FHEA, but teaching opportunities outside libraryland were infrequent. Being semi-retired certainly opens up new possibilities, and I’m happy to consider other opportunities.

And I have been awarded an Athenaeum Award from my home institution, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, for an oral history project in Dundee. That will begin as soon as the  ethical approval process has been completed.

In the middle of the year, we lost my mum at the age of 94, and this was far from the only upheaval on the family front. It has not been an easy year.

It would be inaccurate to say that I’m glad to see the back of 2025, because there has been much to celebrate. But, whilst I do hope that 2026 might be less of a bumpy ride, I realise that some things are beyond my control.  ‘Trying hard enough’ isn’t always sufficient guarantee, and some things will be difficult no matter what I do.  Shall we say that I hope the good outweighs the less good?!