Glasgow

Travelling patches of sunlight went from ridge to ridge, making a hump of tenements gleam against the dark towers of the city chambers, silhouetting the cupolas of the Royal infirmary against the tomb-glittering spine of the Necropolis. ‘Glasgow is a magnificent city,’ said McAlpin. ‘Why do we hardly ever notice that?’ ‘Because nobody imagines living here,’ said Thaw. McAlpin lit a cigarette and said, ‘If you want to explain that I’ll certainly listen.’

‘Then think of Florence, Paris, London, New York. Nobody visiting them for the first time is a stranger because he’s already visited them in paintings, novels, history books and films. But if a city hasn’t been used by an artist not even the inhabitants live there imaginatively.’

Lanark, Alasdair Gray

Two PhD projects will look at different aspects of the Glasgow civic imaginary. The first begins in October 2025 and will study some of the ethical challenges of civic imagining for producers of Glasgow City images and narratives. The second, beginning in October 2026, will ask how the ‘civic’ and ‘civil’ are mobilised by national and local authorities and how they are shaped by devolution and newly emergent place-partnerships. Both will centre how place-based policymaking in Glasgow influences the civic imaginaries of citizens and the ways in which grassroots or citizen-led organisations interact with more ‘official’ state institutions.

We will update this section with more details when the projects are underway.