Christopher Blyth Email & Phone Number

Teaching and widening participation in HE are my passions. I have 8+ years of HE teaching experience at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, but I am particularly drawn towards teaching on pre-honours level courses as I truly enjoy helping students transition into HE learning while preparing them for honours level study. It is on these level 1 and level 2 courses that I have been actively working on boosting student engagement and exploring gamification as one of my key research interests in the scholarship of learning and teaching. I am also the founder of the University of Glasgow's Economic and Social History Widening Participation Summer School. This program aims to provide an accessible pathway into level 1 study for students from a less privileged context. My other key interests lie in the formation of 'nation', 'nationhood', and 'nationalism' and I often explore the role religion has played in the formation of these phenomena. For my doctoral thesis I examined the formation of a modern Greek national consciousness in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. For this case study I explored the role that perceptions of a 'Byzantine' heritage played. This study ultimately served as a foundation for my continued argument in favour of the primordial formation of 'nations'.Beyond academia, I am also passionate about public engagement and the preservation of local heritage. One way in which I am currently involved in this is by being the Chairman of the Douglas Heritage Museum in South Lanarkshire.