Professor Emerita Stana Nenadic

Professor Nenadic retired from the Personal Chair in Social and Cultural History in April 2024. Her first degree was in Economic History from Strathclyde University, followed by a PhD in Economic History from the University of Glasgow. She was appointed to a Lectureship in Social History in the then Department of Social and Economic History at Edinburgh in 1986, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1993 and awarded a Personal Chair in 2013. Before her university studies, she worked as a theatrical costume maker and designer. 

Professor Nenadic’s research focused on the social, cultural and economic life of the middle class, gentry, professional and business owners since the eighteenth century, particularly with reference to Scotland, as well as the material and visual cultures of the past.

Throughout her career she worked with museums, cultural institutions and contemporary artisans. Her work on the National Museum of Scotland’s Turkey Red collection led to a digital catalogue and exhibition and an illustrated book integrating design and business history. Most recently she challenged assumptions that the Scottish craft economy was destroyed by industrialisation, demonstrating how craft businesses adapted and continued to thrive. 

Professor Nenadic’s books include Lairds and Luxury: The Highland Gentry in Eighteenth- Century Scotland(2007), Colouring the Nation: the Turkey Red Printed Cotton Industry in Scotland, c. 1840-1940 (2013, with Sally Tuckett), Scots in London in the Eighteenth Century (2010) and most recently Craftworkers in Nineteenth-Century Scotland: Making and Adapting in an Industrial Age (2021). 

She was editor of Scottish Economic and Social History (journal of the Economic and Social History Society of Scotland) from 1998 to 2003. 

Professor Nenadic held a number of significant roles within the School and University, in particular that of Postgraduate Director in the former School of History and Classics from 2002 to 2003; Head of Economic and Social History from 2004 to 2007; and Director of the Graduate School of History, Classics and Archaeology from 2009 to 2012. Over her career she supervised nearly 30 doctoral students, and taught generations of students in history and economic history. 

Professor Nenadic was appointed by Royal Warrant to be a Commissioner of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, 2001-11. Between 2016 and 2023 she was Director of the Pasold Research Fund, a charity which promotes research into textile, fashion and clothing history. 

 Stana Nenadic made a huge contribution to the study of the craft economy and artisan culture, to the University of Edinburgh, the School of History, Classics and Archaeology and its predecessors, especially the Department of Social and Economic History. A conference in memory of her work will be held in 2025.