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Madeleine Kelly grew up playing traditional folk music from Scotland, Ireland, and Appalachia as a singer and fiddle player. She is now pursuing a master’s at the University of Glasgow in Scottish literature, writing her master’s thesis on the themes of queer identity found in Scottish traditional ballads.

Traditional ballads are songs that tell a story; like all stories they reflect the social environment they are created in. There is evidence within select Scottish ballads of explorations of queer identity and love. Madeleine’s research focuses on the ballads that tell stories of women crossdressing to enter the navy. These stories confront questions of gender identity and performance and sexuality that Scottish and English society were grappling with between the 17th and 19th centuries.