For this year’s Engels Lecture, we return to the question of language as a contested tool in struggles for social and political change. Beginning with Engels’ The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, the lecture traces ideas about language through the early Soviet theorists Volosinov and Vygotsky, while drawing on concrete struggles from which we can learn. It also makes the case for renewed critical attention to language, both in theory and in practice.

We are delighted to welcome Professor Collins to deliver this year’s lecture. Professor Collins was a member of staff at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) and its predecessor institution, the University of Paisley, between 1993 and 2019. He completed his PhD under the supervision of John Foster and Charles Woolfson in 1997, which was published as Language, Ideology and Social Consciousness: Developing a Sociohistorical Approach (Ashgate, 1999; Routledge, 2019).

Professor Collins became Professor of Applied Social Science at UWS before becoming Rector/Vice Chancellor of the University of the Faroe Islands in 2019. He returned to Scotland in 2023 and became Director of the Glasgow Centre for Population in 2025.

His publications have addressed language and social change, urban and regional policy, community development, and population health and health inequalities, with a particular focus on the political economy of modern Scotland.

Now retired from full-time employment, Professor Collins returns to the question of language for this year’s Engels Lecture, exploring its role in shaping social and political change.