ILAS #1 Reflecting on the ILAS Postgraduate
Conference: Disrupting Disciplines,
Sharing Perspectives 2019
Reflecting on the
ILAS Postgraduate
Conference: Disrupting
Disciplines, Sharing
Perspectives 2019 As this research is part of my ongoing MA dissertation, the ILAS
‘Disrupting Disciplines’ Postgraduate Conference was a valuable
opportunity to discuss my research questions and methodology
with fellow postgraduate students, and to explain the impact of my
work.
My poster presentation on ‘Manly Sensibility: King Arthur,
Antiquarianism and Masculinity in Eighteenth-Century England’
investigated the ways in which a growing awareness of Arthurian
myth amongst eighteenth-century antiquarian scholars engendered
an influential re-evaluation of masculinity that shaped the
character of the English gentleman. It bought together literary,
historical and theoretical approaches to consider how increasing
engagement with literary representations of Arthur contribute to
the construction of new norms for masculine identity and sexuality
and demonstrated how wider dissemination of the Arthurian
myth provided a means for men to perform the role of knight
protector and formed prevailing attitudes towards masculinity and
expectations of gentlemanly conduct well into the mid nineteenth
century.
Author: Amy Louise
Blaney
Whilst literary scholars have already established an increasing
appreciated of medieval romance throughout both eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, little extended research has been
conducted with regard to Arthurian literature’s impact on gender
identities outside of the feudal era, and we do not have a detailed
understanding of the ways in which re-emergent chivalric
masculinity became saturated into culture by the mid-1850s, or of
how the Arthurian myth became conscripted for this purpose.
The process of condensing my research into a poster presentation
made me focus on the key aspects of my work, and in particular
upon the interdisciplinary elements of it, such as the exploration
of masculinity and the relationship between gender and national
identities. Having an opportunity to present the outline for my
research, and to explain it to students from outside of my own
discipline also forced me to move beyond the assumptions that
disciplinary scholarship sometimes makes. For example, not all
the students that I spoke to were familiar with Arthurian myth, or
knew about the chivalric revival that took place in the nineteenth
century.
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