Kate Ash
PhD Thesis (Working Title):
' "Off quhat nacioun art thow?": The Enigma of National Identity in the Middle Ages'
Supervisor: Dr Anke Bernau
Background:
2001-2004: BA (Hons) English Language and Literature (St Hilda's College, Oxford)
2004-2005: MA Medieval and Early Modern English Studies (University of Manchester)
Research
My present research focuses on the development of national identities in the British Isles during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. I am particularly interested in the connections between race, power and identity, and my research analyses the influence of race, conquest and masculinity on the constructions of national consciousness within the England and Scotland, c.1300-c.1500.
My work emphasisies the need to address how nations develop identities not only in opposition to other societies, but also alongside, and under the influence, of each other. Specifically I investigate the shared ideological links between England and Scotland, juxtaposing their representations of an intertwined history strongly influenced by military contact. In proposing this theory of the counter-dependence of national identities, I consider representations of race and nation in medieval historiographical texts such as Bower's Scotichronicon and Gray's Scalacronica, and in poetical works including Barbour's Brus and Hary's Wallace.
Drawing on postcolonial theory, I argue that colonially motivated contact within the British Isles during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries simultaneously — and necessarily — creates a negative response to the 'enemy' nation and a positive collective identity within the nation itself. Combining Edward Said's theory of 'contrapuntal reading' with Geraldine Heng's recent work on nation and gender, I suggest that postcolonial theory opens up the possibility of reading medieval historiographies as witnesses to the shared identity struggles of England and Scotland. I argue that crucial to these identities is the intersection of gender and racial discourses, which produces an ideological construction of the male as the focus of national identity. At the same time, I believe that these gendered representations of nation were both productive and problematic for a nation's identity. In response to this, I explore female origin myths and their relationship to ideas of governance, rulership and lineage.
Papers
'Gendering Scotland: Problematic Masculinity and the Ideological Reconstruction of the Hero in Hary's Wallace and Gibson's Braveheart' (1st Annual Medieval Studies Conference, University of Wales, Bangor, June 2005).
Other Interests
My other interests include John Lydgate, medievalism (particularly representations of the Middle Ages in contemporary film and children's literature) and the works of seventeenth century writers Lady Mary Wroth and John Wilmot. I would be happy for anyone to contact me to discuss any of the above.
My email address is kate.ash@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk