Writing Britain's Ruins, 1700--1850: The Architectural Imagination

这个跨学科的研究项目旨在探索经常承认，但迄今为止，在十八世纪和十九世纪（1700-1850）的英国写作哥特式建筑和文学之间的关系研究不足。在为期18个月的时间里，该项目旨在完成一部题为《哥特式古代：历史、浪漫和建筑想象，1760-1840》的重要学术专著。本研究旨在分析诗歌，小说和戏剧文本的选择，以及与当代建筑小册子，古物大部头和插图地形，旅游指南，流行的新闻和选定的美学辩论，特别注意的方式，其中广泛的文化迷恋哥特式建筑在英国的时期，无论是原始和复兴，同时也促使并依赖于对英国“哥特式”或中世纪历史的高度政治化的竞争概念。不列颠民族的古代中世纪或“哥特式”遗产远不是一个单一的建筑，而是受到真实的和想象中的建筑遗址的启发，缺乏一致性：对一些人来说，哥特式古代是封建暴政和天主教迷信的野蛮时代，而对另一些人来说，它构成了国家文化和政治成就的顶峰。反过来，这些对国家历史的相互竞争的构建直接影响了18世纪末和19世纪初的政治辩论。通过一系列集中的案例研究，研究提请注意虚构的，诗意的，戏剧性的，古董和流行的历史文本，这些文本受到英格兰，苏格兰，威尔士和1801年后爱尔兰的一些实际哥特式建筑遗址的启发和启发，其中包括南安普顿的内特利修道院，沃里克郡的凯尼尔沃思城堡，诺森伯兰郡的阿尼克城堡，坎布里亚郡的弗内斯修道院，拉纳克郡的博思韦尔城堡;康威城堡，康威;赫特福德郡的圣奥尔班修道院;蒙茅斯郡的丁登修道院;卢斯郡的梅利丰修道院;以及诺森布里亚郡的阿尼克城堡。通过这个项目，该项目旨在解决文学在英国遗产运动的兴起从十八世纪末起所扮演的角色。同等重视的文本写的，或设置在，想象和复兴主义建筑网站，研究认为，建筑的中心地位，无论是从字面上和隐喻，到十八世纪美学辩论和文学想象力的浪漫概念化的兴起在世纪初。为了鼓励跨学科的学术对话，该项目在第二个但重叠的阶段，旨在举办一个学术会议，“阅读建筑艺术和人文”，一个跨学科，跨历史的事件，旨在启动学者之间的学术交流，在广泛的学科建筑感兴趣的主题工作。在1700年至1850年期间，该项目将其兴趣集中在英国，然后将来自文学领域的一些受邀学者聚集到一个研究网络中;历史;艺术史;和具有互补兴趣的遗产研究，举办两次学术研讨会并合作开展一项积极的公众参与计划：在伦敦的草莓山庄举办了6次公开讲座，主题是“书写英国的废墟，1700-1850年”，并合作出版了一本针对非专业读者的同名书籍。该项目旨在将其覆盖范围扩大到学院以外的学习者，以“哥特式复兴：跨学科视角”为主题，开设一门无学分的大规模开放式在线课程（MOOC）。在其各种活动和产出中，“书写英国的废墟”旨在发展研究，影响和知识转移领域的领导潜力

This interdisciplinary research project seeks to explore the often acknowledged but, to date, critically under-researched relationship between Gothic architecture and literature in British writing of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (1700-1850). Over its 18-month duration, the project seeks to bring to completion a major academic monograph entitled _Gothic Antiquity: History, Romance and the Architectural Imagination, 1760-1840_. This study seeks to analyse a selection of poetic, fictional and dramatic texts alongside, and in relation to, contemporary architectural tracts, antiquarian tomes and illustrated topographies, travel-guides, popular journalism and selected aesthetic debates, paying particular attention to the ways in which the widespread cultural fascination with Gothic architecture in Britain in the period, both original and Revivalist, at once prompted and relied upon competing, highly politicised conceptualisations of the British 'Gothic' or medieval past. Far from being a monolithic construct, the visions of the British nation's ancient medieval or 'Gothic' heritage that were inspired by real and imagined sites of architectural ruin were marked by a lack of consistency: for some, Gothic antiquity was a barbaric epoch of feudal tyranny and Catholic superstition, while for others, it constituted the zenith of the nation's cultural and political achievements. In turn, these competing constructions of the nation's history fed directly into political debates of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century present. Through a series of focused case studies, the research draws attention to the fictional, poetic, dramatic, antiquarian and popular-historical texts that were prompted and inspired by some of the actual Gothic architectural ruins across the landscapes of England, Scotland, Wales, and, after 1801, Ireland, among them Netley Abbey, Southampton; Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire; Alnwick Castle, Northumberland; Furness Abbey, Cumbria; Bothwell Castle, Lanarkshire; Conwy Castle, Conwy; St Alban's Abbey, Hertfordshire; Tintern Abbey, Monmouthshire; Mellifont Abbey, County Louth; and Alnwick Castle, Northumbria. Through this, the project aims to address the role played by literature in the rise of the heritage movement in Britain from the end of the eighteenth century onwards. Paying equal attention to the texts written about, or set within, imaginary and Revivalist architectural sites, the study argues for the centrality of architecture, both literally and as metaphor, to eighteenth-century aesthetic debates and to the rise of Romantic conceptualisations of the literary imagination in the early nineteenth century. In seeking to encourage scholarly dialogue across disciplinary boundaries, the project, in a second but overlapping phase, aims to host an academic conference, 'Reading Architecture Across the Arts and Humanities', an interdisciplinary, trans-historical event designed to initiate scholarly exchange between scholars working on topics of architectural interest across a broad range of disciplines. Focusing its interests on Britain in the period 1700-1850, the project then draws together into a research network a number of invited academics from the fields of literature; history; art history; and Heritage studies with complementary interests, hosting two academic symposia and collaborating on a vigorous programme of public engagement: 6 public lectures on the theme of 'Writing Britain's Ruins, 1700-1850' at Strawberry Hill House, London, and the collaborative publication of a book of that title aimed at the non-specialist reader. Extending its reach to learners beyond the academy, the project aims to run a non-credit-bearing Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on the theme of 'The Gothic Revival: Interdisciplinary Perspectives'. Across its various events and outputs, 'Writing Britain's Ruins' aims to develop leadership potential in the fields of research, impact and knowledge transfer