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

这个跨学科的研究项目旨在探索十八和十九世纪（1700-1850）英国写作中哥特式建筑和文学之间经常被承认但迄今为止，研究不足的关系。在18个月的时间里，该项目旨在完成一部名为《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、古物书和插图地形图、旅游指南、流行新闻和精选美学辩论的关系，特别注意在这一时期，英国对哥特式建筑的广泛文化迷恋的方式，无论是原创的还是复兴主义的，立即促使并依赖于竞争。对英国“哥特式”或中世纪历史的高度政治化的概念化。英国的古代中世纪或“哥特式”遗产远非一个整体的结构，它们的灵感来自于真实的和想象中的建筑废墟遗址，它们的特点是缺乏一致性：对一些人来说，哥特式的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建构直接助长了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，该研究将注意力集中在虚构的、诗意的、戏剧的、古物的和流行的历史文本上，这些文本是由英格兰、苏格兰、威尔士和1801年后的爱尔兰的一些真实的哥特式建筑废墟所激发和启发的，其中包括南安普顿的内特利修道院；沃里克郡的凯尼尔沃斯城堡；诺森伯兰郡的阿尼克城堡；坎布里亚的弗内斯修道院；博思韦尔城堡，拉纳克郡；康威城堡，康威；圣奥尔本修道院，赫特福德郡；蒙茅斯郡的廷登修道院；梅利丰修道院，劳斯郡；以及诺森比亚的阿尼克城堡。通过这种方式，该项目旨在解决文学在18世纪末以来英国遗产运动兴起中所扮演的角色。该研究同样关注关于想象和复兴主义建筑遗址的文本或设置，认为建筑的中心地位，无论是字面上还是隐喻，都是18世纪美学辩论和19世纪早期文学想象的浪漫主义概念化的兴起。为了鼓励跨学科的学术对话，该项目在第二个重叠阶段，旨在举办一个学术会议，“跨越艺术和人文的阅读建筑”，这是一个跨学科的、跨历史的活动，旨在启动学者之间的学术交流，这些学者在广泛的学科领域从事建筑感兴趣的主题。该项目将其兴趣集中在1700-1850年的英国，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;艺术历史;和遗产研究具有互补的兴趣，举办了两次学术研讨会并合作开展了一个充满活力的公众参与计划：在伦敦草莓山大厦举行了6场以“书写英国遗址，1700-1850”为主题的公开讲座，并合作出版了一本针对非专业读者的同名书籍。该项目旨在将其范围扩展到学院以外的学习者，以“哥特式复兴：跨学科视角”为主题，开设一门不计入学分的大规模开放在线课程（MOOC）。通过各种活动和产出，“书写英国的废墟”旨在发展在研究、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