Writing women back in: Rethinking historical erasure in the story of the Ashmolean

我在UEA的创意和批判性写作博士课程的实践研究将分为两部分。创意部分将包括一部小说《方舟》，这部小说是根据世纪末在牛津建立阿什莫尔博物馆的真实故事改编的。这部小说将从一个女人的角度讲述，海丝特·特拉德桑，在她的家人失去了埃利亚斯·阿什莫尔的创始收藏品后，她淹死了自己，但到目前为止，她一直被博物馆的官方叙述所掩盖。这篇评论文章将探讨恢复一个历史悠久的机构的历史隐藏的声音的意义，这表明它有可能破坏我们对历史记录的理解。如果它不代表构成它的各种声音和经验，它能有权威吗？这对公共机构--博物馆、大学--意味着什么？这些机构在很大程度上负责向公众传播过去。我认为，撰写这样的记述是创造一个新的、包容性的历史记录的重要行为，它展示了多方面的影响如何产生人类的行动和决定。

My practice-based research for the Creative and Critical Writing PhD programme at UEA will be a project in two parts. The creative element will consist of a novel, The Ark, based on the true story of the creation of the Ashmolean museum at Oxford in the late seventeenth century. The novel will be told from the perspective of a woman, Hester Tradescant, who drowned herself following her family's loss of the founding collection to Elias Ashmole, but who has so far been obscured from the museum's official narrative. The critical essay will explore the significance of restoring a hidden voice to the history of a well-established institution, suggesting it has the potential to disrupt our understanding of the historical record. Can it be authoritative if it does not represent the varied voices and experiences that constitute it? And what does this mean for public institutions - museums, universities - who in significant ways are in charge of communicating the past to the general public? I will suggest that writing such accounts is an important act in creating a new, inclusive historical record, demonstrating how multi-faceted influences produce human actions and decisions.