Proposed research title(s) History, 'Weird Time', and the Subterranean in Britain, c. 1100-1400

我的研究着眼于调查中世纪文学中一个奇怪的主题，跨越流派，其中地下，洞穴或埋葬的空间与扭曲或异步的时间体验有关。关于洞穴和洼地的故事比比皆是，在那里，时间似乎比在地面上过得慢；亚瑟王（Arthur）等弥赛亚国王在空山中“假死”沉睡，直到被召唤去拯救他们的人民；还有人物进入地窖、坟墓或地下通道的例子，在那里面对着被遗忘的过去的遗迹。通过对这些文本进行生态批判的解读，我将把这些地下空间视为文学学者所谓的“怪异时间”的中世纪遗址，在这些时刻，对时间的日常或主导理解被令人不安的、陌生的持续时间所侵扰。这种“主导”时代和历史的概念引入了我的项目的关键，调查在盎格鲁-诺曼历史写作和政治预言中，地下与英国过去和未来的“殖民”话语有关的实例。在这里，地下空间经常被认为是英国现在与威尔士、盎格鲁-撒克逊和英国过去的遗迹相遇的场所；在这里，地下空间的非时间性也经常被唤起，以便在地理上和英国历史上淡化英国的次等政治。

My research looks to investigate a curious motif in literatures of the Middle Ages, spanning genres, in whichsubterranean, cavernous, or buried spaces are associated with warped or asynchronous experiences of time. Storiesabound of caves and hollows in which time seems to pass more slowly than on the surface world; of messianic kingssuch as Arthur, who sleep in 'suspended animation' within hollow mountains until called upon to save their people; andinstances in which figures journey into crypts, barrows, or underground passageways, there confronting relics of theforgotten past. Providing an ecocritical reading of these texts, I will look to foreground these underground spaces asmediaeval sites of what literary scholars have referred to as 'weird time', moments where quotidian or dominantunderstandings of time are intruded upon by alternative temporalities of disturbing, alien duration. This notion of'dominant' times and histories introduces the crux of my project, investigating instances where the subterranean isimplicated in 'colonial' discourses of the British past and future in Anglo-Norman history writing and political prophecy.Here underground spaces are often figured as sites of encounter between the English present and relics of the Welsh,Anglo-Saxon and British past; and here, too, the atemporality of subterranean space is often evoked in order tomarginalise the subaltern polities of Britain both geographically and within British history.