LSH Magazine Issue 4 (PDF) - University of Lincoln

Staff PublicationPerforming Masculinityin English UniversityDrama, 1598-1636Christopher Marlow’s first book, published on5th April 2013, looks at a forgotten area of earlymodern literature: drama written and performedby sixteenth- and seventeenth-century studentsat the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.GRADUATION CEREMONIESReferencing early modern English playtexts alongside contemporary records,accounts, and statutes, the bookoffers an overdue assessment of therelationship between the dramatic effortsof the universities and early modern maleidentity. Taking into account the nearsingle-sex constitution of early modernuniversities, the book argues thatperformances of university plays,and student responses to them,were key ways of exploring andshaping early modern masculinity.Staff profile:Dr Amy CulleySenior Lecturer in EnglishChristopher shows how the plays dealtwith their academic and social contexts,and analyses their responses tocompeting versions of masculinity.He also considers the implicationsof university authority and royalpatronage for scholarly performancesof masculinity; the effect of theliterary traditions of classical friendshipand platonic love on academicrepresentations of male behaviour;and the relationship between universityDr Amy Culley began lecturing atLincoln in 2007, after completing herundergraduate degree at the Universityof Oxford and her postgraduatestudies at the University of London.Her research interests are in theliterature of the eighteenth century andRomantic period, primarily women’swriting and life writing. She is coeditorof an essay collection Women’sLife Writing, 1700-1850: Gender,Genre and Authorship and is currentlyfinishing her book British Women’s LifeWriting 1760-1840 that considers howwomen use autobiography to exploretheir relationships to religious, familial,social, and political communities. Herrecent work has also focussed onthe relationship between history andliterature in the eighteenth centurydrama and masculine initiation rituals.Including discussion of the Parnassustrilogy, Club Law and works by ThomasRandolph, William Cartwright, JohnMilton and others, this study shines newlight on long neglected aspects of thegolden age of English drama.Dr Christopher Marlow is the ProgrammeLeader for BA (Hons) English at theUniversity of Lincoln.and particularly how life writingchallenges conventional historicalnarratives and practices. Theseinterests inform Amy’s teaching ona range of undergraduate modules,including Georgian Literature, VictorianLiterature, Women’s Writing and FeministTheory, and Life Writing. She also enjoysteaching across disciplinary boundarieson both the MA in English Studies andMA in Historical Studies in moduleson Nineteenth-Century Life Writingand Poetry. She is looking forwardto contributing to a new undergraduatemodule next year on the Literatureof Childhood.Although a relatively new University established in 2001, you wouldbe forgiven for thinking that we are as old as Oxford, Cambridge orDurham when you attend our Graduation ceremonies.Each of the nine ceremonies takes placeover four days at Lincoln Cathedral,one of the most spectacular graduationvenues in the country. Steeped inhistory, the Cathedral provides the mostincredible backdrop for the culminationof our students’ hard work. Full oftradition, ceremony and reverence, thiswonderful occasion is the pinnacle ofthree years study for each and everygraduate who attends, watched onproudly by family and friends alike.Prior to graduation, our LSH Graduandsbegin the day in the grounds of LincolnCastle where gowns are collectedand mortar boards donned, and theyreturn to the castle grounds afterthe graduation ceremony where thecelebrations can start in earnest inthe hospitality marquees.It is also an occasion to mark theachievements of notable persons whohave made a major contribution to theirchosen field at national or internationallevel by the awarding of an honorarydoctorate. Recent honorands from theHumanities include Inspector Morseauthor Colin Dexter OBE, BritishHistorian Professor Paul Langford andArcheologist and writer Michael J. Jones.After graduation, the LSH alsomakes some awards of its own tograduands who have excelled duringtheir time at Lincoln at a specialceremony in the Bishops’ Palacesituated opposite the Cathedral.The awards are presented by theHead of School and family and friendsof the award winners are also invited.1819