Louisa May Alcott gave her mother a copy of her published book one year for Christmas and said that she was presenting her with her ‘first grandchild’. That’s kind of how I feel about my dissertation. I turned in my form last week, officially declaring my topic and am torn between a panic attack over whether anyone will like it and wanting to run up and down the street and tell everyone about how amazing my topic is. Like most proud parents, however, I tend to think that I see my little dissertation as a far more interesting topic of conversation than most.
I was really interested in an article written by Joanna Bourke at Birkbeck about how Irish soldiers with shell-shock were perceived, and thus treated differently than English soldiers. She says that the construction of the Irish as a ‘martial race’ affected the way psychological casualties were viewed, and existing pre-war prejudices against the Irish as ‘childlike’ and prone to hysteria likewise meant that their suffering carried a different stigma. And I was really interested at how different these two constructions were and the implications that both of them carried for the understanding of the Irish—how did they affect (or were affected) by the Easter Rising in 1916, or the later War for Independence? Would Irish soldiers in 1914-5 have received better, or at least less prejudiced treatment than soldiers after April 1916? Could the ideas of a ‘childlike people’ and a ‘martial race’ exist together? So basically, I am using Joanna Bourke’s article as a jumping-off point, and using her view that the perception and treatment of Irish soldiers was different, I am trying to find out why. In 15,000 words. It’s going to be a long summer….
(Hampton Court Palace Gardens)
My parents were here for a week, and I showed them the sights—Abney Park Cemetery and the Organic Market on Stoke Newington Church Street, along with my favorite used bookstore and coffee shop—all the great stuff you won’t find in a tour book, let me tell you! We also went to Cornwall for a few days and climbed all over Tintagel Castle, which is purportedly where King Arthur was born. It was great to bring back pictures to my rental brother. On “Horrible Histories” (his favorite show on CBBC), they had said that the story of King Arthur “wasn’t true” and never happened. Which made me angrier than it rationally should have, but I have an enormous respect for cultural myths and histories. Just because John Henry didn’t actually beat a steam-shovel to dig a railway tunnel (my favorite American legend) doesn’t mean that I don’t feel a little better by knowing that human ingenuity will beat industrial might with enough willpower. Just because some kid didn’t actually pull a sword out of a stone and traipse around with a Welsh Wizard doesn’t mean that story didn’t have a major historical impact. I don’t think Rental Brother was quite as keyed-up as I was, but it did get him excited enough to pick out a book about King Arthur at the library the other day.
(Merlin's Cave, Tintagel)
But by no means boring! Outside of school and home, I am still working at the Imperial War Museum, and just finished a really fascinating collection by the wife of a military attaché to Poland and Rumania form 1934 – 1937. I catalogued her husband’s First World War letters earlier, and this gives me a chance to see what he did after the war, which is something I almost never get a chance to know. She was only 20 when they moved and was really fascinated by all the intricacies of live in Eastern Europe and in her husband’s political dealings, all of which made for some great reading for me! I was a little bowled over by her description of 9-course lunches followed by 12 course dinners and dancing until 4am, but it’s an amazing chance to view a world that was trying to make as much noise and as much light as possible before ‘the gathering storm’ broke. So all in all, it’s still quite the adventure, if not physically for me, then certainly vicariously!
(More graffiti, this time in Stoke Newington)
