Amy Louise Blaney
- Title
- Location
- CBA2.018
- Role
- NWCDTP AHRC-funded PhD Student in English Literature
Biography
I began my study at the University of Wales Aberystwyth, graduating with a first-class honours degree in English Literature in 2007. After several years of living and working in mid-Wales, I returned to my native Staffordshire and, eventually, to higher education, enrolling on the MA English Literatures at Keele in 2018. I completed my MA with a Distinction and received the award for Best Overall Student on an English PGT Programme for the 2018/19 academic year. I stayed on at Keele to undertake my doctoral research, having received NWCDTP AHRC funding. My fascination with Arthurian myth and legend goes back to childhood and both my undergraduate and MA dissertations examined aspects of Arthurian mythology by considering, in the first instance, the mirroring of gender roles in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and, for my MA, the formation of the English gentleman and the presentation of masculinity in the Arthurian narrative from 1760 - 1850. My doctoral research has developed out of my MA dissertation and combines my love of Arthurian literature with a newfound appreciation of the long eighteenth century, examining literary engagements with the Arthurian legend across the period and considering how these reworkings intervene in contemporary debates about British national identity and nationhood. Since September 2020, I have also taught part-time on the English and Creative Writing programme at Staffordshire University, teaching on the Introduction to English Studies and Shakespeare: From Comedy to Romance modules. I can be found on Twitter at @blaneylouise and am also on ResearchGate at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amy_Blaney.
Research and scholarship
My research considers literary engagements with Arthurian legend across the long eighteenth-century, examining the ways in which reworkings of Arthur intervene in debates about historiography, gender, class, and national identity. My work explores the nationalisation of cultural mythologies and examines the intersections between gendered and national identities in British Arthurian literature across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, considering how Williamite and Georgian appropriations of Arthur enabled the Victorians to rework the myth, but were also distinctive from those later reworkings, responding to cultural concerns from the Glorious Revolution to the Napoleonic Wars.
Further information
Since returning to full-time education I have been actively involved in life at Keele.
In November 2018, I acted as Communications Coordinator for the ‘Placing Class in Contemporary Literature’ conference held at Keele University.
I subsequently went on to be part of the committee that organised the Keele HUMSS Postgraduate Symposium in June 2019.
I have been a committee member for the HUMSS Work in Progress Seminar Series since January 2019.
Starting in June 2019, I joined the team behind Under Construction,Keele HUMSS’ peer-reviewed journal, in the role of Co-Editor and Finance Officer.
I am also the 2019/20 Student Trustee for the Keele Postgraduate Association and a Student Ambassador.
Publications
Awards/Bursaries: British Association of Romantic Studies Stephen Copley Research Award, 2020 British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Postgraduate Bursary, 2020 Best Overall Student on an English PGT Programme, Keele University, 2019/20 NWCDTP AHRC PhD Studentship, 2019 Keele Postgraduate Association Bursary, 2019 Keele Graduate Scholarship, 2018/19. Publications: “Thomas Warton’s The Grave of King Arthur”. The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 January 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=38918] Review: “Katie Garner, Romantic Women Writers and Arthurian Legend: The Quest for Knowledge”, The Byron Journal 48: 1 (2020) [https://doi.org/10.3828/bj.2020.11].