Iona Baker, PhD student at the University of Glasgow:
Published: 16 February 2021
'The experience of being a class with students whose research interests largely revolved around gender but were otherwise diverse in terms of theme, period, and methodological approach was rewarding.'
Since graduating from the MSc in 2016 I have working part-time on PhD examining how European royal and aristocratic women in the thirteenth century exercised agency and re-negotiated their respective political statuses and roles through letter writing. The core courses introduced me to key theories, like Barabara Rosenwein's theory of emotional communities, and those pertaining to authorship and subjectivity, both of which have informed my doctoral research. Though many theories are taught through late modern case studies, I found that they had a broader relevance, and I was able to apply them to my own research interests in the later Middle Ages. The experience of being a class with students whose research interests largely revolved around gender but were otherwise diverse in terms of theme, period, and methodological approach was rewarding. The flexibility of the programme as a whole allowed me to take a course in Latin in the Classics Department alongside courses in the History Department.
First published: 16 February 2021