DETAILS
Tuesday 10th August, 2021 at 6:30pm (AEST) on Zoom
A/Prof. Katie Barclay, University of Adelaide
In conversation about her recent book: Men on Trial: Performing emotion, embodiment and identity in Ireland, 1800–45
ABSTRACT
Men on trial explores how the Irish performed ‘the self’ within the early nineteenth-century courtroom, and its implications for law, society and nation. The history of masculinity is now a burgeoning field as the way men created and understood their identities is explored in different contexts, from marriage to the military, and with increasing nuance. This monograph contributes to this discussion through an exploration of how men from different social groups created, discussed and enacted manliness in the context of the Irish justice system. Drawing on new methodologies from the history of emotion, as well as theories of performativity and performative space, it emphasises that manliness was not simply a cultural ideal, but something practised, felt and embodied. Moving through courtroom architecture to clothing, displays of emotion, speech-making, storytelling, humour and character, Men on trial explores how, through its performance, gender could be a creative dynamic in productions of power, destabilising traditional lines of authority.
SPEAKER
Katie Barclay is Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in the History of Emotions and Associate Professor and Head of Department in History at the University of Adelaide. She is a graduate in Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow, where she completed her undergraduate degree, Masters and PhD. Before joining the University of Adelaide, she held a Research Fellowship in the Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University, Belfast.
The seminar will start at 6:30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time (Melbourne); 8.30pm New Zealand Standard Time (Wellington); 9:30am Irish Standard Time (Dublin). The seminar will also be recorded.
For zoom details RSVP: melbirishstudies [at] gmail.com.
For queries contact: melbirishstudies [at] gmail.com or dianne.hall [at] vu.edu.au
RECORDING