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To view any of our past lectures please visit our YouTube channel.
*Professor Hines was invited by the Society to deliver this lecture.
Conspicuous events of recent months have proved how powerfully perceptions of the past can become controversial, and be deployed in direct political action. That is not solely a matter of monuments representing individuals or groups with reprehensible associations but can also spread to names reminiscent of such figures and events. Last year, the field of Anglo-Saxon Studies experienced a convulsion driven by claims that the history and legacy of the field was imbued in serious racism and misogyny (and more), while even the use of that name provided material sustaining far right white supremacist movements.
The storm has abated to a degree, and while it is impossible to say that this presentation will not risk contributing to ongoing turbulence, it is not unduly optimistic to take the view that the presentation of an informed and temperate view of key factual aspects will be of greater value as a reference point for a balanced and constructive approach. Identity politics are at the centre of this whirlpool, and the topic of identity amongst the population of the area of Britain that emerged over the period of the 5th–11th centuries AD as the kingdom of England has been subject to seriously erroneous claims.
One lecture cannot be exhaustive, but this talk will be able to present and explain central aspects of the perception and presentation of identity in England during the period, including the development and adoption of an explicit notion of the ‘Anglo-Saxon’. Discussion of evidence from the period itself will be balanced with an outline of varied and politically/ideologically loaded images of this period in historical discourse of the later Middle Ages and Modern Period.
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