{"id":144,"date":"2021-06-25T08:55:23","date_gmt":"2021-06-25T07:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/cdrgmodlangsqub\/?p=144"},"modified":"2025-06-05T18:57:02","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T17:57:02","slug":"postgraduate-student-interviews-aislin-kearney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/cdrgmodlangsqub\/2021\/06\/25\/postgraduate-student-interviews-aislin-kearney\/","title":{"rendered":"Postgraduate student interviews: Aislin Kearney (PhD, Spanish)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme<\/a><\/strong> for 2020-2021.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the 20th<\/sup> of April I interviewed recent Queen\u2019s PhD graduate Aislin Kearney to discuss her research. In February 2021, Aislin successfully passed her viva for a PhD in Spanish with a thesis entitled \u2018’The Ambition of Melancholy: The Aesthetics of Heroism in the Lyric poetry of Juan Bosc\u00e1n and Fernando de Herrera’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aislin began her studies at Queen\u2019s as a drama student, where she started a beginner\u2019s course in Spanish. She enjoyed the course so much that she decided to change pathways, majoring in Spanish with a minor in Drama. In her final year she described how she was (begrudgingly) enrolled on a Renaissance module. Unexpectedly, however, the module caught her interest, and when she went on to an MA in Spanish at Queen\u2019s, she devoted her Master\u2019s dissertation, and later PhD, to further examining the poetry of the period.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Portada de Las obras de Bosc\u00e1n y algunas de Garcilaso de la Vega repartidas en cuatro libros<\/em>, Barcelona, Carlos Amor\u00f3s, 1543.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Her Master\u2019s dissertation focused on the work of Spanish poet Juan Bosc\u00e1n, a lesser-known contemporary of Garcilaso de la Vega. Central to her study of Bosc\u00e1n\u2019s poetry was the emerging idea of melancholic heroism, which Aislin explained was particularly interesting when considering the historical context in which the poetry was being written. During a period in which the country was rising to become somewhat of a superpower, much of its most prominent literature was characterized by lovesick, introspective, and melancholic figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aislin described her PhD as a natural progression from her Master\u2019s research, in which she further explored this melancholic aesthetic, and Spain\u2019s attachment to it, by examining not only the work of Bosc\u00e1n but also his successor, Fernando de Herrera. Aislin explained that her choice in poets was influenced by a number of factors. First, the consecutive periods in which these poets were writing allowed for a better understanding of the historical trajectory of Spanish literature during this time. Second, these two lesser-known poets\u2019 peripheral positions in relation to the extensively studied Garcilaso de le Vega allowed for a more expansive understanding of Spanish poetry of the period. Finally, the fact that both of these poets produced theoretical works alongside poetry, where they discussed their methods and approaches, made them interesting subjects on which to focus research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Aislin said that one of the things that interested her most during the course of her research was how patterns of imitation and reinterpretation could be spotted between Spanish and Italian poetry. These reinterpretations, which could be seen through the adaptation and alteration of single lines, or through reference to mythological figures, could reveal a lot about the specific time-frame in which the poem is positioned. Aislin suggested that this imitation is again interesting when considering the power dynamics between Spain and Italy during this time: although Spain was the dominant power, it was still culturally influenced by Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After hearing about Aislin\u2019s research, I asked what advice she would give to undergraduate students interested in pursuing postgraduate study. Aislin said her main message to undergraduates would be that there is no such thing as wasted reading: reading widely and across topics will always come in useful, even if just to build knowledge about the context which you are studying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interviewing Aislin provided a great opportunity to not only learn about Spanish Renaissance poetry, and the social and political factors which influenced it, but it also allowed me to learn more about postgraduate study and research. It was interesting to hear about Aislin\u2019s academic trajectory, and how her postgraduate research developed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interview by Ida Willock-Creese, final-year student in Anthropology and Spanish <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2020-2021. On the 20th of April I interviewed recent Queen\u2019s PhD graduate Aislin Kearney to discuss her research. In February 2021, Aislin successfully passed her viva for a PhD in Spanish with a thesis entitled \u2018’The Ambition of Melancholy: The Aesthetics of Heroism in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,10],"tags":[59,87,32,60,30],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-postgraduate-student-interviews","category-research-initiation-2020-2021","tag-lyric","tag-phd-students","tag-poetry","tag-renaissance","tag-spanish"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/cdrgmodlangsqub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/cdrgmodlangsqub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/cdrgmodlangsqub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/cdrgmodlangsqub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/cdrgmodlangsqub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/cdrgmodlangsqub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":470,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/cdrgmodlangsqub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/cdrgmodlangsqub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/cdrgmodlangsqub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/cdrgmodlangsqub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}