Hi everyone!
I just started my masters degree in history. In our second year we have to write an extended thesis and the topic for that has been bugging me. I started off doing Early Medieval but the potential supervisor was rude and I am more interested in the High/Late Middle Ages which she did not agree to supervise. I then decided to switch to 19th century history hoping to write about medievalism in 19th century art. The supervisor for that is nice but not inspiring but tbh I can't complain here.
The problem is that I am still very much interested in the High/Late Middle Ages and really want to write on it. But on the other hand, I also love Victorian British art and history. There is a supervisor in the English department that does H/L Middle Ages but no one in history.
Do any historians here have advice as to how I should approach this dilemma? Is there any way I could combine both and study them both for my thesis? I don't want to ruin my professional relationships but I also feel like the direction of my thesis currently is not what I want exactly.
Thanks in advance for the responses!
Doing a project on the history of the gothic revival ( which actually began earlier than the Victorians) sounds like it could be quite interesting. There were some colorful characters involved in it, like Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, Sir Walter Scott and Horace Walpole, and all those Neo-Raphaelites. There's a wealth of source material and much of it is very accessible ( the letters of Horace Walpole are even at Project Gutenberg). I am not a medievalist ( and hopefully one will stop by and say something), but it is a field that usually requires mastering some difficult sources, learning a language, and doing a lot of detective work...(and being aware of what other scholars have done, as you are not likely to be the first person to discover something and write about it). I presume, if it's an MA, you'd be only taking a year or maybe two, though. If you're planning on going further in medieval history, getting a doctorate and spending some serious time in it afterwards, bon voyage! If you are planning to put all this together in a pretty short time and then move on to some other field, that might be rather difficult to pull off.
Hope I don't sound negative, like your Early Medieval adviser...
Have you discussed this with your advisor about your conflicting interests and how to best resolve them? They are in the best position to help you do what you want.
What topic are you interested in with the High/Late Middle Ages? Is it something that you can combine with Victorian Birth art and or history? I'm not sure if you could have the English supervisor as your lead, certainly on your panel, though.