Faculty Advisor: Lecturer in English, Yale University

Program Start Time: TBD (meetings will take place for around one hour per week)

Research Practicum Introduction

Is chivalry really dead? The word evokes medieval knights, distressed maidens, and valiant battles, yet its legacy is alive and well. It can be found in trifles, such as whether men pay on dates and open doors. It can also be found in abstract ideals, such as loyalty, self-sacrifice, and honor. Despite noble associations, however, chivalry is saturated in biases and performed most often by elite members of a self-aggrandizing Western society.

This program explores the implicit power structures that underpin chivalry, investigating their ongoing appeal and critiquing their role in the marginalization of certain peoples. We investigate the ramifications of chivalry through a variety of disciplines including history, literature, and art. Through a series of case studies, we trace the original medieval code of conduct (3 sessions) through its revival in Victorian England, Imperial India, and the American South. In the process, we will examine the ways people are protected, disenfranchised, or ignored due to gender, class, race and religion. Rather than asking "is chivalry dead?” This program examines the stakes of chivalry remaining alive. 

Students will also be introduced to cross-disciplinary thinking and top tier research in the humanities. Each student will be challenged to produce original research or create original creative projects.

Possible Choice For Final Project

Academic Papers:

• Select a contemporary “cultural object” concerned with chivalry and write an academic paper in which you analyze what this cultural object tells us about the current pressures that are reshaping modern perception of chivalry 

• Analyze a historical primary source's depiction of chivalry and its original code in an academic paper.

• Analyze a literary primary source's depiction of chivalry and its original code in an academic paper.

• Analyze an art-based primary source's depiction of chivalry and its original code in an academic paper.

Other Projects:

• Persuasive Writing: Write an OpEd about a current event in which you see the undertones of chivalric principle.

• Creative Writing: Modernize a famous passage from a chivalric romance.

• Create a new chivalric hero by adapting motifs like swords, horses, and roses in an art project.

• Or other topics in this subject area that you are interested in, and that your professor approves after discussing it with you.

Program Detail

• Cohort Size: 3-5 students

• Duration: 12 weeks

• Workload: Around 4-5 hours per week (including class time and homework time)

• Target Students: 9-12th grade students interested in History, Literature, Politics, Art, Anthropology, Gender Studies and/or Geography.