Lee Arnott

Recently qualified Doctor of History, specialising in gender history, sexual politics and queer history in the modern and contemporary period. 

Before undertaking my PhD my experience was managerial and administrative. 

PhD, September 2018 – June 2022
Birkbeck College, Supervisor: Matt Cook
Exploding the myth of the British military masculine ideal. Military masculinities in the British Army, 1960-2020.
• Identified the construction, maintenance and performance of military masculinities through the experience of gay and female soldiers.
• Uncovered the mechanics which historically privileged the white, heterosexual male in the military and then out in the wider world, and conversely, looked at the systems which subjugated and marginalised those who were not white, heterosexual and male. 
• Added to understandings of gender construction and performance and removed masculinity from the sole preserve of the heterosexual male.
• Used an oral history methodology which worked in conjunction with other disciplines such as sociology, art and photographic theory, social psychology, identity formation and the theory of hegemonic masculinity.
• Identified the military template which the army historically favoured in its recruitment materials and ethos of training, and then the standards and expectations this template placed on its soldiers.
• Analysed the contingency and mutability of military (and wider) masculinities.
• Explored the historical intersections of race, gender and sexuality.

Early Modern History, MA, September 2016 – June 2018
Birkbeck College, Distinction attained
Dissertation title: “Where have you been you saucy queen?” Homosociality and the molly house scene in 1720s London.
• Explored historical constructions of gender and sexuality, analysing historical ambivalence and fluidity.
• Investigated the history of minorities.
• Researched contemporary notions of sexualities evidenced in newspapers, broadsheets and plays.