Aylon Cohen, PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science, also travelled to London on a Nicholson Fellowship. “During my Fellowship,” writes Aylon, “I conducted research at the Museum of Freemasonry in London for my dissertation, “Becoming Attached: Affect, the Body, and the Origins of Equality in Early Modern England.” I sought to understand how freemasonry, the largest fraternal organization dedicated to republicanism in 18th century Europe, cultivated new political bonds of equality between men. Surveying masonic rituals, etiquette guides, and practices, I discovered that freemasonry created new relations of intimate touch between men, such as handshakes and hugs, in order to cultivate new affective relations of brotherly love – a love that was meant to sustain, they argued, political bonds of fraternal equality. During my research, I also discovered widespread rumours alleging that masons were in fact bound together by illicit practices of fraternal love, namely, sodomy. These sodomy rumours pointed to fascinating gendered and sexualized tensions within the 18th century republican politics of fraternal equality. I would like to thank the Nicholson Center for British Studies for their incredible assistance and support of my research, especially in the face of ongoing disruptions resulting from the pandemic.”

– Aylon Cohen