The Use and Abuse of the Thames, 1550-1650
by Jemima Matthews
My AHRC-funded doctoral project will analyse literary and non literary responses to the Thames between 1550 and 1650. I will draw on interdisciplinary archival, literary and visual sources focusing in particular on water use and working river identities.
This work will help to bridge the gap between cultural geography and early modern literary and dramatic studies. Over the course of this year I have also been involved with the AHRC Research Network ‘Early Modern Discourses of Environmental Change and Sustainability’ based at the University of Exeter. This work will help to establish the ways in which discourses on the early modern Thames negotiate wider environmental debates at both local and national levels.