Dr Chloe Fairbanks

My doctoral research reassesses Shakespeare’s treatment of national identity in light of recent developments in ecocritical and spatial thinking, demonstrating how an ecocritical approach enables a better understanding of the problematic boundaries of the emerging nation state. Central to this project is an exploration of the manifold ways in which the nation was newly ‘visible’ in the 1590s, including developments in cartography, surveying, chorography, and agriculture, and I consider these alongside Shakespeare's English histories in order to add nuance to discussions of land and identity during this period. I am particularly interested in moments of internal tension, and my thesis contends that reconsidering such moments through a more ecocritical lens allows us not only to challenge the idea that England as a whole was a homogenous entity, but to consider to what extent its heterogeneity affects the concept of national identity. In doing so we can incorporate tensions within the emerging nation-state without seeking to assimilate them, thus resisting a totalising view of early modern England.