Across the Pond

By Clare Shanahan '24, September 13, 2023

English professor receives grant to map Shakespeare’s London.

Chris Matusiak, associate professor in the Department of Literatures in English, will travel to London in 2024 to begin his grant work.

(photo submitted)

Chris Matusiak, associate professor in the Department of Literatures in English, has been awarded a three-year, $14,400 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a project titled “Shakespeare’s London and its Theatrical Neighborhoods: A Digital Map with Original Records.”

Undertaken as part of a larger international project in collaboration with Purdue University, Ohio State University, the University of Toronto, and the UK Houses of Parliament, the goal of the project is to create an interactive and accessible map of Shakespeare’s London and the theater districts where he operated. Beyond mapping the theaters themselves, the project will use archived maps and documents to determine what other buildings were in use in the theater districts and to create a larger picture of Shakespeare’s London than what has been documented in the past.

Matusiak said history has always been one of his favorite parts of his work and so he feels very fortunate to be able to explore the history of Shakespeare’s London and to share that with others.

“We're interested in bringing together a kind of holistic picture so that you can turn on your computer, you can load this, and you can drill down into a particular part of London.”

Associate professor Chris Matusiak

“There’s been a lot of attention given to just the theaters, or just the actors of the plays, and so forth,” he said. “We're interested in bringing together a kind of holistic picture so that you can turn on your computer, you can load this, and you can drill down into a particular part of London.”

He plans to travel to London shortly after the conclusion of the Spring 2024 semester to work on the project and will mainly confine his work to summers. Matusiak said he hopes to sponsor a summer research assistantship for one student to assist with the work.

The map will include four theater districts spread across London and it will continue to grow over time as new information emerges. Matusiak said he hopes the tool will be useful for teachers and for the general public and that his focus will be on the first professional playhouse in London’s West End, known as the Phoenix or the Cockpit.

The information included in this project will also be more accessible than ever before; the project will allow people to access documents and information online that was previously only available to those visiting locations such as London’s National Gallery.

Matusiak said people often discuss Shakespeare as the greatest playwright in history, but it was a mixture of social conditions and the state of London at the time that made his work possible. That is something he hopes this project will highlight.

“The more we look at [the people’s] interactions, the more we see that theater is not the product of a singular artist ever,” he said.