Emily Mann
My research focuses on the relationship between visual culture and European expansion in the world through the growth of trading networks and territorial settlements, c.1550 to c.1800. Major themes in my current work include the significance of mapping and building in making claims over land and commerce; the representation of architecture in image and word; and the relationship between land and sea in early-modern experience. At the same time as investigating historical processes and production, I am concerned with postcolonial attitudes and approaches to empire’s material legacy.
My PhD thesis, entitled ‘Architecture and the Negotiation of Empire in the Early Modern Atlantic World’, placed architecture at the centre of the process of English expansion overseas from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth century. By demonstrating ways in which building and buildings were instrumental in claiming and maintaining possession of land, it aimed to contribute to understandings of colonial experience and imperial ideologies, and the space in between. Investigations of architectural destruction in human conflict and through natural hazards, and of repeated reconstruction, emphasised the colonies’ contested, contingent character. I looked at colonies both as construction sites and as sites of destruction.
With a specialism in the emerging English/British empire, my research takes a ‘connected’, comparative approach that engages with the broader context of inter-imperial competition and conflict, as well as cross-cultural encounters and exchange. My research to date has involved archival and field work in the Caribbean, North America, West Africa and India, and collaborative work with archaeologists and historians approaching the subject from other disciplinary perspectives.
I have been teaching at the Courtauld Institute of Art as Early Career Lecturer in Early Modern Art since September 2017. Before that, I was a Leverhulme-funded Research Associate with the Centre for the Political Economies of International Commerce at the University of Kent. There I expanded my doctoral research on the architectural enterprises of overseas trading corporations in the globalising early modern world, connecting the construction projects of the English East India Company in Asia to those undertaken by the Virginia, Bermuda, Royal African and other companies.
I have taught and supervised courses on European art and architecture from 1550 to 1850 at the Courtauld, the University of Cambridge and the University of York, and have also worked as an editor for national newspapers and magazines.
Supervisors: Professor Christine Stevenson
My PhD thesis, entitled ‘Architecture and the Negotiation of Empire in the Early Modern Atlantic World’, placed architecture at the centre of the process of English expansion overseas from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth century. By demonstrating ways in which building and buildings were instrumental in claiming and maintaining possession of land, it aimed to contribute to understandings of colonial experience and imperial ideologies, and the space in between. Investigations of architectural destruction in human conflict and through natural hazards, and of repeated reconstruction, emphasised the colonies’ contested, contingent character. I looked at colonies both as construction sites and as sites of destruction.
With a specialism in the emerging English/British empire, my research takes a ‘connected’, comparative approach that engages with the broader context of inter-imperial competition and conflict, as well as cross-cultural encounters and exchange. My research to date has involved archival and field work in the Caribbean, North America, West Africa and India, and collaborative work with archaeologists and historians approaching the subject from other disciplinary perspectives.
I have been teaching at the Courtauld Institute of Art as Early Career Lecturer in Early Modern Art since September 2017. Before that, I was a Leverhulme-funded Research Associate with the Centre for the Political Economies of International Commerce at the University of Kent. There I expanded my doctoral research on the architectural enterprises of overseas trading corporations in the globalising early modern world, connecting the construction projects of the English East India Company in Asia to those undertaken by the Virginia, Bermuda, Royal African and other companies.
I have taught and supervised courses on European art and architecture from 1550 to 1850 at the Courtauld, the University of Cambridge and the University of York, and have also worked as an editor for national newspapers and magazines.
Supervisors: Professor Christine Stevenson
less
Related Authors
InterestsView All (11)
Uploads
Book chapters by Emily Mann
Books by Emily Mann
Essays by Emily Mann
Conference papers and talks by Emily Mann
This co-authored paper stems from a conference organised by the authors in Barbados in 2017 that explored the long-duree impact of corporations on the history of Barbados. This article explores the most recent research on the corporate history of the island and develops an argument integrating early colonial activities with broader histories of trade and empire.