Scribner Seminar Fall 2007
Course Description
SSP-100 (London Program) The River Thames
Tom Lewis, Professor of English
Why do the English sometimes call the Thames 鈥淟iquid History鈥�? Is this metaphor apt?
Students in this seminar will examine this characterization of the Thames, on whose
banks monarchs have been crowned and beheaded, cities built and burned, and where,
in 1215, on that flat but marshy plain of Runnymede, King John affixed his great red
royal seal to the document that serves as the foundation of democracy, the Magna Carta.
For centuries, the Thames been not only the economic and geographic heart of England,
but also its spiritual center; as T.S. Eliot once wrote, the spirit of the Thames
is 鈥渨ithin us.鈥� This seminar introduces students to the place of the River Thames
in English life, through the study of the part it has played in English history, art
history, literature, and the environment.