Tom Langham

Effects and Affects: A Cultural History of the Drum in England 1500-1700

My doctoral project looks at how drums were used in early modern England, and how drum noise generated narratives in social, political, and entertainment contexts. I am interested in the sensory experience of the drum for early moderns, and how hearing the drum included the listening subject in its proposed narrative. By looking at broad contexts of use, I intend to take an intertheatrical approach in order to build a network of how ‘hearing’ worked. How does hearing a drum in a military context inform hearing a drum in the theatre, and vice versa? I am particularly interested in how drums functioned on the early modern stage as performed performances, and how this framing allowed audiences to engage with how noise worked.

This project is funded as a co-tutelle with CY Cergy Paris University by EUTOPIA. I am supervised by Professor Teresa Grant and Professor Guillaume Coatalen.

My research interests include early modern drama, especially in regards to staging and the sensory experience of audiences. Previously I have written about theatrical body parts on the early modern stage.