Louise McCarthy, 1st year doctoral student at LARCA, has just been awarded the annual MA prize of the Société Française Shakespeare for her M2 thesis. This research, entitled “‘Treasure maps’: Cartography in the Hands of the Virginia Company and the East India Company, 1600-1625”, was carried out in 2021 at the LARCA under the supervision of Ladan Niayesh. This immensely promising first research dealt with the uses of cartography in the promotional literature related to two emblematic British joint stock companies in the early decades of the 17th century. Approaching British proto-imperial history through the original lens of cartography in this thesis highlighted the literarity of maps and the visual dimension of propaganda texts. The work’s multidisciplinary method and topic are fully in line with the research preoccupations of LARCA, where Louise McCarthy continues her doctoral research on the same themes with Ladan Niayesh.
