Projects per year
Personal profile
Key Responsibilities
Associate Dean for Research, Faculty of Arts & Humanities
Trustee and Board Member, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts
Academic Background
Claire Jowitt was appointed Associate Dean for Research for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and Professor of Renaissance Studies in the Schools of Literature, Drama, and Creative Writing and History at the University of East Anglia in September 2015. She was Professor at the University of Southampton (2012-15) Nottingham Trent University (2005-12), and Visiting Professor in English at Newman University (2012-19). She is Visiting Professor in History at Southampton University. She has held fellowships at the Folger, Huntington, Clark, and John Carter Brown Libraries and at the National Maritime Museum and the Moore Institute, has received grants from the AHRC, NERC, British Academy, Modern Humanities Research Association, and the Leverhulme Trust, and has served on a range of boards, trusts, and councils. Currently she is on the Board of Trustees for the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, a member of the English Association Higher Education Committee and Editor (with Professor Jennifer Richards) of the Association’s monograph series, published by Liverpool University Press (http://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/collections/series-english-association-monographs), and she is a member of the Hakluyt Society Council. She has acted as judge for essay prizes and fellowships awarded by the Society for Renaissance Studies, the Hakluyt Society, and the Institute for Historical Research. Currently she chairs the judging panel for the Hakluyt Society's Essay Prize.
Professor Jowitt's research and teaching interests include:
- Renaissance literature and history
- the intersections between literature, politics, and power
- exploration and travel writing
- maritime culture
- gender and race
- piracy and privateering
- islands and ports
- cross-cultural encounters
She would welcome applications from students wishing to work on these topics.
Key Research Interests and Expertise
Professor Jowitt’s research is driven by a love of travel and the sea, and an interest in how people move between cultures and ideas across time. She has published widely on early modern travel writing and maritime culture, plays about cultural encounter, and the intersections between discourses of gender, race, colonial and/or imperial identities, and power.
Her most recent book is a collection of 24 essays, The Routledge Companion to Marine and Maritime Worlds, 1400-1800, co-edited with Craig Lambert and Steve Mentz (2020). Other recent books include a collection on travel drama, Travel and Drama in Early Modern England: The Journeying Play, published in 2018 by Cambridge University Press, co-edited with David McInnis; her monograph The Culture of Piracy 1580–1630: English Literature and Seaborne Crime (ESSE Book Award, Literatures in the English Language [established authors] Honourable Mention, 2012); and (with Daniel Carey) a collection of essays Richard Hakluyt and Travel Writing in Early Modern Europe. She has recently co-edited a Special Issue of the on-line journal Humanities on 'Pirates in English Literature' (with Nush Powell) http://www.mdpi/com/journal/humanities/special_issues/pirates
She is co-Director of the Hakluyt Edition Project (http://www.hakluyt.org/) and is a General Editor of the first critical edition of Hakluyt’s The Principal Navigations (1598–1600) for Oxford University Press. Funded by the AHRC, she co-organised the Haklyut@400 series of commemorative events in the autumn of 2016 for the Hakluyt Society. With John McAleer she edits the book series 'Maritime Humanities, 1400-1800: Cultures of the Sea' for Amsterdam University Press (https://www.aup.nl/en/series/maritime-humanities-1400-1800).
Her current in-progress work includes an edited collection on Richard Hakluyt (with Daniel Carey), a monograph provisionally enititled Seafever: The Sea Captain's Story. She is historical lead for The Gloucester Project (https://www.gloucestershipwreck.co.uk/) working with Dr Benjamin Redding, on the varied material and cultual life of the Gloucester frigate, funded by the Leverhulme Trust.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
Education/Academic qualification
Bachelor of Arts, University of Southampton
21 Sep 1986 → 31 May 1989
Award Date: 14 Jul 1989
External positions
Visiting Professor, University of Southampton
1 Sep 2015 → 30 Aug 2020
Visiting Professor, Newman University
1 Sep 2011 → 30 Aug 2019
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AHRC Impact Acceleration Account
Jowitt, C., Johnston, K. M., Kassim, H. & Vincent, N.
Arts and Humanities Research Council
1/04/22 → 31/03/25
Project: Other
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Wreck of the Gloucester: The Life and Times of a c17 Third Rate English Warship
1/10/21 → 30/09/24
Project: Research
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The Principal Navigations Vols. 3, 4,5, 6: Editorial Workshop for Advanced Drafts and Collation Issues
1/05/18 → 30/09/18
Project: Research
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Historical trajectories of SIDS
Barclay, J., Wilkinson, E., Few, R., Forster, J., Jowitt, C., Lorenzoni, I. & Woolhouse, G.
Natural Environment Research Council
1/11/16 → 2/02/18
Project: Research
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The last voyage of the Gloucester (1682): The politics of a royal shipwreck
Jowitt, C., Jun 2022, In: English Historical Review. 137, 586, p. 728–762 35 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile16 Downloads (Pure) -
Early Modern Maritime Heroes: Idols of the Sea
Jowitt, C., 20 Jul 2020, The Routledge Companion to Marine and Maritime Worlds, 1400-1800. Jowitt, C., Lambert, C. & Mentz, S. (eds.). Routledge PressResearch output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Performing ‘Walter Ralegh’: The Cultural Politics of Sea Captains in late Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama
Jowitt, C., Oct 2020, The Maritime World of Early Modern Britain . Davey, J. & Blakemore, R. (eds.). Amsterdam University Press, p. 125-152 28 p. (Maritime Humanities, 1400-1800: Cultures of the Sea).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Pirates in English Literature
Jowitt, C. (ed.) & Powell, M. (ed.), 1 Jan 2020, In: Humanities.Research output: Contribution to journal › Special issue › peer-review
Open Access -
The Routledge Companion to Marine and Maritime Worlds, 1400-1800
Jowitt, C. (ed.), Mentz, S. (ed.) & Lambert, C. (ed.), 20 Jul 2020, Routledge Press.Research output: Book/Report › Book
Prizes
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ESSE book prize, Literatures in the English Language
Jowitt, Claire (Recipient), Jun 2012
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
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Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
Jowitt, Claire (Recipient), 30 Jun 2021
Prize: Election to learned society
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Chair of Judges, Hakluyt Society Essay Prize
Claire Jowitt (Presenter)
1 Jul 2021 → …Activity: Other activity types › Other
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Amsterdam University Press (Publisher)
Claire Jowitt (Peer reviewer)
2018 → …Activity: Editorial work › Publication editorial role
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Liverpool University Press (Publisher)
Claire Jowitt (Peer reviewer)
2017 → …Activity: Editorial work › Publication editorial role
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Journal for Maritime Research (Journal)
Claire Jowitt (Peer reviewer)
2007 → …Activity: Editorial work › Publication editorial role