Student Spotlight: Liam Waterman
Global Undergraduate Awards 2023 Winner
Global Winner: Literature
The Global Undergraduate Awards recently announced the winning submissions for 2023, which include the following from Western: three Global Winners, three Regional Winners and 23 Highly Commended.
Meet Liam Waterman, BA’23, 2023 Global Winner in the category of Literature (top submission in the category worldwide)
- Currently pursuing a Master of Philosophy in English Literature at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom
- "Fools of Nature”: Fear and Ecology in Hamlet
Can you provide a summary of your research?
My essay investigates the ecological role that fear plays in the relationships between humans and nonhuman environments in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. I argue that, while Hamlet does repeatedly display a sense of terror towards both non-human life and biological processes of recycling, this attitude is not necessarily destructive of ecological thinking. Rather, the experience of fear towards one’s environment, “ecophobia,” necessitates a recognition of one’s lack of knowledge or authority over the feared environment.
I suggest that moments of disconnection, uncertainty, and terror between the human characters of Hamlet and the nonhuman environments present in the play work to acknowledge the independent life of nonhuman things apart from human utility.
What motivated you to pursue this topic of research?
I've always been interested in literature, and I came to Western to study English. Originally, I was more focused on science fiction novels, but my appreciation of the subject has really expanded over my time at Western, in no small part thanks to the teaching of Joel Faflak. Now in my research I’m focused on the ways that poems can express people's feelings and relationships between things. It sounds cliché, but I’ve always loved nature and taking walks through wild areas, so studying ecology in texts really appeals to me. I had never read much poetry or verse before coming to Western, so that’s something that I picked up through my classes.
Why do you think research like this is important?
Honestly, I think that is a difficult question to answer. I’m not sure I have a great answer for why work in the arts is important; I'm not sure it’s that simple. For me personally, studying English is a great source of joy, and I don’t necessarily do it with an aim to create some other useful knowledge that will lead us to some better place. What literary scholarship can do is open up texts for people. My goal is that by doing these types of analyses, I can help other people in our world appreciate literature as well.
What do you hope to do in the future? I’m currently studying in the UK and hope to continue on to do a PhD and become a professor. It may sound selfish, but I really just want to be able to keep doing what I enjoy doing, which is conducting research analyzing texts.
Waterman will present his research at the Global Undergraduate Summit in Dublin, Ireland November 5-8, and will be recognized alongside Western’s other global and regional winners.
> Read more about Western students honoured by The Global Undergraduate Awards
