Stories of Storms and Floods: How Literature Helps us Live Well with Water

He first explores how the experience of living with storms, floods and erosion on the English East Coast has shaped over 600 years of English writing, from the poetry of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Andrew Marvell to contemporary climate fiction. He goes on to make the case for the continuing importance of England’s rich literary past today, drawing on his recent work performing community opera with young people to demonstrate the enduring power of past stories to rewrite our present-day relationship with water.

About Professor Stewart Mottram

Stewart Mottram is a Professor of Literature and Environment with a research focus on the writing of flood risk regions across time. He leads the AHRC project, From Noah to Now: A Cultural History of Flooding in English Coastal and Estuary Communities and is Consortium Lead for the AHRC (with NERC) Living Well with Water Doctoral Focus Awards in the Arts and Humanities. These awards will support 39 doctoral studentships between 2026-33 to help build healthier, more water-resilient coastal communities in the face of environmental and climate change.

Stewart is Co-Director of the University of Hull’s Centre for Water Cultures. He has held fellowships from the Leverhulme Trust (2008-10) and AHRC (2014-15, 2024-25) and was Co-I on the AHRC Risky Cities project at Hull (2020-23).

Stewart collaborates with environmental specialists from across the humanities and sciences to foreground the history of flooding and its role in shaping the literatures and cultures of North Sea regions that continue to live with flood risk today. He also leads the AHRC/XR Stories funded Rising Tide of Humber project, which recreates historical flooding within the Humber estuary using virtual reality in order to raise awareness of today’s changing climate (risingtide.hull.ac.uk).

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