Department of English

Nicholas Hawksmoor was an 18th Century English architect responsible for building six churches in London as a part of the Fifty New Churches Act of 1711. Throughout time, a theory arose that the Hawksmoor churches are occult objects that cast psychogeographical forces onto the urban landscape of London. This thesis argues that the occult recontextualization of the Hawksmoor churches presents a resistance to the original intent of the churches as sites of surveillance and domination over the urban landscape of London. First, I introduce the concept of psychogeography, which is what drives the entirety of this thesis. Next, I will trace the history of Hawksmoor and his churches, paying close attention to how the locations and architecture enforce the Church of England’s intentions. Then, I will examine two London-based texts that center the Hawksmoor churches as occult objects: first, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s 1989 graphic novel From Hell and then, Iain Sinclair’s 1975 poetry collection Lud Heat. Sinclair’s text was the first to introduce the theory behind the Hawksmoor churches as occult objects. This text then went on to inspire and influence texts such as Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s 1989 graphic novel From Hell — a fictional retelling of the Jack the Ripper murders that follows the popular Gull theory and centers the Hawksmoor churches as significant sites of occult power. And finally, I turn to London as a dynamic urban space and the ways in which psychogeography can be a tool to resist capitalism.