Richard Rush is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Riverside (United States of America). In his dissertation, “Landscapes along the Fifth-Century Rhône,” he argues that the literary use of a landscape cannot be separated from the author’s experience of that landscape. Richard uses Latin authors who lived along the Rhône during the long fifth century to explore how reading their texts in conjunction with an analysis of the landscapes evoked therein can deepen our understanding of the authors’ lived experiences. This dissertation requires close engagement with both the literary works of fifth-century Gallic authors and what remains of the fifth-century landscape.
While in Lyon, Richard will analyze the local geography’s relationship to the works of Sidonius Apollinaris, Avitus of Vienne, and the “Life of Apollinaris of Valence,” as well as the fifth-century archeology of Lyon and its environs.
He currently is a HiSoMA bursary in Lyon, as part of the project Lugdunum dans l’empire de Rome. See also paper IMC Leeds.