Zuhri James

Zuhri’s PhD research is investigating a series of restoration projects along a stretch of the River Thames in West London known as the Arcadian Thames. Rooted in the histories of royal ownership and aristocratic patronage, the Arcadian Thames has long been seen as a quintessentially serene and bucolic English landscape. Working against the grain of these prevailing historical accounts, Zuhri’s research centres the often occluded dimensions to the Arcadian Thames, connecting its historical development to masculinity, class violence and the expansion of the transatlantic slave trade. He is particularly interested in the extent and manner in which contemporary restoration efforts engage with these fraught cultural, political and economic histories.

Peer-reviewed journal articles:

Saps, M. and James, Z. (2026) Diasporic culture and social media: Interpreting the cuy TikTok phenomenon. cultural geographies. https://doi.org/10.1177/14744740261425983

Platt, B. and James, Z. (2025) The aesthetics of urban metabolism: Landscape, design, and the politics of in/visibility. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 50.3, pp.644-666. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.70030

James, Z. (2025) Staged ecologies: Aesthetics, nature and infrastructure in the late-modern metropolis. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 50.4. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.70004

James, Z. (2024) Traversing the urban soundscape: Black sonic geographies within The Minneapolis Sound. Antipode, 56.5, pp.1665-1690. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.13053

James, Z. (2024) Exploring the construction of Arctic imaginaries within the spaces of the museum. Routes, 4.1, pp.50-65. https://routesjournal.org/2024/06/03/r2194/

Public scholarship:

James, Z. (2025) Between architectural monstrosity and generic utopia. Failed Architecture. https://failedarchitecture.com/between-architectural-monstrosity-and-speculative-utopia/

James, Z. (2025) Psychic London. The London Magazine, October-November 2025 Issue. https://thelondonmagazine.org/product/past-issues/

James, Z. (2025) Cusk, experimentalism and the limits of autofiction. The London Magazine, February-March 2025 Issue. https://thelondonmagazine.org/article/essay-cusk-experimentalism-and-the-limits-of-autofiction-by-zuhri-james/