English (Research)

Academic staff in the English Department have research expertise across the fields of literature, film and creative writing, as well as working across disciplinary boundaries in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities. From period-based expertise to cutting-edge editorial projects, we are actively engaged in innovative research that combines traditional approaches with fresh methodologies, making new discoveries and expanding the horizons of literary study in order to make English relevant to today’s most pressing questions.

Research in the department takes place across a range of historical periods, from the Renaissance to twenty-first century literature and culture. We have internationally recognised strengths in Shakespeare, seventeenth-century literature, Victorian sensation fiction, fin-de-siècle decadence and aestheticism, modernism, and contemporary literature, among other areas. From the performances of Oscar Wilde’s Salome to the analysis of Gender and Care in Contemporary Literature, you can find details of some our research projects here.

Our lively research culture reflects our passion for new research, with regular work-in-progress seminars and lectures from prestigious invited speakers. We have specialist research groups in Contemporary literature and culture, Cultural Currents: Nineteenth to Twentieth Century, Editing and Textual Scholarship and Health Humanities, as well as regular creative writing events and visiting authors.

Our postgraduate students are active participants in these events, as emerging researchers in their own right. Finally, we engage in collaborations beyond the University, with regional, national and international partners including libraries, museums, galleries and literary societies, in order to share our research with the widest possible audiences.