Organisation profile

We produce internationally excellent research (rated first in the UK for 'world-leading' research in English Literature in REF 2014) across four chronological research schools: Medieval, Renaissance, 18th Century & Romantic, and Modern (post-1850).

Each school has a central role in an associated interdisciplinary centre, providing strong research links with History, Archaeology, and History of Art; and we are at the heart of the Humanities Research Centre, a superb institutional vehicle for broader interdisciplinary dialogue.

Uniquely, the Department is one of English and Related Literature, with staff specializing in the multiple Englishes of global literature, in the literature of other languages, and in translation. 

We also have extensive research expertise in cultural media, including relations between literature and film, radio, theatre, and digital media; book history and cultures of the book; trans-media fields such as narrative theory, and embodiment and cognition in literary studies. 

Our expertise extends across historical periods in areas including editorial studies, poetry and poetics, religion, secularity and the post-secular, and fictionality.