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The University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NZ, T +44 (0)1227 764000
English
National ratings
Research Assessment Exercise 2008: ranked 18th nationally for research quality, with 65% of our research rated "world-leading" or "internationally excellent".
English studies at Kent had a 95% satisfaction rate in the National Student Survey 2008.
Taught programmes
- Creative Writing - MA
- Creative Writing (Paris option) - MA
- Dickens and Victorian Culture - MA
- Eighteenth-Century Studies - MA
- English and American Literature - MA
- English and American Literature (Paris option) - MA
- Medieval and Early Modern Studies - MA
- Postcolonial Studies - MA
- Postcolonial Studies (Paris option) - MA
- Critical Theory (taught jointly with the School of European Culture and Languages) - MA
Research programmes
- Poetry: Practice as Research - PhD
- Text and Practice - MPhil, PhD
- The Contemporary Novel: Practice as Research - MA, PhD
- English - MA, MPhil, PhD
- Medieval and Early Modern Studies - MA, MPhil, PhD
- Postcolonial Studies - MA, MPhil, PhD
- Text and Event in Early Modern Europe (TEEME): An Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate - PhD
The School of English has a strong international perspective, apparent both in the background of its staff and in the diversity of our teaching and research interests. Our expertise ranges from the medieval to the post-modern, including British, American and Irish literature, postcolonial writing, 18th-century studies, Shakespeare, early modern literature and culture, Victorian studies, modern poetry, critical theory and cultural history.
The international reputation of the School ensures that we have a lively research culture, sustained by a vibrant intellectual community. We also count a number of distinguished creative writers among our staff, and we actively explore crossovers between critical and creative writing in all our areas of teaching and research.
Research centres
There are five research centres based in the School of English: the Centre for Modern Poetry; the Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Research; the Centre for Studies in the Long Eighteenth Century; the Centre for Gender, Sexuality and Writing; and the Centre for Creative Writing. Two Faculty-based research centres have strong input from the School: the Centre for Medieval & Early Modern Studies, and the Centre for American Studies. Between them, these research centres organise many international conferences, symposia and workshops. The School also plays a pivotal role in the Kent Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, of which all graduates are associate members. The Institute hosts interdisciplinary conferences, colloquia, and other events, and establishes international links for all Kent graduates through its network with other advanced institutes worldwide.
Seminars and readings
The School runs several series of seminars, lectures and readings throughout the academic year. Our weekly research seminars are organised collaboratively by staff and graduates in the School, often in conjunction with our research centres. Individual seminars address many diverse areas of interest and serve as a forum to discuss, develop and enhance work in progress. Speakers range from our own postgraduate students, to members of staff, to distinguished lecturers who are at the forefront of contemporary research nationally and internationally.
The Centre for Creative Writing hosts a very popular and successful weekly reading series; recent guests have included poets Katherine Pierpoint, Tony Lopez, Christopher Reid and George Szirtes, and novelists Abdulrazak Gurnah, Ali Smith, Marina Warner, Maureen Freely and Rachel Cusk.
Dynamic Publishing Culture
School staff are prolific authors.In the past few years, publications have included: Literary Theory: A Reintroduction (David Ayers); Women's Work: Labour, Gender and Authorship, 1750-1830 (Jennie Batchelor); Chaucer and the Making of Optical Space (Peter Brown); Edmund Burke and the Art of Rhetoric (Paddy Bullard); Losing You (Patricia Debney); Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives (Brian Dillon); A Film by Spencer Ludwig (David Flusfeder); The Last Gift (Abdulrazak Gurnah); Enthusiast! Essays on Modern American Literature (David Herd); On the Uses of History in Recent Irish Writing (Bernhard Klein); Noble Brutes: How Eastern Horses Transformed English Culture (Donna Landry); Phenomenology, Modernism and Beyond (co-ed. Ariane Mildenberg); Rudyard Kipling (Jan Montefiore); Representations of Indian Muslims in British Colonial Discourse (Alex Padamsee); Shakespeare and Material Culture (Catherine Richardson); Decolonising Gender (Caroline Rooney); The Still Point (Amy Sackville); London Bridge (Simon Smith); Louise Erdrich (David Stirrup); Our Tragic Universe (Scarlett Thomas); Commodity Culture in Dickens' Household Words (Cathy Waters); Derrida's Writing and Difference: A Reader's Guide (Sarah Wood).
Among periodicals and series edited within the School are: The Dickensian; The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature: 600-1500; Literature Compass; Theatre Notebook; Wasafiri; Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities; and Oxford Literary Review.
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