Staff publish regularly and widely in journals, conference proceedings and books. Among others, they have recently contributed to: Forum for Modern Language Studies; Modern Language Review; Austrian Studies; Etudes Germaniques. Details of recently published books can be found within the staff research interests.

Every year, a considerable number of native speakers of foreign languages follow our courses and several European exchange students stay on to do graduate work. There are also foreign-language lectors who are either combining teaching with a Kent higher degree or completing dissertations for their home universities. We can assist with language-training needs of overseas postgraduates, particularly where English is concerned, and are also involved in the Erasmus and Tempus networks.

All postgraduate students in the School of European Culture and Languages have the opportunity to undertake a Researcher Development Programme provided by the Graduate School. There are training workshops for postgraduate students with teaching responsibilities, which bring together students from all its subject areas. Research students gain further academic experience by giving research talks in the Centre for Modern European Literature series, and attending national and international conferences.

The German section has particular strengths in modern literature (our research interests cover the period from 1750 to the present) and linguistics.

Research is consciously conceived as interdisciplinary, organised through the MA in Modern German and Comparative Literature and through close links with the Centre for Modern European Literature and the Centre for Language and Linguistic Studies.

Regular research seminars help to bring postgraduates together as a community, as well as to introduce them to visiting speakers from outside the University.

We encourage all of our postgraduate students to get involved in conferences, whether by attending, contributing or organising. In 2007, the National Postgraduate Colloquium in German Studies was held in Canterbury, and postgraduate students in German are also involved in the conferences organised by Skepsi. Recent conferences organised by staff include Jean Améry – Literatur zwischen Erinnerung, Politik und Selbstsuche (January 2009, Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach), The Plastic Expression, the Fruitful Sphere: European Poets and Sculptors in the 20th Century (November 2009, Henry Moore Institute Leeds), Archive: The XIIth British Comparative Literature Association Conference (July 2010, Kent), and Cultures at War: Austria-Hungary 1914-1918 (Oxford, April 2011).