Research Degrees in English

Research areas in the Department include:

Classical and MedievalResearch in this area covers topics such as literacy and orality, cultural exchange between England and France, the writing of history, and the reception and transmission of medieval texts. Interests in the history of the book lead forward into the Sixteenth- Century and work in the Renaissance area.

Renaissance and Early Modern StudiesStaff working in this research area have an international reputation in ‘applied intellectual history’, a term coined at Queen Mary for this distinctive field. A close link with the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters provides scholars in the Department with a backdrop for archival research and a resource for intellectual exchange across arange of humanities disciplines.

Eighteenth- and Nineteenth- Century Studies and RomanticismEstablished research strengths lie in the literary analysis of polite and popular culture, in the poetry and politics of the Romantic and Victorian periods, and in intellectual history and the history of the book. The ‘long Eighteenth-Century’ is an area of particular interest and established research strength at Queen Mary, with colleagues working on rhetorics of race, philosophy, religion, gender and politics. The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries are in close dialogue in the Department through research into poetry and poetic traditions of the period.

Modern and Contemporary, and Theoretical and Interdisciplinary StudiesThe literature and culture of the modern period are a major focus of research activity among the staff. The
Department has a successful tradition of combining high-level research into individual writers with an interdisciplinary focus on the relations between literature, theory, culture and politics.

Postcolonial StudiesA strong team of postcolonial researchers combines expertise on literatures in English from the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia. The Department contributes to the work of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters; the Dr Williams’s Centre for Dissenting Studies; the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies; the Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies; the Francis Bacon Project; and the King’s Printer Project.

Seminars and Reading Groups are held in Medieval/Early Modern Texts and Contexts; Renaissance Studies; Dissenting Studies, Eighteenth Century; Enlightenment and Romanticism; Modernism; Psychoanalytic Thought; Irish Studies.