News feedsProspective postgraduate students
Welcome to English at Southampton! We offer a friendly, lively, and supportive intellectual environment, effective training in research skills, and high-quality research resources.
The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise acknowledged that 90% of our staff outputs are internationally recognised in terms of originality, significance and rigour, including 40% which were classed as Internationally Excellent, and 25% which achieved the highest ranking of 'World Leading'. Although these rankings relate to individual achievements, our staff are also active in four collaborative and interdisciplinary research centres: Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Culture; Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies; the Parkes Institute; and Centre for Contemporary Writing. For an introduction to our academic staff and their research interests, see the staff section.
We teach on a pleasant purpose-built campus with good IT provision. Our library facilities are excellent, giving you access to major research collections within and outside the University.
Masters' degrees
We offer a wide range of masters' degrees, some general, some focusing on areas where we have particular strengths, including: medieval and Renaissance culture; eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature; modernism; women's writing; Jewish history and culture; postcolonial literatures; film studies; critical theory; and creative writing.
Postgraduate research degrees
We are prepared to accept applications for postgraduate study all through the year and like to discuss students' research proposals before they submit their formal applications. Please therefore browse through the staff pages and either contact a potential supervisor direct, or send your proposal to Dr Gail McDonald (Engpgrqu@soton.ac.uk)
AHRC Postgraduate Studentships
In 2009 the AHRC changed the way that it allocated funds for doctoral study. The University of Southampton was successful in applying for a Block Grant Partnership (BGP). Please check the AHRC criteria for student eligibility.
The School will advertise these awards on an annual basis. The next funding round will take place in 2011.
English has studentships at Masters and Doctoral level to offer in every year of the current five-year funding period.
Further information can be found on our Postgraduate funding pages
If you have questions about postgraduate study at Southampton and would like further information on what we offer please contact our postgraduate team by:
Phone: +44 (0) 23 8059 6809
Email: pghums@southampton.ac.uk
How to apply
Please fill out an online application for admission to the University of Southampton. You will also need to send us sample[s] of your work totalling no more than 5000 words, and arrange for confidential references from two academic referees. Please ask your referees to send these direct to the Humanities Postgraduate Admissions office (pghums@southampton.ac.uk)
Please send all material electronically if possible.
International Students
We welcome applications from EU and International students, but students who want to do research purely in linguistics should approach Modern Languages. Given the particular demands of research in English literature, we ask that students whose first language is not English should have obtained a score of 7.5 IELTS for doctoral study and 7.0 IELTS for Masters. The Centre for Language Study is able to provide pre-sessional tuition and IELTS testing, as well as ongoing support. For more information on support and facilities for EU and International students please see the International website.