Research in English

English was given a 2.8 grade in the Research Assessment Exercise of 2008 (a grading shared with Durham, Birmingham, Sheffield, Reading, King's College London, East Anglia, and Birkbeck); 10% of our research was assessed as nationally recognized, 25% as internationally recognized, 40% as internationally excellent, and 25% as world-leading.

For an overview of our work, see our 'Research projects' page and our list of staff research interests. Our research covers a wide chronological range, from the early Middle Ages to contemporary writing, and is characteristically interdisciplinary.

We are active in a number of research centres within the School of Humanities---the Centre for Contemporary Writing, the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Culture, the Southampton Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the Parkes Institute for the study of Jewish/non-Jewish relations---and have a special link with the Chawton House Library (pictured below). We organize frequent conferences, an annual postgraduate colloquium, and regular research seminars.

We teach a wide range of masters' degrees, including a generic MA and MRes in English, specialist MAs in Medieval and Renaissance Culture, C18 literature, and Literature, Culture, and Modernity, and a new MA in Creative Writing; and we offer postgraduate research degrees across the full range of English literary studies.

We also follow the University's principle of research-led teaching. Our undergraduate courses are taught by specialists in the relevant area, building first-hand research into the syllabus; our second-year Research Skills course and the third-year dissertation provide our students with a strong foundation for later postgraduate work.