English

English at º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ is a vibrant and inclusive community of researchers comprising master’s students, postgraduate researchers, and academic members of staff.

6th for Graduate Prospects in English Complete University Guide 2025
Top 5 in the UK for Graduate Prospects in English Times Graduate Prospects 2024
7th in the UK for English Complete University Guide 2025

English at º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ

English, a department in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, offers a dynamic, creative and supportive environment for postgraduate study with a proven record for publications of international excellence. Our students are supported by expert staff with a diverse range of research interests and experience.

Research degrees

In addition to our taught programmes, there are also a variety of funded and unfunded opportunities to join us as a doctoral researcher. You can develop your own unique research proposal or browse our current list of PhD opportunities – either way, we’d love to hear from you.

Browse our PhD opportunities

Research and teaching

Research in English is rigorous, creative, and impactful. It offers a fertile environment for innovative research. The research community in English is lively and diverse and is driven by a desire for exploration, knowledge, and experimentation. We combine theory and practice, and explore a wide range of areas including conducting interdisciplinary research. The breadth of our research along with our collaboration with external partners means that our work has a meaningful impact in the world.

Our staff research expertise is concentrated in creative writing, textual editing, the health humanities, and understandings of gender and identity. We have specialists in American literature and culture, Irish writing, film, and in periods of literature from the Medieval and Renaissance through to the present, encompassing a broad range of research interests that also includes interdisciplinary work. We are a friendly and supportive group of scholars passionately committed to illuminating the significance of literature and culture.

Career opportunities

Our English master’s degrees have been designed to challenge you in your chosen area and also to deliver a distinctive set of transferable professional skills, including the ability to navigate project work successfully, learning how to interact with and benefit from heritage sites and community partnerships, and even the unique opportunity to plan and put on a literary festival, shaped and directed by you, the students. These exciting English degrees are tailored to combine our research expertise with a skillset that will fit you for a career in the writing industries, as well as success with your own writing.

Academic environment

We host a lively programme of research seminars, research group activities, and other events such as conferences and symposia, author readings and workshops in which you will be able to participate and which will provide opportunities to begin to build and enhance your academic networks. Our academic offices and postgraduate room, our ‘break out space’ where we hold social events, and a variety of teaching rooms that are also used for research events are all housed together in Martin Hall, providing a central focus for our scholarly community and for the exchange of ideas, skills, and expertise.