English Research

Northumbria’s English research is focused around three main areas of activity: literature, language and linguistics, and creative writing. Our interests range from the regional to the transnational and from the early modern to the contemporary, and we draw on research methods that include the archival and historical, theoretical and conceptual, and the creative. In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF), English Language and Literature at Northumbria ranked 15th amongst English departments nationally for the quality of our publications. We are home to three disciplinary journals: Bunyan Studies, The Charles Lamb Bulletin, and The Shandean.

Research in English is supported by a lively culture of interdisciplinary research groups: American Studies; Creative Writing; Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Studies; English Language and Linguistics; Environmental Humanities; Gendered Subjects; Medical Humanities; Medieval and Early Modern Cultures; Power and Politics in Language and Literature; Scholarly Editing and Print Culture. Through our research groups we share work in progress, build links with our national and international networks, and engage with external partners and public audiences.

Our research is successful in attracting external funding from a wide range of funders including ACE, AHRC, British Academy, ESRC, the Leverhulme Trust, and Wellcome. We currently host fellowships funded by AHRC, British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust and the Wellcome Trust.

We work closely with a variety of external partners and collaborators, such as New Writing North, Live Theatre, Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums, Shandy Hall, and the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle, and these collaborations provide opportunities for our postgraduates too.

We have a large and lively postgraduate research community who are fully integrated into the life of the department, and run a variety of reading groups, literary events and symposia. We welcome applications for doctoral study in all areas and periods of literary studies, in creative writing, and in language and linguistics. For further information on any aspect of research in English, please contact Dr Katherine Baxter.