Research and Impact
Research Culture
We work collaboratively along particular themes and periods, while we are also involved in a number of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research centres and institutes. A number of visiting academics and other external partners contribute to the research environment of the Department, sometimes as Fellows of the Institute of Advanced Study.
Our department regularly hosts international conferences, workshops, and public lecture series. Typically, in any one year we organise or co-organise around 80 different events.
Recent conferences have ranged from Humour and Satire in British Romanticism to Consent: Histories, Representations, and Frameworks for the Future to Thatcher and Thatcherism. We organise research seminars for all staff and postgraduates to engage with visiting speakers, as well as a variety of regular reading groups. Our Late Summer Lectures Series brings the best of postgraduate research to a public audience each year.
Our department hosts one of the longest-running online postgraduate journals in literary studies, Postgraduate English, which is edited by two PhD students each year.
Upcoming events
What's new?
We're Top 50 in the QS World University Rankings for English Studies 2025
We are ranked 33rd in the prestigious QS World University Rankings by Subject 2025, once again confirming Durham's place among the world's top 50 institutions at which to study English.

Report calls for more creativity in schools to boost opportunities for all
LGBTQ History Month: Spotlight on Dr Joan Lubin
Reimagining the imagination at the world’s largest literary festival
Transformative Humanities framework launched
QS World University Rankings for English Studies 2024
New interdisciplinary health research awarded £9m grant
Transformative Humanities
Discover the Faculty of Arts and Humanities' new Transformative Humanities framework which brings together distinctive approaches to humanities research and education within the academy and across a wide range of partners and communities.