Skip to main content

Research and Impact

The department of English Studies is one of Europe’s leading centres for research in literary studies. It fosters important and influential research by staff, post-doctoral fellows and postgraduates across historical, cultural, generic and thematic ranges.
Research groups and centres
Photograph of a castle with words in white projected onto it. The words read: 'Autumnal evenings are a second spring'

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?

Filter:

Report calls for more creativity in schools to boost opportunities for all

A new report warns that the UK’s creative industries are at risk because arts education is being neglected.
Close up of a child holding a guitar as an adult points to where he should put his fingers

LGBTQ History Month: Spotlight on Dr Joan Lubin

This LGBTQ History Month, we're highlighting the work of Dr Joan Lubin, an assistant professor of modern and contemporary literature in our Department of English Studies.
A portrait of Dr Joan Lubin standing in front of wood paneling

Reimagining the imagination at the world’s largest literary festival

Researchers from our Institute for Medical Humanities have taken our innovative ReaderBank project to the Jaipur Literature Festival in Rajasthan, India.
Four people standing smiling at the camera

Transformative Humanities framework launched

Durham University's Transformative Humanities launched yesterday and gathered more than 130 researchers, colleagues, students, and partners from across the region and beyond to celebrate this new interdisciplinary framework.
Transformative Humanities launch news banner

QS World University Rankings for English Studies 2024

We are ranked 29th in the prestigious QS World University Rankings by Subject 2024.
QS World Rankings for English Studies 2024, 29th in the world, with an image of a hand pulling a book from a shelf

New interdisciplinary health research awarded £9m grant

Our cutting-edge Institute for Medical Humanities (IMH) has been awarded a £9m Discovery Research Platform Award to develop a new Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities (DRP-MH).
Wellcome trust grant

LGBTQ History Month: Spotlight on Dr Joan Lubin

This LGBTQ History Month, we're highlighting the work of Dr Joan Lubin, an assistant professor of modern and contemporary literature in our Department of English Studies.
A portrait of Dr Joan Lubin standing in front of wood paneling

PhD Successes - January 2025

A huge congratulations to our brilliant scholars who have successfully earned their PhDs in English Literature between July and December 2024! Your dedication, perseverance, and passion for literary studies have led to ground-breaking research that will inspire generations to come.
New PhDs January 2025
Transformative Humanities

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.

Visit the Transformative Humanities website