English Research MPhil/PhD, option of joint PhD with HKU/NUS/Humboldt

Overview

Kings is one of the oldest English departments in the country and is home to a lively and supportive group of academics and students engaged in the exploration of literary cultures from the 7th to the 21st centuries. Our PhD students are at the very centre of our research culture and we welcome applications from prospective doctoral students working on any aspect of literary and cultural studies from the medieval to the contemporary, as well as to our unique, practice-led and recently launched PhD in creative writing. Our research is fuelled by our proximity to many of Londons artistic and cultural institutions and staff and students in the Department work in collaboration with our many cultural partners. PhD students in English at Kings have access not only to expert and attentive supervision, but also a full programme of training in addition to the opportunity to teach.

Department of English - Research recognised (REF 2021) with 90 per cent overall rating for either ‘world leading (4*) or ‘internationally excellent (3*) research and 100 per cent at 4* and 3* for research environment.

Research income: AHRC/Leverhume/British Academy combined: Â£1,245,000

Current number of academic staff: 57

Current number of research students: 122

Recent publications:

• Paul Gilroy, Darker Than Blue: On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture
• Lucy Munro, Archaic Style in English Literature, 1590-1674 Clare Lees (ed), The Cambridge History of Early Medieval Literature
• Alan Read, Theatre in the Expanded Field
• Anna Snaith, Modernist Voyages: Colonial Women Writers in London 1890-1945
• Zoe Norridge, Perceiving Pain in African Literature
• Seb Franklin, Control: Digitality as Cultural Logic
• Clara Jones, Virginia Woolf: Ambivalent Activist
• Kelina Gotman, Essays on Theatre and Change: Towards a Poetics Of (Routledge 2018) and Choreomania: Dance and Disorder (Oxford Studies in Dance Theory, Oxford University Press 2018)
• Lara Shalson: Theatre & Protest (Palgrave 2017) and Performing Endurance: Arts and Politics since 1960 (Cambridge University Press 2018)

Current research projects:

• Scrambled Messages: The Telegraphic Imaginary 1857-1900 (AHRC funded)
• Behind Enemy Lines: Literature and Film in the British and American Zones of Occupied Germany 1945-49 (ERC funded)
• Modern Moves: Kinetic Transnationalism and Afro-Diaspora Rhythm Cultures (ERC funded)
• Ego Media: The Impact of New Media on Forms of Self-Presentation (ERC funded)

Current and recent doctoral projects:

• The ‘Unstageable in Contemporary Performance
• ‘Things in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture
• Shakespeares Plays in Germany, 1933-1945
• Indian Soldiers and the Second World War
• Beyond Bloomsbury: Londons Queer Artistic Networks, 1910-1957
• Programming Pro-Gamers: How Computational Control Codes the Gamer/Subject
• The Material World of Fashion in the Work of James Joyce

Partner organisations:

• Shakespeare's Globe
• Courtauld Institute
• Royal Society of Literature
• Imperial War Museum
• British Library
• British Museum
• We welcome applications for projects involving supervision at one of our cultural partners or at an institution within the London Arts & Humanities Partnership (LAHP) consortium

Joint PhDs available: Exciting opportunities to gain a joint PhD with either the National University of Singapore or Hong Kong University or Humboldt.

To study at King's, it is essential that you can communicate effectively in English and are able to do so in an academic environment. You are usually required to provide certification of your competence in English before starting your studies.

• register on the King's Apply Portal
• complete our online application form