MPhil/PhD Humanities

Why do a research degree in the School of Humanities at De Montfort University?

• Our research students have an excellent record of employment, with former students employed in postdoctoral and lectureship positions
• In preparation for academic careers, the Humanities doctoral training programme offers advice on writing for publication, beginning to teach, presenting work and conference organisation

Our research students are currently working in areas such as sports history, minority cultures, the history of photography, film adaptations of literary texts, ekphrastic poetry, short fiction, textual scholarship and Shakespeare.

Recent and current PhD students have published articles in peer-reviewed journals and edited collections, including Adaptation, The Dickensian, Immigrants and Minorities, The Journal of Poetry Therapy, Literature/Film Quarterly, International Journal of the History of Sport, The Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance, Shakespeare, Patterns of Prejudice, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, The Popular Imagination and the Dawn of Modernism: British Middlebrow Writing 1880-1930, Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom: Essays on the BBC series, The Encyclopaedia of Modernism and A Companion to Wyndham Lewis, Joyce and Lawrence.

Creative Writing students benefit from Leicester Centre for Creative Writing being embedded in the rich regional writing networks of the East Midlands and beyond, allowing for opportunities to participate in the creative health of the region.

English Language, Literature and Creative Writing

Research in English Language and Literature is world-leading in areas ranging from medieval to contemporary literature, language, creative writing and digital humanities. Our acclaimed scholars work at the cutting edge and the quality of our research is internationally recognised. In addition to publishing monographs, collections, editions and studies, we contribute to wider academic debate through international conferences, editorial boards, media interviews and peer reviews.

English is home to four international journals – Adaptation, Literature and History, Shakespeare and Theatre Notebook – and is a venue for international conferences and symposia.

We also have an excellent track record in employability, with our research students going on to careers at Columbia University and the universities of Tuzla, Leeds, Bangor, Portsmouth and Bath, as well as DMU.

The Centre for Textual Studies is devoted to traditional textual scholarship and the use of new and emerging technologies to support the development of literary culture.

Fields of study include bibliography, textual criticism, scholarly editing, adaptation studies, the sociology of bibliography, book history and periodical studies. We encourage research that strengthens the ties among these related fields and draws on advanced electronic technologies.

The Centre for Adaptations is an interdisciplinary hub that draws on the research of colleagues in film studies, media studies, imaging and communication design, drama and English to produce innovative approaches to the study of the adaptation of literary texts. We have a lively research culture and host several conferences a year.

We are also home to a substantial number of postgraduate students, some supported by Arts and Humanities Research Council bursaries.

Key areas of study include the translation of literary texts to stage or screen and back again, and the development and transformation of archetypal literary characters and motifs across various media. We host the journal, Adaptation (Oxford University Press) and the book series, Screen Adaptations (Methuen and Norton), and organise workshops that bring together academics from universities across Europe and America.

History

With a focus on social and cultural themes and particular strengths in migration, diaspora and ethnicity, global and transnational history, our History research is internationally recognised.

Key areas of research include British social, cultural and economic history, agrarian history, the history of Islamic South Asia and the Indian Ocean world, national and regional identities in Britain and the political history of south-eastern Europe. The internationally recognised Migration History Group is a hub for innovative research on interdisciplinary aspects of migration, refugee and minority history.

Recent funding includes a grant from the Gerda Henkel Foundation to further the history of gender politics in Pakistan and support from the Leverhulme Trust to explore the lives of communities bordering the Indian Ocean between 500 and 1,500 CE.

The International Centre for Sports History and Culture is widely regarded as the leading centre for the study of sports history in the world, with acclaimed historians in the fields of football and rugby history, and women’s sport. We believe that the study of sport provides valuable insights into aspects of social and cultural history that are neglected or overlooked by traditional historical approaches. With close ties to the National Football Museum and the Rugby Football League Heritage Committee, we recent projects include sport and the military, the history of sports medicine since 1920, and women in rugby league. We publish the journal Sport in History and book series Sport, History and Culture, and we host the annual Historians on Sport conference.

The Photographic History Research Centre has a unique approach to photographic history and its social and cultural manifestations. Our innovative research spans the history of photography from early 19th century to the present day, and focuses on themes of cultural memory, displacement, loss and identity. We are committed to crossing disciplinary boundaries to explore the multiple strands of photographic history, approaching it as an interconnected set of social and cultural processes. Key areas of interest include the body and the nude in art and photography, creative imaging in photography, video and holography, digital preservation and access, migration, identity and diaspora in art and photography and 19th and early 20th-century photographic history.

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