PhD English

This full time or part time doctoral programme is suitable for people who have a particular research question or topic in mind, and wish to explore this through independent study in order to produce an original contribution to the subject. If you aspire to a research career this is the most appropriate research degree to undertake.

You will be guided by a small supervisory team of academic experts under the direction of a Director of Studies. Even if you already have a masters degree, you will normally be registered as a ‘MPhil/PhD’ candidate and may apply to transfer to ‘PhD’ status around 10–22 months after registration, based on your progress to date.

English and creative writing staff have published widely, and the subject had outstanding results in the last Research Assessment Exercise (over 70% was ranked at 3* or 4*, internationally excellent and/or world leading, making our outputs per staff amongst the best in the UK).

Draw on the expertise of staff in areas from Restoration literature to utopias of the mind, from early European encounters with native Americans, to women in the First World War, or work with our internationally successful creative writers.

Among others, at present we are supervising creative writing projects inspired by and working with Nepalese women’s poetry, and one exploring the relationship between woods, memory and place. Critical projects include phenomenology in Virginia Woolf’s writing, trauma in Holocaust studies, and William Blake’s construction of a spiritual self.

You will be invited to be part of a community that is sustained by multiple research seminar series, cross-disciplinary collaboration and outward-facing engagements: from The Arts Institute lecture series to our work with city creative writing groups, from our commitment to the digital humanities, to our involvement with Plymouth's massive new History Centre across the road.

Overseas applicants must submit their application 4.5 months prior to the proposed programme start date. For Home/EU applicants the deadline is 2.5 months prior to the proposed programme start date. There are three possible start dates per year, 1 October, 1 January and 1 April.