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Department of English Studies

News

Creative writing PhD student researches Newcastle's witch trials

Lucy Atkinson is a creative writing PhD student in our Department of English Studies who researches witchcraft literature, alongside writing her novel about the 1650 witch trials in Newcastle.
Lucy Atkinson

Durham English Student Produces Into the Woods

Student theatre offers a great way for English students to expand and apply their literature skills. Third-year Eleanor Summer has written a blog about her experience producing a new show.
Durham theatre students posed in tree branches

How A.S. Byatt’s northern identity and anger over climate change informed her fiction

Dr Barbara Franchi a Teaching Fellow in our Department of English Studies explores how, in her later fiction, A.S. Byatt used northern locations as emblems of the climate crisis and how human actions have detrimental effects on the whole planet.
Filey beach in Yorkshire

The book that haunts me – seven experts on the scariest thing they’ve ever read

A truly scary story never really leaves you. It lurks in long evening shadows, calls out through mysterious bumps in the night and blows down your neck whenever you feel a sudden shiver. With Halloween approaching, The Conversation asked six academic experts, including PhD candidate Lucy Atkinson from our Department of English Studies, to tell us about the scariest book they’ve ever read...
A man in a jacket sits under a tree in the dark reading a book, with a light illuminating his face

Celebrating Shakespeare in Durham with the Summer Shakespeare Festival 2023

This summer the University and our Department of English Studies celebrate 400 years of Shakespeare in Durham in the best possible way - through world-class theatre.
Castle Theatre Company A Midsummer Night's Dream

Unravelling the Windrush myth: the confidential government communications that reveal authorities did not want Caribbean migrants to come to Britain

Assistant Professor in Black British Literature, Dr Henghameh Saroukhani, explores the misconceptions, and racism, surrounding Windrush.
HMS Windrush ship

New Professor in Practice: Nick Barley

The Institute for Medical Humanities (IMH) and the Department of English Studies are delighted to announce the appointment of our new Professor in Practice, Nick Barley.
Nick Barley in front of Edinburgh International Book Festival marketing materials

New English literature scholarship launched for British students of Black heritage 

We’re launching a new scholarship scheme to support UK students of Black heritage to study English literature at Durham, where their financial circumstances may be a barrier to them accessing higher education.  
Three female students walking down a corridor chatting

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

QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023

We are ranked 38th in the prestigious QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023.
A man and woman look at a laptop in a library. Text says Department of English Studies 38th in the World QS World University Rankings.

How Shakespeare was inspired by controversial student theatre

Student theatre may be a staple of undergraduate life today, but in Shakespeare’s time it was controversial and provocative, and may have inspired some of ‘The Bard’s’ most important pieces.
Image showing book of Shakespeare plays open with image of Shakespeare

Strengthened connections with the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

We are delighted to announce the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras).
A group of people standing in front of a sign that says Indian Institute of Technology Madras