Our Research
As the academic hub for Durham’s UNESCO World Heritage Site, we champion a framework for rigorous research, impact, and dissemination, in order to strengthen the global understanding and appreciation of one of Europe’s great Palatinates. Our research covers a comprehensive range of areas from Late Antiquity to the late eighteenth century, with a global range from the Silk Road to the Anglo-Saxon and Viking North.
Our research is organised into strands, each of which fits within one or both of our overarching themes: The History of the Book and UNESCO and World Heritage.
Research Strands
Click on a research strand below to find out more
Early Modern Keywords
The study of language in history and language as history.
The Georgian North
Investigating the intellectual and cultural life of County Durham and surrounding areas in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Historical Food
How food and food culture has evolved and influenced us.
History of Performance
Investigating all forms of performance - theatre, ceremony, music and dance - before 1800.
Scientific Study of Manuscripts
Bringing together the Sciences and the Humanities to explore manuscripts and their associated material culture.
Spiritual Writings from the Low Countries
Studying the religious texts written in the Low Countries in the period 1200-1550.
French Books and their European Readers, 1500-1700
Investigating how the content and readership of French books shaped the intellectual history of Early Modern Europe.