So, whether it is in class discussion or in supervision of your own independent research, you will be in touch with the latest developments in the subject. Staff expertise and enthusiasm is the foundation for stimulating undergraduate degree programmes and a portfolio of postgraduate taught and research degrees:
The Department of Humanities is also home to the Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies and hosts the website for Misericordia International
Research culture in English is flourishing, with particular focus upon Creative Writing and Literature and Spirituality. Nonetheless, staff research interests cover a wide range of topics, from the Middle Ages to modern literature. Staff have given papers at conferences in the UK, Europe and USA, and in 2007 English hosted a major international conference, Bodies of Myth: New Perspectives, which drew speakers from the USA, South Africa, Turkey and Gran Canaria, as well as all parts of the UK. Work is now under way to compile an edited book based on the proceedings. Recent staff publications include:
- Susan Anderson, 'Time, Subjectivity, Modernism in E. Nesbit’s Children’s Fiction,' Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 32.4 (2007), 308-22.
- Jane de Gay, Virginia Woolf's Novels and the Literary Past (Edinburgh University Press, 2006)
- Paul Hardwick, 'Making Light of Devotion: The Pilgrimage Window in York Minster', in Medieval English Comedy, ed. Paul Hardwick and Sandra Hordis (Brepols, 2007), pp. 61-82.
- Juliette Taylor-Batty, ‘Imperfect Mastery: The Failure of Grammar in Beckett’s L’Innommable,’ Journal of Modern Literature 30.2 (2007), 163-179.
Staff Profile: Jane de Gay on Research and Teaching
My research into Virginia Woolf informs my teaching on Modernism in the third year of the undergraduate English courses, for which my book, Virginia Woolf’s Novels and the Literary Past is a recommended secondary text. The second year module, Constructions of Gender, draws closely on my research into gender and performance; some of the recommended supplementary reading comes from the collections I co-edited with Lizbeth Goodman: The Routledge Reader in Gender and Performance (1998); The Routledge Reader in Politics and Performance (2000) and Languages of Theatre Shaped by Women (Intellect, 2003).
More generally, my research interest in spirituality, and my postgraduate studies in Theology, inform my teaching on Roots of Stories, The Victorians and Laboratories of the Spirit.