English and Comparative Literary Studies MPhil/PhD

University of Warwick

Course Overview

A PhD is undertaken for a variety of reasons: as preliminary training for an academic career; as an advanced degree that may contribute to a future career in other sectors; or simply as an exciting and rewarding pursuit in its own right. Your final dissertation which will be up to 80000 words is expected to make an original contribution to knowledge.

Studying at Warwick means joining a supportive and world-leading network of experts with staff members who are specialists across a broad spectrum of topics.

Our warm and vibrant research community is one of the largest in the UK with around 110 postgraduates every year. We offer a full calendar of seminars symposiums and conferences with a busy diary of speakers from around the world. We also offer funding for postgraduate study and career development support during your time here.

You will study alongside ambitious scholars and researchers at the forefront of their fields. We want you to harness your intellectual ambitions and interests and bring your own distinct personal experiences and circumstances to bear on your work.

Research Themes

Our research is interdisciplinary and comparative. We have particular strengths in American studies eighteenth and nineteenth-century studies environmentalism and ecocriticism gender studies the literary and cultural history of the medieval and early-modern period performance studies poetics and World Literature. Our major research centres include Critical Environments Poetry at Warwick and the Warwick Research Collective (WReC). We also work closely with the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance Centre for Research into Philosophy Literature and the Arts Early Modern and Eighteenth-Century Centre and Yesu Persaud Centre for Carribean Studies.

Teaching and Learning

As a research student your closest contact will be with your supervisor or co-supervisors who will meet with you regularly to discuss your work. The supervisory relationship is at the heart of your research. Your supervisor(s) are experts in their field who will guide you throughout your degree and will agree upon a programme of reading research and writing with you.

You can ask any academic from our department to be your supervisor. See our staff pages for more details and to see whose research interests align with yours.

You will also be able to seek advice from our Director of Graduate Studies who oversees our research students; and participate in sessions organized by our PG Professionalization Officer who organizes seminars on employment in both the academic and non-academic sectors. With your peers you will have the chance to participate in seminars conferences reading groups and symposia; and you will be encouraged to apply for internal funding to support research trips and participation in academic events outside of the university.