Doctor of Philosophy - The Contemporary Novel: Practice as Research

All UK universities and relevant funding councils and bodies (including REF panels) now support the idea that literary novels are research outputs in their own right and in themselves make significant contributions to knowledge. The idea that a novel might ‘know’ something about war that a piece of historical research could not know (in the case of Art Spiegelman’s MAUS, for example), or that philosophy can be undertaken in fiction (as in the work of Borges) is one that the University of Kent has been embracing at Kent for several years now.

The School of English has a strong international reputation and global perspective, apparent both in the background of its staff and in the diversity of our teaching and research interests.

Kent's expertise ranges from the medieval to the postmodern, including British, American and Irish literature, postcolonial writing, 18th-century studies, Shakespeare, early modern literature and culture, Victorian studies, modern poetry, critical theory and cultural history. The international standing of the School ensures a lively, confident research culture, sustained by a vibrant, ambitious intellectual community. The University also counts a number of distinguished creative writers among its staff, and they actively explore crossovers between critical and creative writing in all areas of teaching and research.