English Literature PhD/MLitt/MPhil: University of Briminghum

The following summary indicates our principal areas of research expertise.  Please view the English Department website http://www.english.bham.ac.uk for further details of possible research topics and staff contact details.

Their work in Medieval English (for example, Old English, Chaucer, Langland, the Vernon manuscript) extends through medieval literature into concerns with editing, print production, bibliography, manuscript studies, and non-manuscript verbal cultures of the Middle Ages; and also with relations between medieval verbal and visual cultures. In the Early Modern and Shakespeare area (for example, Marlowe, Jonson, Middleton, Daniel, Donne), their focus on drama extends into the reception of the dramatists in later periods, running alongside work on the wider literature of the Early Modern period and on cultures of manuscript and print. In Restoration, 18th century and Romantics (for example, Milton, Swift, Pope, Johnson, Coleridge) we focus on reading literary works in their historical and cultural contexts, with specific interests in the editing of texts, in language and lexicography, in reception of the medieval, and in gender.

Their 19th and 20th century research (for example, Wilde, Michael Field, Woolf, Zadie Smith) has a double focus: the period 1880–1940 (especially Aestheticism and Modernism, periodisation and historiography); and Postmodernism, Cultural Theory and Film (especially psychoanalysis, nationhood, space and place, Black British and British Asian writing, gender and sexualities, and literary and cultural studies). The research themes of materiality of the text (for example, textual editing, history of the book) and gender (for example, women writers, relevant theoretical approaches) can be pursued across all these periods.

• Contact: Dr Marion Thain
• Email:

Entry requirements

The normal entrance requirements for MPhil or PhD study are a first degree of at least good UK upper second-class Honours standard, an appropriate standard of English and adequate financial support. The requirements also allow for entry based on comparable ability, as indicated by a good UK MSc performance or a lower first degree performance plus substantial relevant experience.

For more information about Entry requirements visit

• Website: http://www.postgraduate.bham.ac.uk/entry/

How to apply

Online applications

If you submit an online application, please write your ID number on your supporting documents when you send them to us. You will receive an ID number by email on the day after you submit your application (apart from applications submitted on Friday, Saturday or Sunday when the email will arrive on Monday).

If you send in your supporting documents before completing the online application form, please make sure that you write your full name, date of birth and the programme you are applying for on all the documents.

Paper application form

If you apply using the paper application form, please include, where possible, your supporting documents with the application.

Where to send supporting documents

• Address: Admissions
  Aston Webb Building
  University of Birmingham
  Edgbaston
  Birmingham
  B15 2TT
  UK

Tuition fees and costs

The University charges an annual tuition fee. This covers the cost of your tuition, examination and graduation, and includes membership of the Guild of Students. Fees are payable at the start of your programme.

When you accept the offer of a place, you are also accepting responsibility for the payment of your tuition fees, even if you are sponsored or in receipt of an award and the sponsor fails to pay. It is therefore very important that you have sufficient funds available to you. Unfortunately, if you fail to pay the fees, you will not be permitted to continue your studies.

For more information about tuition fees visit

• Website: http://www.postgraduate.bham.ac.uk/finance/fees.shtml

For general information about open days

• 3 December

Their Postgraduate Open Day is the ideal opportunity to visit the University and find out more about the research areas or programmes that interest you.

• Contact person: Steve Allmark
• Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5430
• Fax: +44 (0)121 414 3850
• Email:

For more information about other tours and visits:

• Contact: Student Recruitment and Outreach Office
• Tel: +44 (0)121 414 3374
• Email:

Contact details

Main University Switchboard

• Postal Address: University of Birmingham
  Edgbaston
  Birmingham
  B15 2TT
  UK
• Tel: +44 (0)121 414 3344
• Fax: +44(0)121 414 3971

Postgraduate Admissions

• Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5488
• Fax: +44 (0)121 414 6378
• Email:

International Applicant Enquiries

• Tel: +44 (0)121 414 3694
• Fax: +44 (0)121 414 3850
• Email:

Financial Support Office

• Tel: +44 (0)121 414 6720
• Fax: + 44(0)121 414 7926
• Email: