Department of English, University of Oxford

Department of English, University of Oxford
Name	Department of English
University	University of Oxford
Established	19th century
Location	Oxford, England
Head label	Head of Department

Department of English, University of Oxford

The Department of English, University of Oxford is a major centre for the study of English literature and language at the University of Oxford situated in Oxford. It brings together teaching and research across periods from Old English and Middle English to Contemporary literature, engaging with figures such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, D. H. Lawrence, George Eliot, Mary Shelley, Oscar Wilde, Alexander Pope, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, Graham Greene, Anthony Burgess, Philip Larkin, Seamus Heaney, A. S. Byatt, Kazuo Ishiguro, Zadie Smith, Hilary Mantel, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Angela Carter, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Paul Muldoon, Carol Ann Duffy, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Marcel Proust, Gustave Flaubert, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Edward Said, Harold Bloom, Northrop Frye, Lionel Trilling, Raymond Williams, Terry Eagleton, Helen Vendler, Susan Sontag, Frantz Fanon, Judith Butler, Mikhail Bakhtin.

History

The department evolved from the study of English literature at the University of Oxford in the 19th century with curricular links to Balliol College, Christ Church, Oxford, Magdalen College, Oxford, All Souls College, Oxford, St John's College, Oxford, New College, Oxford, Trinity College, Oxford, King's College London, Somerville College, Oxford, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Wadham College, Oxford, Exeter College, Oxford, Lincoln College, Oxford, Pembroke College, Oxford, Queen's College, Oxford, Hertford College, Oxford, Oriel College, Oxford, Corpus Christi College, Oxford, St Peter's College, Oxford, Brasenose College, Oxford, St Catherine's College, Oxford, Wolfson College, Oxford, Green Templeton College, Oxford, Harris Manchester College, Oxford, Jesus College, Oxford, and administrative developments associated with the Faculty of English Language and Literature. Key figures included scholars connected to John Keble, F. P. Wilson, Nevil Coghill, E. R. Curtius, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, I. A. Richards, F. R. Leavis, I. A. Gollancz, Harold Bloom and later contributors influenced by debates at The Oxford Union, engagements with the British Library, and intellectual exchanges with the Bodleian Library and Ashmolean Museum.

Academic programmes

Programmes cover undergraduate and postgraduate degrees including the Bachelor of Arts in English, the Bachelor of Arts with a Master of Studies option, the Master of Studies, the Master of Philosophy, and the Doctor of Philosophy in literature and language. Courses range across specialisms such as medieval studies (including the study of Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales), renaissance studies (with emphasis on Shakespeare and Ben Jonson), eighteenth-century studies (Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson), romanticism (William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge), victorian literature (George Eliot, Thomas Hardy), modernism (T. S. Eliot, James Joyce), and postcolonial studies (Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Salman Rushdie), alongside modules on manuscript studies, textual criticism influenced by W. W. Greg, and interdisciplinary options linking to Film Studies, History, Philosophy, and Classics.

Research and centres

Research is organised through specialised centres and clusters including medieval and renaissance networks engaging with The Chaucer Review traditions, modern literature groups focused on Modernism and Postmodernism, and cultural studies hubs examining postcolonial theory, feminist theory associated with scholars like Judith Butler and Simone de Beauvoir, and critical theory drawing on Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. Collaborative projects have partnered with the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the Ashmolean Museum, the National Trust, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and international institutions such as Harvard University, University of Cambridge, Yale University, Columbia University, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Chicago, McGill University, University of Toronto, University of Edinburgh, King's College London, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of Manchester, University of Birmingham, University of Glasgow, Trinity College Dublin, University of Melbourne, University of Sydney.

Faculty and administration

The faculty comprises professors, lecturers, and tutorial fellows often affiliated with Oxford colleges including All Souls College, Oxford, Balliol College, Christ Church, Oxford, Exeter College, Oxford, Magdalen College, Oxford, New College, Oxford, St John's College, Oxford, Wadham College, Oxford. Senior appointments have included holders of chairs informed by traditions linked to King's College London and visiting posts from Harvard University, Cambridge University, Yale University, Princeton University, Columbia University, Stanford University. Administrative leadership interacts with university governance bodies such as the University Council, the Governing Body of the University of Oxford, and funding agencies including the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Wellcome Trust.

Facilities and resources

Teaching and research draw on facilities across Oxford: the Bodleian Library, the Radcliffe Camera, the Taylor Institution, the Ashmolean Museum, college libraries at Magdalen College, Oxford, Balliol College, Christ Church, Oxford, manuscript collections including items from Beowulf manuscript traditions and early printed books, and digital humanities labs collaborating with Humanities Division, University of Oxford and computing clusters supporting projects in textual analysis and digitisation. Seminars and conferences often use venues such as the Sheldonian Theatre and the Sackler Library.

Student life and societies

Students participate in college-based societies and university-wide groups including the Oxford Union, the Oxford University Dramatic Society, the Oxford Literary Festival activities, the Oxford Poetry Society, and interdisciplinary societies linked to St John's College, Oxford and Magdalen College, Oxford. Extracurricular opportunities connect with the Bodleian Libraries, the Ashmolean Museum, public lectures by visiting fellows from Harvard University, Cambridge University, Yale University, and involvement in publications and journals modelled after outlets like The Times Literary Supplement and The London Review of Books.

Notable alumni and staff

Alumni and staff associated with the department and its college tutors include poets, novelists, critics and scholars such as C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, W. H. Auden, Philip Larkin, Seamus Heaney, A. S. Byatt, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Hilary Mantel, Zadie Smith, Dorothy L. Sayers, T. S. Eliot, John Donne, Samuel Johnson, Edward Said, Harold Bloom, F. R. Leavis, Neal Ascherson, E. M. Forster, Graham Greene, Anthony Burgess, V. S. Naipaul, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Paul Muldoon, Carol Ann Duffy, Seamus Heaney, Mary Beard, Christopher Ricks, Helen Vendler, Susan Sontag, Judith Butler, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Lionel Trilling, Raymond Williams, Terry Eagleton, Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault.

Category:University of Oxford