Postgraduate teaching and research

One of the leading centres in Europe for American and Canadian Studies, the Department is committed to postgraduate education. The Department is the strongest unit of its type in the country in terms of 'research power’ rating: one that takes into account both quality of research and the number of research-active staff who made returns to the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). According to the Exercise, 25% of the Department's returns were judged 4* or 'world-leading' in terms of originality, significance and rigour. A further 20% were of 3* quality ('internationally excellent').

Research strength

Recognising the changing nature of the discipline of American Studies, the Department has recently appointed staff to teach and research in the fields of Latin American immigration history and Asian American literary cultures. To build on existing strengths we have also appointed in recent years postdoctoral fellows to work in the fields of American realist and early modernist writing and painting, African American civil rights history, and late 19th century race and culture. The Department has recently hosted several postgraduate-run conferences on themes including American intellectual history and 21st Century American and Canadian fiction and also hosted the British Association for American Studies Postgraduate Conference.  

In literary and cultural research, particular areas of specialism within the Department include: book history and periodical culture; slave and captivity narratives; the civil rights movement; Canadian literature; gay, lesbian and queer literature and theory; Southern literature; African-American painting and photography; and business and the workplace in American literature.

In US history, research expertise lies in: intellectual history from the colonial period to the present day; the history of science; labor history; antebellum slavery and politics; the history of the South; post-1945 foreign policy, especially US relations with South East Asia and the Kennedy/Johnson administrations; neoconservatism; race and the civil rights movement; and Hispanic migrant communities.

Research culture

There is a lively research culture based on reading groups and work-in-progress seminars, together with guest speakers. Students have access to excellent video, slide, CD, tape and DVD collections. Research students receive selective financial help with inter-library loans, photocopying, printing and conference costs.