PhD with the Institute of English Studies

The Institute of English Studies (IES) provides a unique scholarly community in which to pursue your doctoral research. The Institute offers research supervision in a number of literature-related subject areas, ranging from book history to contemporary literature.

With guidance from our expert supervisors, you will carry out extensive independent research culminating in a thesis of up to 100,000 words.
The Institute of English Studies offers doctoral research supervision in the following broad areas:

• Bibliography
• Book illustration
• History of the book from the medieval period to the present
• History of collecting
• History of printing
• History of publishing from 1800 to the present
• History of readers and reading
• Textual scholarship, scholarly editing and digital humanities
• Author-focused studies (e.g. J.M. Barrie, Dickens, Scott Fitzgerald, Hardy, D.H. Lawrence, Melville, Shakespeare, R.L. Stevenson, Twain, W.B. Yeats)
• Medieval manuscript studies and palaeography
• Early modern print culture
• Victorian literature
• Twentieth-century literature
• American literature
• Anglo-American Modernism
• Scottish literature.

How to Apply 

Before agreeing to accept you, the School will require you to submit a research proposal, so it is worthwhile having this drafted ahead of a formal application. Once you have contacted the School, you will be put in touch with a potential supervisor.

Distance learning

Students are required to attend our London campus at set intervals to complete an intensive research training module, for upgrade, and for the viva but will otherwise study at their own location. This option is available to UK, EU and international students on the same basis as our on-campus PhD programmes (three years full time, six years part time). Fees are the same as for our on-campus PhD programmes. Please note that not all institutes and supervisors offer this option, and that some topics are not appropriate to be studied this way.

This programme is also available to be studied on campus in London. Visit the School of Advanced Study website to find out more about potential supervisors and subject areas, as well as details about available funding opportunities and more information about distance learning research degrees.