We study languages, cultures, and the use of language, to deliver cutting-edge research into literatures, histories, linguistics and literacies.

The research interests of our academics are wide and varied, covering the areas of history/politics and literature/cultural studies. Our Department offers a friendly, highly supportive, intellectually driven Modern Languages community, and we are consistently successful in grant capture, with ongoing projects funded by the AHRC, British Academy,  ESRC, the Leverhulme Trust and Marie Sklodowska-Curie.

Research of international standing

In the most recent Research Excellence Framework assessment (REF 2014), we ranked 4th in the UK for Impact and 5th for Research Intensity, and 98% of our research is of international standing.

Research strengths

Our Department's research strengths include archival collections, publishing history, literary networks and academies, international policy on interpreting and translation, the language of the media concerning migration. Colleagues in Modern Languages contribute to several university centres, including:

• Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism (CeLM)
• Centre for Collections-based Research - wait
• Early Modern Research Centre - wait
• East German Studies Archive
• Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies
• Global Challenges Research Group (GCRF)
• Health and Humanities Research Cluster
• Beckett International Foundation
• Samuel Beckett Research Centre.

Areas of research

We cover French, Italian, German, Spanish and several related languages, including Dutch, Catalan, Latin, medieval Occitan.

We welcome expressions of interest for research (doctoral and postdoctoral) in the following disciplines:

• Contemporary cultural history, including the history of ideas
• Gender and sexuality studies
• History of the publishing industry, archives-based research (1800-present)
• Literature for children, including French and German
• Medieval and early modern literatures and cultures
• Migration and minority studies
• Modern theatre, television and film
• Nineteenth to twenty-first century history, including conflict, war and disability studies
• Postcolonial literatures, cultures and politics
• Sociolinguistics and discourse analysis
• Translation and trans-cultural studies.