• »Bangor Home
• »School of English

Research in the School of English

The School of English fulfilled the promise and benefited considerably from the strategic direction which it assumed in this RAE period. The results show that it is one of the UK's stronger research units, with around 55% of its research output given the top ratings of 3-4* and almost all of our work deemed internationally competitive.

The vision and strategy for research in Bangor have progressed considerably since 2001. In 2002/3, we took the bold decision to focus our research, staff and resources in three areas. Consequently, we now claim research excellence in three areas:

• Literature, 1300-1700 (Corns, Field, Hiscock, Niebrzydowski, Radulescu, Sullivan, Wilcox);
• Creative Practice/Critical Reflection (Abrams, Colclough, Davidson, Gregson, Rumens, Skoulding),
• and Postcolonial Literatures in Wales and Canada (Brown, Davidson, Edwards, Gregson, Hiscock).

Our claims are evidence-based. In the last six years, we have

• Published 28 monographs, 81 substantial articles (above 2000 words) in peer reviewed journals, 102 chapters in books and edited 18 books (including scholarly editions)
• Given 63 international and 98 national conference or seminar papers
• Organised 26 international conferences and 24 national colloquia
• Won competitive research grants resulting in substantial external funding
• Doubled the number of completed PhDs compared to RAE2001

Our infrastructure is robust and buttressed by interdisciplinary research centres focused on our three research strengths (Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies [IMEMS], the National Institute for Excellence in Creative Industries [NIECI], and the Welsh Institute for Cultural and Social Affairs [WISCA]).

The high calibre of English at Bangor has recently been confirmed by our successful bid to edit the prestigious journal English (OUP), the journal of The English Association. In selecting Bangor, the English Association commended our aim to broaden the critical perspectives and period range of the journal. They also championed our desire to develop the creative writing input and to use the reviews section as a forum for critical reflection on the discipline. Our editorial team consists of Hiscock and Wilcox (editors), Davidson and Gregson (creative writing editors) and Colclough and Niebrzydowski (reviews editors).

In addition to our established research activity a series of School research seminars have developed two interrelated research groups which take advantage of the expertise of two new colleagues. Colclough, an expert in nineteenth- and twentieth-century publishing history, is developing a research cluster in publishing history and editing that examines the opportunities arising out from new technologies (Brown, Colclough, Corns, Davidson, Edwards, Field, Niebryzdowski, Wilcox and Honorary Professor, James T. Boulton). Similarly, Niebryzdowski is coordinating a group of researchers interested in religion and literature, ranging from medieval Christianity to contemporary Judaism (Abrams, Brown, Corns, Niebryzdowski, Radulescu, Sullivan, Wilcox).