Literary and Cultural Studies

Here at the University of Surrey while studying the Literary and Cultural Studies, you’ll join a cosmopolitan, multilingual and multicultural community of students and scholars.

Research in literary and cultural studies brings together researchers to examine pressing social and cultural issues. At the University of Surrey University of Surrey you’ll get to examine social and cultural networks, cities and urban culture, embodiment and the practice and politics of movement, post-humanism, queer studies and subversive space, medical humanities, and transnationalism and its limitations.

Career opportunities

This  Literary and Cultural Studies Literary and Cultural Studies is a programme which will take you on a research journey across cultures. You will develop your own research methodologies to navigate contemporary or historical cultural issues relevant to your project. This might involve archival study, action-based research or field work, as well as literary and cultural analysis. Research in areas such as gender and sexuality, medical humanities, mobilities and urban studies, creative collaborations and the visual arts, contemporary and historic film, and environmental or political activism, will be supported by expert academics working at the cutting edge of fields such as these. Your research may focus on the intersections between different cultures and languages, or it may take a deep dive into a particular cultural or literary phenomenon. As a researcher in literary and cultural studies you will become an expert in your project area through in-depth research and advanced analytical skills. You will be fully supported by academic supervisors to engage with current research and to advance the importance of cultural understanding in our globally networked world. You’ll be assigned two supervisors, who you’ll meet with monthly to discuss your progress. Your supervisors will guide you through your PhD and will give you feedback and advice on your work. As a doctoral student, you’ll receive a structured training programme covering the practical aspects of being a researcher, including grant-writing, publishing in journals, and applying for academic jobs.

Research themes

• Latin American literary and cultural studies

• Transnational history and its methodologies

• Franco-British political and cultural exchanges of the 19th and 20th centuries.