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Department of English and Related Literature

Discover a world of literature at York.

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Study with us

On an English degree at York, you'll discover a world of literature.

Our degree programmes offer you flexibility and choice. We provide extensive coverage from ancient classics to contemporary film and literature, with creative writing options and the chance to study literature produced in other languages.

Discover our courses

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Research

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Our research ranges across periods and around the globe.

We nurture an environment for collaboration, critical and creative thinking, interdisciplinary work and thought-provoking discussion.

Explore our research

Texts and narrative shape and change the world. Our commitment to understanding how literature reflects and makes the past, present and future is embedded within curiosity-driven modules and flexible degrees that are delivered by expert teachers, researchers and writers.

Professor Jennie Batchelor, Head of Department

for English (Complete University Guide 2026).
We're a top ten research department according to the Times Higher Education Rankings of the latest REF results (2021).
We are very proud to hold a Silver Athena Swan award in recognition of our commitment to promoting equality.
for English and Related Literature (QS World Rankings by Subject 2025).

News

News

3 December 2025

Warm congratulations to Anthony Capildeo, who has won the Saltire Society Award for Poetry Book of the Year for 'Polkadot Wounds' (Carcanet, 2024).

News

28 October 2025

Warm congratulations to Dr Lola Boorman on the publication of her monograph 'Grammar and Twentieth-Century American Fiction' (Edinburgh University Press).

News

27 October 2025

The University of York is pleased to be awarding six AHRC Doctoral Landscape Awards and three Wolfson Humanities Postgraduate Scholarships for doctoral research beginning in September 2026.

News

1 October 2025

Congratulations to former English PhD student, Sharon Choe, who has her first novel coming out next year.

Events

Wednesday 10 December 2025 6pm

Modern Research School Annual Berthoud Lecture with speaker Professor Wen-chin Ouyang, Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature, SOAS.

Wednesday 18 February 2026 4.30pm

Modern School Research Seminar with speaker Dr Conrad Steel (Oxford).

Tuesday 24 February 2026 5pm

Medieval Literatures Seminar with speaker Professor Francis Leneghan (University of Oxford).

Wednesday 11 March 2026 4.30pm

Modern School Research Seminar with speaker Dr Ned Allen (Cambridge).

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