Research degrees
Postgraduate research in English and Film
We are an internationally recognised centre for research and we have a strong culture of excellence in learning and teaching provision. Our English department is ranked first in the UK for world leading research and the 2014 REF placed us 4th in the UK for research power.
Harry Ford
Thesis title: Indigenous Shakespeare and Botanic Creation
Supervisors: Dr Felicity Henderson, Prof Karen Edwards
Funding: Self-funded
Exeter University has a supervisory team that offer professional support and encouragement. The working enivronment does not consist of tomb-like silence of libraries but of colourful, attractive spaces where sharing of ideas and discussion are encouraged. Similarly, academic staff are always glad to discuss topics of interest and to point you to different resources and avenues of research. The librarians at Exeter are really helpful too as they often know their archival materials inside out and might suggest really useful opportunities for further reading. Lastly, conferences at Exeter are well-managed and really bring out the strengths of the institution as a welcoming and stimulating haven of learning.
Gemma Edney
Thesis title: Sounding Girl, Girl(y) Sounds: Music and Girlhood in Contemporary French Cinema
Supervisors: Dr Fiona Handyside, Dr Helen Hanson
Funding: Self-Funded + final year grant from the Richard Stapley Educational Trust
I completed my BA and MA at Exeter, and so already had a good sense of the department of English and Film, and the interdisciplinary links between Film and languages, which is particularly important for my research. I already had a good working relationship with my supervisor, as well, and when researching different institutions, could not find a better supervisory team anywhere. Research into European (and particularly French) cinema at Exeter is going from strength to strength, and it is a great environment to keep up with the latest developments in the field. Exeter is a great place to study, and the absolute best place for me to pursue my particular interests.
Mia Dormer
Thesis title: A Hidden Life - Science in Historic Detective Fiction
Supervisors: Professor Andy Brown
Funding: Self Funded
I chose Humanities at Exeter because it has a superb support system for post graduates. Humanities provide excellent opportunities to maximise your experience as a PhD student. The Humanities college encourages students to enhance their research. Through the college I've been able to gain the LTHE and teach my chosen subject via Widening Participation.
I’ve found the experience to be rewarding and beneficial. My studies have been underpinned by the Humanities supportive ethos. My research activities have been encouraged and through them, I’ve gained fresh insight into my thesis and made invaluable friends. I couldn’t have made a better choice for my studies.
Sophia David
Thesis title:
Supervisors:
Funding:
'Quote'
Zoe Bulaitis
Thesis title: From Liberal to Neoliberal Education: Understanding the Value of the Humanities in England
Supervisors: Prof Regenia Gagnier, Dr Siân Harris
Funding: self-funded
I chose Exeter because of the positive experience that I had of working alongside world-leading academics during my undergraduate and MA program. As a result I knew that I would be able to rely on a strong network of supportive colleagues throughout my doctoral studies. The confidence in my supervisory team led to my decision to continue researching at the University of Exeter and it has proven to be a rewarding professional decision.
We have a rich and diverse graduate culture at both Masters and Doctoral level, backed up by strong supervisory and teaching expertise, top researchers and extensive research resources in a number of areas.
Students at Exeter work in a lively, productive and enriching environment which encourages and supports them as they strive to achieve their intellectual ambitions.
Our wide range of expertise offers postgraduates the possibility of preparing for research degrees in one or more areas. We attach particular importance to the quality of research supervision and training in research methodology and to the integration of our postgraduates into the Department’s academic and research community. Scholars of international repute are frequent visitors.
Explore our research centres and research projects to find out more about our current research topics.
Visit our English and Film staff pages for details on individual staff research interests and publications.
Our current PhD students
We're proud of the research carried out by our PhD students. There are currently around 80 PhD students in Film and English, many of whom maintain an online personal profile detailing their research activities. Follow the links below to find out more about them and their research projects.
| Student | Research title | Lead supervisor |
|---|---|---|
| Sarah-Jayne Ainsworth | Willing women: testamentary texts and the creation of female identity in the early modern southwest | Dr Johanna Harris |
| Muhamet Alijaj | Accepting the Unknown to be Know and Be Known: Paranormal Non-Fiction in | Dr Joseph Crawford |
| Helen Angear | Thomas Hardy and Heritage | Professor Angelique Richardson |
| Aygul Bakanova | Women in Central Asian Cinema | Dr Helen Hanson |
| Stephanie Boland | Off the beaten track: rural landscapes in conflict in modernist writing of the south west | Professor Regenia Gagnier |
| Zoe Bulaitis | The role of the academic in popular culture: the impact of fiction and film upon humanities scholarship in Britain | Professor Regenia Gagnier |
| Peter Bunten | The Life-Writings of Henry Williamson. | Professor Tim Kendall |
| Elisa Cepedal | The Cinema of Resistance: Realist Construction in European Film! | Dr James Lyons |
| James Chambers | The Strange Home project: towards a distinctive, 'authentic' contribution to Scottish cinema grounded in community folklore. | Dr Joe Kember |
| Bysshe Coffey | Distraction: The Drama of Sounds in the Poetry, Drama and Translation of Percy Shelley. | Dr Corinna Wagner |
| Sophia David | Ecoliterature. | Professor Regenia Gagnier |
| Ellena Deeley | Dr Paul Young | |
| Hasnul Djohar | Cultural Translators in Contemporary Muslim-American Fiction. | Dr Sinéad Moynihan |
| Mia Dormer | A study of the Evolution of Detective Fiction in Relation to Forensic Science/Medicine | Professor Andy Brown |
| James Downs | Ministers of the 'Black Art': the uses of photography by the clergy in Britain, 1839-1909 | Professor John Plunkett |
| Helena Drysdale | State of Emergency: A journey across Greece in the footsteps of George Bowen, traveller, statesman and Philhellene. | Dr Daisy Hay |
| Philippa Earle | Monism and Hybridity in Milton's Literary Forms | Professor Karen Edwards |
| Gemma Edney | The Sounds of Silence: Voicing Girlhood in Contemporary French Cinema | Dr Fiona Handyside |
| Tom Fallows | "Survival of the Dead": Manufacturing Independence in the American Film Industry. An Exploration of the Political Economy of Laurel Entertainment, 1974-1988. | Dr James Lyons |
| Acatia Finbow | An exploration of the value and place of re-performance documentation in the contemporary art gallery archive. | Professor Gabriella Giannachi |
| Harry Ford | Indigenous Shakespeare and Botanic Creation. | Dr Felicity Henderson |
| Stephen Gallagher | A pious pursuit of paradise: The patronage of secular and religious monuments by Seljukid Sultan Alaeddin Keykubad I (1220-1237). | Professor Emma Loosley |
| Emma Geen | ||
| Pierrealain Giraud | The work of Darius Khondji: Cinematographic authorship in contemporary cinema. | Professor William Higbee |
| David Goodchild | Adapting Lovecraft | Dr Helen Hanson |
| Dominique Gracia | From Art to Life (and Back Again): The Triumph of Medusa over British Aestheticism | Professor Regenia Gagnier |
| Molly Granatino | 19th Century British literature, the psychology of space in the Victorian novel, George Eliot. | Dr Paul Young |
| James Green | Nerves, Networks, and Delay: Physiology and the Sensation Novel | Dr Corinna Wagner |
| Christopher Grosvenor | Cinema on the Frontline: A History of Military Cinema Exhibition during WWI and WWII. | Dr Joe Kember |
| Lauren Hayhurst | The Nameless: A creative and critical investigation into Muslim women and the issue of 'honour' in Britain. | Dr Sam North |
| Jacqueline Hopson | Exploring representations of the Psychiatrist in Modern English and American Fiction | Professor Laura Salisbury |
| Christina Lake | A Study of Eugenics in Utopian Fiction | Professor Angelique Richardson |
| Alice Levick | Narrative representations of American urban space from 1920-1960. | Professor Jo Gill |
| Na Li | Translating Women in Republican China (1911-1949) | Professor Regenia Gagnier |
| Kate Limond | Mocked with Art: Narrating Subjectivity in the fiction of A. S. Byatt. | Dr Ellen McWilliams |
| Cristina Locatelli | Exeter-Tate Digital Humanities Project | Professor Gabriella Giannachi |
| Sally Long | Professor Andy Brown | |
| Barbara Marshall | Literary dialogue in the New Europe. | Professor Regenia Gagnier |
| Rebecca Marshall | Presenting The Self: Michel de Montaigne and Essay Film. | Dr Fiona Handyside |
| Kristy Martin | The of women in erotic literature both as writer and object. Is it possible to own language whilst unable to 'own' the phallus | Dr Jana Funke |
| Errol Mattera | The Challenge of Identity and Representation in Cinema: A case study of South Africa | Professor William Higbee |
| Pauline McGonagle | Investigating the Work of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala | Dr Florian Stadtler |
| Gillian Moore | The representation of the Material Culture of Big Game Hunting in the Age of Empire. | Professor John Plunkett |
| Michaela Morning | Exploration of the notions of surrealism in Czech cinema. | Professor William Higbee |
| Cristina Mosconi | Creating a Future for the Past of Bristol: A geo-located audio tour for the medieval period of the city. | Professor Fabrizio Nevola |
| Rachel Murray | ||
| Imola Nagy-Seres | 'Feeling with you': Rethinking Empathy in the Later Novels of Ian McEwan | Dr Kirsty Martin |
| Daniel Passes | Beyond the Pastoral: Producing Rural Cinema in Contemporary Britain. | Dr Fiona Handyside |
| Joan Passey | The West Barbary Barbarian: Identifying a Cornish Gothic in Nineteenth Century Britain | Professor Nick Groom |
| Joshua Powell | Perception, Affect and Cognition in Samuel Beckett's Late Period | Professor Laura Salisbury |
| Mark Rawlins | The 'Wessex novel' after Hardy (1895-1914): How writers used Hardy's Wessex to explore environmental issues. | Professor Angelique Richardson |
| Sofia Romualdo De Carvalho | Playing with heritage: a historical and practical investigation of gamification in the heritage museum | Professor Gabriella Giannachi |
| Denise Ross | Sacred wells: Understanding survivors of cultural change | Professor Philip Schwyzer |
| Rocky Ruggiero | Santo Spirito | Professor Fabrizio Nevola |
| Barbara Santi | Representing local Cornish cultural identity: Community collaboration, archives and emerging documentary practices | Professor Nick Groom |
| Jack Sargent | Anglo-American Gay Nostalgia: Desiring and Writing the Queer Past in Gay Literature Post-1990 | Dr Kate Hext |
| Tamara Sharp | Novel: The High Lonesome. Critical essay: Who made the eyes but I?: relocating the sublime in a post-secular world. | Dr Jane Feaver |
| Paul Slade | Italia Riconquistata: Italy's role in Milton's Poetic and Intellectual Development from the Early Poems to Paradise Lost | Professor Karen Edwards |
| Anna Sowa | The Role of the Producer in Collaborative Documentary Filmmaking | Professor William Higbee |
| Sabine Starmanns | Deconstructing Middle Age: Sexuality, Representation and the Midlife Woman in | Dr Helen Hanson |
| Alison Stone | Contemporary British poetry and objectivism | Professor Andy Brown |
| Leonie Thomas | Wireless Women: Listening In to Forgotten Female Voices at the BBC, 1922-1955 | Dr Vike Martina Plock |
| Ana Tomcic | Uncanny Subjects – Social Violence, Psychoanalytic Justifications and Modernist Literary Subversions | Professor Laura Salisbury |
| Esther Van Raamsdonk | The Influence of the Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Seventeenth Century on the Works of Andrew Marvell and John Milton | Professor Nicholas McDowell |
| Philip Wallinder | John Trevisa and the gospel of Nicodemus. | Professor Eddie Jones |
| Charlotte White | Ronald Duncan's Rural Devon: Place and Identity in the West Country | Professor Nick Groom |
| David Whitehouse | Allegory in Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' | Professor Regenia Gagnier |
| Lorna Wilkinson | The Trickster in Twentieth-Century British Literature | Dr Kirsty Martin |
| Paul Willis | Sir Joshua Reynolds: Sketchbooks to Genius | Professor Melissa Percival |
| Robert Yeates | The Brown Fog of a Winter Dawn: The Zombie Double of the Modern Metropolis | Dr Paul Williams |
| Aygul Bakanova | Women in Central Asian Cinema | Dr Helen Hanson |
| James Chambers | The Strange Home project: towards a distinctive, 'authentic' contribution to Scottish cinema grounded in community folklore. | Dr Joe Kember |
| Pierrealain Giraud | The work of Darius Khondji: Cinematographic authorship in contemporary cinema. | Professor William Higbee |
| Rebecca Marshall | Presenting The Self: Michel de Montaigne and Essay Film. | Dr Fiona Handyside |
| Michaela Morning | Exploration of the notions of surrealism in Czech cinema. | Professor William Higbee |
Supervisors - all students have a primary and a secondary supervisor who provide regular, high quality advice, support and direction in their academic endeavours. You will work closely with your supervisors over three to four years (full time PhD) or six to seven (part-time PhD) to develop, investigate and write-up a project at the cutting edge of theological research.
Visit our English and Film staff profiles for more information about individual research interests or use the search box on the right of this page to find a supervisor.
Mentor - each student will also be assigned a mentor who will take on a pastoral role and mediate on any problems that arise during the period of study. Your mentor will keep in regular contact and will provide background stability and support.
Graduate School Office - the College of Humanities has a dedicated Graduate School Office that supports our postgraduate research students during their study with us. The Office promotes intellectual and social contact between research students in all our disciplines to foster a vibrant research community within the College.
Funding opportunities available to students on our research degree programmes in English and Film:*
More information on the funding process.
| Award | Value | Application deadline | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| University of Exeter Progression Scholarship | £1000 | There is no application for this award. You will be automatically considered. | A £1000 tuition fee discount for all University of Exeter students who progress directly from an undergraduate degree to a postgraduate degree in September 2017. |
| South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership AHRC PhD Studentships | £14,296 plus UK/EU tuition fees for eligible students | Deadline passed (Thu 12th Jan 2017) |
South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership AHRC PhD Studentships |
| Diamond Jubilee Scholarship | Up to 4 years – Home/EU fees | Deadline passed (Sun 15th Jan 2017) |
The University is offering the Diamond Jubilee Scholarships to support a high quality Home/EU student to undertake a PhD or doctoral study at Exeter. The award pays the full Home/EU fees for up to 4 years. |
| Exeter International Excellence Scholarship for Postgraduate Research | Full international fees plus research allowance and £14,296 annual stipend | Deadline passed (Sun 15th Jan 2017) |
The University is offering 20 Exeter International Excellence Scholarships for Postgraduate Research to top students from around the world. The award pays international fees, a research allowance and stipend (currently £14,296 pa) for up to 3.5 years. |
| College of Humanities PhD Studentships | £14,553 plus full tuition fees for eligible students | Deadline passed (Sun 29th Jan 2017) |
College of Humanities PhD Studentships (Home/EU) |
| Sports Scholarship and High Performance Programme | up to £3000 plus additional support services & coaching | Deadline passed (Fri 31st Mar 2017) |
Sports scholarships are awarded to students of outstanding sporting ability who show evidence of achievement at international level in their chosen sport. We also encourage applications from students who have achieved at national or regional level for consideration onto our High Performance Programme. |
| College of Humanities International PhD Studentships | £14,553 plus full tuition fees for eligible students | Deadline passed (Mon 17th Apr 2017) |
College of Humanities International PhD Studentships |
| University of Exeter - London Film School PhD Studentships in Film by Practice | Up to approx. £14,553 plus full tuition fees | Deadline passed (Mon 17th Apr 2017) |
University of Exeter - London Film School PhD Studentships in Film by Practice |
| International Summer School High Achieving Student Award | 500 | There is no application for this award. You will be automatically considered. | An opportunity for international students with a GPA equivalent of 3.5 and above to receive scholarship funding towards a course of their choice during the International Summer School |
| The Hugh Young Studentship | £14,553 plus International tuition fees for eligible students | Deadline passed (Sun 14th May 2017) |
“The different ways that memory and the past are negotiated in Indonesian modernity, focussing on the memory of recent trauma in art and literature” |
| Caribbean literary heritage: recovering the lost past and safeguarding the future | £14,553 plus UK/EU tuition fees for eligible students | Deadline passed (Sun 25th Jun 2017) |
Applications are invited for 2 fully-funded PhD studentships to work on a project on Caribbean Literary Heritage funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The studentships are for 39 months starting 1 October 2017 and provide full tuition fees at UK/EU rate, a generous tax-free stipend of approximately £14,000, training support and access to funding for research trips. |
| Cornwall Heritage Trust Scholarship | £1000 | Deadline passed (Sat 15th Jul 2017) |
A one year award of up to £1000 for one or more postgraduate students producing dissertations/theses centred on an aspect of Cornwall's heritage who will be registered for the coming academic year. |
| Creativity and Constraint in the British Film Industry in the 1970s and 1980s: A case study on Bill Douglas PhD Studentship | £14,553 plus UK/EU tuition fees for eligible students | Deadline passed (Sun 16th Jul 2017) |
The proposed research topic will generate important insights into how creativity was shaped and constrained in the British film industry in the 1970s and 1980s – a period in which the industry was framed by economic, social and political uncertainty. The research will take place through a detailed case study featuring filmmaker Bill Douglas (1934-1991), who wrote and directed films in this period. |
| EPSRC CDT in Metamaterials: Matched impedance high index materials for antennas | 4-year studentship: UK/EU students, includes tuition fees and an annual enhanced stipend (£16,553 for 2017-18) | Deadline passed (Mon 31st Jul 2017) |
The studentship is part of the EPSRC Centre of Doctoral Training in Metamaterials (XM2). Its aim is to undertake world-leading research, while training scientists and engineers with the relevant research skills and knowledge, and professional attributes for industry and academia. |
The College of Humanities works closely with the University’s Career Zone to help you gain the skills, experience and expertise employers are looking for. There are a wide range of opportunities to enhance your employability, along with the support you need to make important career decisions.
We have our own Employability Officer who works to develop close links with employers and arranges careers events.
Employers
Brandon Hill CommunicationsDatamatics Global Services Limited
Harper Collins
Ministry of Education
National Trust
Palgrave Macmillan
Penguin
RBS
Royal Literary Fund
SISU Capital
Studio Micali
The Big Picture Company
The Express Tribune
University of Exeter
Occupations
Assistant ProducerAssociate Lecturer
College Lecturer
Community Workshop Organiser
Contract Manager
Editorial Assistant
Freelance Writer
Freelance Video Editor and Motion Graphics Designer
Head of Film and Media Studies
Information Assistant
Investment Director
Journalist
Language Consultant
Lecturer
Ministry Assistant
Pharmacy Manager
PR Account Executive
Researcher
Social Media Content Executive
Teacher
Translator
Writer
*Employment destination information sourced from the DLHE surveys 2013/14 and 2012/13