King’s is one of the oldest English departments in the country and is home to a lively and supportive group of academics and students engaged in the exploration of literary cultures from the 7th to the 21st centuries. Academics in the department have cross-period interests in visual and material cultures literature, medicine and science gender and sexuality colonial, postcolonial and transnational cultures creative writing, life writing and performance text, history, politics. All members of staff are actively involved in research: most have gained an international reputation for the quality of their scholarship and are frequently called on to contribute their specialist knowledge to newspapers and other media. Staff in the department regularly attract large-scale research grants from the European Research Council, Wellcome Trust, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Leverhulme Trust. PhD students are at the heart of our Department and its research culture. We have over 100 doctoral students from all over the world working on a wide range of projects. Many are AHRC-funded and some are working on collaborative doctoral projects with our cultural partner institutions. Together with our community of postdoctoral fellows, our early career researchers both organise and participate in our thriving seminar and conference culture.