Research
English and Creative Writing at Brunel have gone from strength to strength. We have a thriving graduate community, and welcome PhD applications in any of our particular areas of strength, which include contemporary literature, Shakespeare, Renaissance studies, Victorian literature and culture, creative writing, and world literature in English. The School of Arts has recently made significant new staff appointments to guarantee depth and diversity in its research programmes and its teaching. These new appointments also confirm our commitment to interdisciplinary approaches to the study of literature and culture.
Research in the areas of contemporary literary criticism and creative writing is clustered within the Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing (BCCW). The BCCW organises regular programmes of research seminars and public readings by authors (Writers Talking); and runs the following popular MA programmes: MA in Contemporary Literature and Culture and MA in Creative Writing: The Novel.
Creative Writing
Creative Writing PhD programmes at Brunel can embrace creative practise, critical reflection and research into the educational and social impact of this emerging discipline. We welcome practise-based proposals for novels, poetry, drama and imaginative non-fiction that demonstrate originality, a commitment to generic advance or reinvention and a high standard of artistic accomplishment. We offer our graduates expert support in professional preparation for a literary career and expect them to establish a strong publication record - see further information.
We also place a research emphasis on the role of Creative Writing in education and in communities outside the university sector, in fields as diverse as teaching in schools, literature as public art and the dynamics of the cultural industries. Creative Writing at Brunel aims specifically to locate opportunities and resources for funding to work with communities who may formerly have had little access to formal literature training, and no opportunity at all for publication.
