EnglishRenaissance studies

Staff expertise in the Renaissance covers a range of areas, including:

  • Renaissance literature
  • the history of ideas
  • the history of language
  • cultural history

Our specific research expertise lies in:

  • human-animal relations
  • historical linguistics
  • the history of reading
  • gender relations

Our staff have published widely in these fields.

Recent PhD theses we've supervised have focused on John Donne, on the concept of the will in the Renaissance, on the law and slander in the Elizabethan period, on Petrarchanism, on the digital linguistic analysis of gender in Shakespeare’s plays, and on optics and mirrors in the period.

Our research team

Our team comprises: