The Creativity Project Leeds

The inaugural conference of the Creativity Project took place on 12-14 September 2008: 'Contesting Creativity, 1740-1830'. The Creativity Project is carried out by the School of English's Long Eighteenth Century Research Group: David Fairer, David Higgins, Robert Jones, Vivien Jones, Simon Swift, and John Whale.

The study of the period 1700-1830 flourishes in the School, with seven members of staff working wholly or partly in this area. The Brotherton Library has excellent research facilities, and its holdings are supplemented by the complete run of ESTC microfilms (covering over 100,000 eighteenth-century texts).

Staff research ranges across poetry, fiction, prose and drama, with special interests covering eighteenth-century popular culture, aesthetics and gender, poetry of all kinds, women's writing, political controversy, Romanticism and Modernism. For full research details, see the biographical notes on the members of staff who specialise in this area.

Undergraduate Study

At undergraduate level the School offers two core modules, Eighteenth-Century Literature and Literature of the Romantic Period, plus a selection of more specialist options.

Postgraduate Study

Master of Arts

The one-year MA in Romantic Literature and Culture offers a range of specialist modules looking at ways in which literature engaged with the dynamic forces of the age. This team-taught MA is designed to provide an excellent basis for students who wish to go on to pursue research in this area at PhD level.

Research Degrees

The team offers expert supervision on the School's PhD programme. There are nine students currently working towards a PhD in the 1700-1830 period, writing theses on Swift, Ossian, Smollett, Sterne, Blake, satire, women's writing, Romantic poetry, Lamb, and Wordsworth.