The department of English at SNU has a distinguished research profile. Essays by department members have appeared in journals that enjoy worldwide prestige in the domain of literary and cultural criticism. These include Boundary 2, Critical Quarterly , English Literary History, Interventions, Nineteenth Century Literature, PMLA , Representations, Victorian Studies, Victorian Periodicals Review and Wasafiri. Members have also published books, monographs, book chapters, editions of literary texts with internationally visible publishers such as Oxford University Press, Ohio State University Press, Orient Longmans, Macmillan, Permanent Black, State University of New York Press, Liverpool University Press.
The research interests of members of the English faculty are wide ranging. They include narrative theory and contemporary fiction, fiction in the digital world, vernacular literature, women bhakti poets, Dalit studies, the body in Victorian culture, literature in relation to visual arts, journalism in the 19th century, print culture in the long 19th century across nations, the early novel in India, digital archiving, translation studies, and Dalit studies.
Although research in our department is underpinned by individual interests, several cluster areas of potential intra-departmental collaboration have developed over the years. These include:
- Journalism from the 19th century to our post digital times
- Narrative theory
- Vernacular, Translation and Dalit studies
- The global 19th century with a focus on (a) the cultural connotations of disease (b) slow journalism and the colonies and (c) the development of the novel in India and England.
- Literature and Technology / Digital Humanities
In addition, the department is working on developing interdisciplinary research projects with colleagues from the Departments of History and Sociology on the following areas:
- Visual Culture
- Representing illness
- Journalism across media
- Digitizing archives.
The Department of English is deeply invested in attracting Ph.D. students to work in our focus areas.