Research Seminars, Guest Lectures, Professional Training Seminars, Postgraduate Forum and Other Research-Related Events.

Research Seminars, Guest Lectures, Professional Training Seminars, Postgraduate Forum and Other Research-Related Events

 The department encourages all its postgraduate students to involve themselves fully within its research culture. The department has a Research Officer whose responsibility, working with the DGSC and other staff members, is to insure that there are a number of opportunities for postgraduate students to involve themselves in the research culture of the department. It is also, however, the responsibility of each postgraduate student to take the opportunities the department and the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences offer them. The department runs a research seminar throughout the academic year. This takes place each Wednesday at 12.00 and presents research papers from staff members and from the department’s postgraduate research students. Postgraduate students in the department are expected to attend these seminars whenever possible. The department also runs a Visiting Speaker programme, again throughout the academic year. Each Visiting Speaker is invited to the department to deliver one or more Guest Lecture or Seminar in conjunction with one or more of its on-going research programmes. These Guest Lectures and Seminars (which are open to all staff and students of the department) are widely advertised throughout the department and should be attended by all postgraduates directly concerned with the relevant research programme.

 In recent years the department has made great efforts to provide special training seminars for its postgraduates. These seminars, often conducted by internationally renowned scholars, are aimed at increasing postgraduates’ knowledge of academic and related careers, publication opportunities, the changing nature of the academic profession, the changing nature of English Literature as an academic discipline, and other related matters. Some of these special training seminars have been funded by the IRCHSS under its Masterclass initiative. The University has also increased its provision of postgraduate training in recent years. Postgraduates in the department should make themselves aware of what opportunities for professional training exist within the department, the Faculty and the University and insure that they make the most of such opportunities.

  A Postgraduate Forum is convened in each calendar year and provides all the department’s postgraduates with the opportunity of listening to research papers from postgraduate researchers in the department, meeting their peers in a social and convivial manner, and participating in the various social and academic events (including postgraduate conferences) arranged by the Postgraduate Forum.