The School of English at the University of Sussex combines an illustrious history with a commitment to innovation and interdisciplinarity that places it at the forefront of the discipline. An English degree at Sussex helps you become a critical and imaginative reader and thinker, with a deep understanding of the history and future of English.
Welcome from the Head of School
The School of English at Sussex brings together a number of areas of inquiry: English and America Literature, English Language and Linguistics, and Drama. These disciplines share a commitment to understanding and rethinking the ways in which language creates and shapes our world : imaginatively, structurally, and through performance.
Read more....
English at Sussex combines world-leading research with innovative, creative teaching. Since the University’s foundation fifty years ago, Sussex English has challenged conventional critical and cultural models. This continues. Our faculty, over forty strong, are distinguished scholars, many of whom have won academic prizes and research awards. Our degrees are widely recognised as inventive, inviting interdisciplinary study. With over 750 undergraduates and nearly 200 MA and PhD students, the School of English enjoys one of the largest concentrations of students reading English, English Language and Linguistics and Drama in the UK. Yet, we take efforts to see our students as independent individuals and provide considerable personal support. Students in the School come from a wide variety of backgrounds and ages, from all parts of the United Kingdom, the rest of Europe, Africa, Asia, Australasia and The Americas. The wide-ranging expertise of our faculty allows us to cater for interests and provide supervision across virtually all areas of English and American literature, contemporary critical and cultural theory, English language and linguistics, and new developments in drama and performance.
In his recent novel Sweet Tooth, Ian McEwan – one of the School’s most distinguished alumni – has a character who studied English at Sussex turn on another character who studied at a traditional university: ‘I reckon my place was more ambitious, more serious, more enjoyable than yours. . . . Sussex would never have allowed you to stagnate the way you did’. English at Sussex offers the opportunities for imaginative growth that have always been at our core.
Professor Tom Healy
Head of School of English
Our degrees are widely recognised as inventive, exciting and challenging, inviting interdisciplinary study. We offer a variety of specialist undergraduate and postgraduate subjects which cover the whole range of English studies.
Undergraduate disciplines include English literature, Drama, English language and American literature. Students can choose modules from across the School, giving them control over shaping their own studies and inviting the interdisciplinarity which Sussex is famous for.
Our taught and research postgraduate courses offer a wide range of literary, performative and linguistic studies, supported by a large, distinguished faculty, who are successfully redefining the boundaries of their fields on both national and international stages. Our tutors and lecturers are distinguished scholars, many of whom have won academic prizes and research awards.
We pride ourselves on the essential interconnection of our teaching and research at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels and our success in this area is reflected in the number of thriving Research Centres operating within the School.