English - Faculty of Arts

Offered by the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies

The discipline of English is concerned with the richest and most varied of the world's literatures, reaching in time from Anglo-Saxon writings of the eighth century to contemporary genre fiction, and in geographical range across all the many nations in which English is a preferred medium for writing. English has also been the source of some of the most exciting theoretical and interdisciplinary advances of recent decades. English at Monash has as its ideal a fruitful interaction of new energies and modes of awareness with the strengths of traditional scholarship and criticism. It offers studies in authors from the Renaissance onwards and in many thematic and theoretical fields. It is a world-recognised centre for the editing of scholarly texts, particularly from British literature pre-1800, and classic Australian poetry and fiction, and postcolonial literature. Scholarly editions of Henry Handel Richardson and Mary Gilmore, and 19th-century Indian women's writing in English are among some of the section's recent productions. The Monash Library has particularly fine collections in the field of English literature 1660-1800 and has recently acquired a rare database, exclusive to Monash University, in postcolonial studies - Empire On-Line. The Rare Books library also has outstanding collections of Australian literature, children's literature, science fiction and ephemera.

Particular academic strengths in the section include:

17th and 18th-century writing and new literatures in postcolonial contexts
Australian literature (including its regional and textual character)
children's literature and discourses of childhood
creative fiction writing
discourse analysis
law and literature
literary and cultural theory
literary and other biography
literature and the history of ideas
poetics and poetry
postcolonial literature and discourse
pre-1800 British literature
the construction of canons and the newly emerging developments of English studies
the history of authorship and editorial practice and theory
Victorian literature
women's studies and writing.

Relevant course groups

3937 Postgraduate Diploma in Arts (Research)
Masters degree by research and coursework
Masters degree by research
0020 Doctor of Philosophy

Contacts

Telephone: +61 3 9905 2277

Email: ecps.enquiries@arts.monash.edu.au

Visit http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ecps and http://www.arts.monash.edu/english