Literature and Cultures
With leading works published on a wide range of subjects, UCLan research in literature and cultures develops our appreciation of cultural expression and performance across the Anglophone world.
Overview
Illustrating a broad engagement with cultural expression and performance across the Anglophone world, literature and cultures research activity covers a wide range of interests.
Members of the team have published leading works on subjects as varied as radical narratives of the Black Atlantic, the Civil War in American culture, the poetry of Seamus Heaney, slavery and memorialisation, the American 1970s, Shakespearian performance and protest music.
Staff are always looking to find original ways to disseminate their research findings to the widest audience in imaginative and creative ways, and current work includes:
- British poetry and fiction, both modernist and contemporary
- American drama, in particular the 19th century and transatlantic performance
- Contemporary Irish literature
- American musical culture
- memorialisation and Atlantic slavery
- Shakespeare
- Children’s literature, including crossover fiction
To find out more about research in Literature and Cultures, contact Professor Will Kaufman
Tel: +44 (0)1772 893035
Email: wkaufman@uclan.ac.uk
Impact
Professor Michael Parker was appointed 2012 Visiting Chair at Sorbonne Nouvelle and has given high profile public lectures in the USA and Europe. He had held workshops at Manchester’s Irish World Heritage Centre and written many reviews for the Times Literary Supplement.
Professor Stuart Hampton-Reeves is Chair of the British Shakespeare Association and is working with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust on a national campaign to assert Shakespeare’s authorship.
Theatre specialist Darren Tunstall directs adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays which use a blend of live-action performance and high-tech motion capture.
Dr Thomas Day introduces his research to schools across the UK and to teachers on professional development activities for the Prince’s Trust.
Dr Theresa Saxon gives public lectures on late 19th-century ‘leg shows’ and is developing a public performance project on ‘lost’ plays on race and gender.
Dr Alan Rice’s work in slavery and memorialisation has resulted in collaborations with the Whitworth Gallery and regional museums in the North West.
Professor Will Kaufman - a recognised world expert on the life and work of Woody Guthrie - takes his academic research onto the stage on both sides of the Atlantic (including Glastonbury Festival and the Smithsonian), writing and performing live musical programmes on Guthrie.