British and Irish Studies

Faculty in British and Irish Studies

This area of interest builds on the University of Georgia's historical strength in British and Irish Studies. The interdisciplinary British and Irish Studies Certificate Program as well as the Oxford Study Abroad Program originated in this department. Graduate students in this field will find opportunities to study and teach in our Oxford program while pursuing coursework leading to a certificate in the field. Students will have access to classes in Medieval, Renaissance, Eighteenth-Century, Romantic, Victorian, Twentieth-Century, and contemporary British and Irish Literature.  Graduate students interested in this area also benefit from the Willson Center’s Interdisciplinary Modernism/s Workshop and from the Colloquium in 18th and 19th Century British Literature which has recently featured such speakers as Paula Backscheider, Srivinas Avamarudan, John Mee, and Adela Pinch. The online journal, Borrowers and Lenders: Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation  (edited by Drs. Desmet and Iyengar) is produced in our department. 

Our faculty in this area participate regularly in the major conferences in their fields and encourage (and provide opportunity) for graduate students to do so as well. The faculty in this field are active in sponsoring on-campus conferences and colloquia such as the British Women's Writers Conference which will meet here in June 2016, Appropriation in an Age of Global Shakespeare (November 2015), and the Willson Center sponsored Symposium on the Book, an ongoing semiannual one-day symposium on material and immaterial textuality held at the Special Collections Libraries Building in the spring and fall. 

Recent graduate seminars in this field include “Modernism and the Aristocracy,” “Literature, Media, and Information in the Nineteenth Century,” “Novels of the Romantic Period,” “Traveling East in Early Modern English Literature,” “Shakespeare and the Book: Literary Appropriations and Literary Readings,” “York to Tudor: English Literature 1460-1530."

Course work in this area may include, but is not limited to, the following courses:

ENGL(LING) 6070 Middle English

ENGL 6250 Medieval Drama

ENGL 6240 Chaucer

ENGL 6260 Middle English Literature

ENGL 6290 Topics in Medieval Literature

ENGL 6310 Spenser

ENGL 6330 Shakespeare II: Special Topics

ENGL 6370 Milton

ENGL 6430 The Eighteenth-Century English Novel

ENGL 6450 William Blake

ENGL 6451 The Global Eighteenth Century

ENGL 6500 Romantic Literature

ENGL 6510 Later Romantic Literature

ENGL 6520 The Nineteenth-Century British Novel

ENGL 6530 Victorian Literature I

ENGL 6540 Victorian Literature II

ENGL 6660 Twentieth-Century British Poetry

ENGL 6670 The Twentieth-Century British Novel

ENGL 6680 Modern Irish Literature

ENGL 6685 Post-Colonial Literature

ENGL 6695 Topics in Post-Colonial Literature

ENGL 8200 Seminar in Medieval Topics

ENGL 8300 Seminar in Literature of the English Renaissance

ENGL 8400 Seminar in Eighteenth-Century Literature

ENGL 8500 Seminar in English Romantic Literature

ENGL 8550 Seminar in Victorian Literature

ENGL 8590 Seminar in 19th-Century British Literature

ENGL 8600 Seminar in Modern Literature

Exam areas could include, but are not limited to:

English Language, Old English, Middle English, Renaissance Drama, Renaissance excluding Drama, Restoration and 18th Century, Romantic, Victorian, Contemporary, and Literary Criticism and Theory.

Related Research Approaches

Medieval and Early Modern Literary Studies

Eighteenth-Century Literary Studies

Modern British Literature Studies (19th-21st Century)