Development Activities

As part of the University’s current ‘Oxford Thinking’ campaign the Faculty is launching a number of development initiatives. We have three principal ambitions for the next few years.

The first is to attract and to retain the best Faculty members in the world. We need to endow our existing posts and we need to create new posts that respond to the changing shape of our discipline: appointments in areas such as modern English and World literatures, American literature, book history, and the study of language. And we need new posts, as well, to build on existing strengths. Oxford has long been the world’s home for Shakespearean studies, and we aim to establish a Professorship dedicated to Shakespeare, the first of its kind in the Faculty’s history.

Second, the Faculty is eager to see funded a number of post-doctoral and early career development Fellowships. These could be within any area of English language or literature. The most difficult part of any English academic’s career is the period between completing a doctorate and landing a first lectureship, and too many excellent scholars find themselves struggling to survive in the hiatus: some even leave the profession altogether. A fixed-term post-doctoral fellowship, common in the sciences but extremely rare in the Humanities, can transform a young academic’s research life and prospects, and we hope in future to host several within the Faculty.

Finally, we are determined to expand our programme of graduate scholarships. Graduate students are the next academic generation, and the Faculty takes seriously its duty to nurture and promote them. Cuts in government funding have seriously reduced the number of graduate awards made nationally within the UK, and funding for international students remains highly competitive. Our aim is to make it possible for every excellent student who applies to come to study with us, regardless of their ability to pay.

If you would like to find out how you could be involved with the Faculty, please contact the Faculty Administrator. You can find out more about development activities within the Humanities Division and the wider university here.

If you wish to make a donation to the Faculty please click here.

The Faculty will be holding two events (a dinner and a conference) for its alumni on 13 and 14 April 2012. Click here for further details.

We also publish an annual alumni magazine, Oxford English. The next issue will be arriving on doorsteps in late February, and you can download previous issues below: