Literature

Winner of 2025 Holberg Prize rejects vocational focus of education and ‘trivialisation’ of humanities

Researchers could struggle to find alternative employment if their previous employers have REF submission rights on their work to date, English scholars warn

Cambridge PhD graduate Ally Louks reflects on ‘baseless’ and ‘outlandish’ hate comments she has received after her selfie went viral

As pre-Wikipedia resource enters its 25th year, pioneers eye new applications as well as new languages

Goldsmiths creative writing lecturer talks about the difficulties of revisiting his psychological breakdown for his acclaimed memoir The Bullet

Literary critic and cultural historian on utopian fiction, the patriarchy and the perils of budget cuts

Booker Prize-winning author is latest arts leader to speak out against job shedding at celebrated university

Telling precariously employed literature scholars to just hang in there doesn’t cut it in a job market as bad as today’s, says Chris Townsend

Perhaps it is only by recasting an agreement as an adventure that professors can respond to the urgency of our times, says Robert Zaretsky

Robert Eaglestone reflects on the limits of hagiography

Nobel literature laureate on his dual career, childhood memories and why decolonising the curriculum is nothing new

Peter J. Smith gets drowned in the detail of an ambitious study of the playwright’s milieu

Saikat Majumdar surveys developments from the Gulf to South Korea in light of the closure of Yale-NUS College

A look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Academic and author honoured for ‘uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee’

Peter J. Smith enjoys a powerful analysis of how the work of the Bard cuts through simplistic notions of national identity

Tributes paid to an expert on Renaissance literature notable for his ‘amusing, forthright and sometimes exasperated views’

Evolution of indexes closely tied to development of universities, says author, who outlines how they have been used for centuries to settle scholarly scores

Ashoka University professor and novelist discusses academic life in the US and India, as well as his next novel, which explores ‘the ethics of education’

Not before time, the female partners whose intellectual contributions enhanced their husbands’ work get long-overdue credit, writes Emma Rees

Much of the language now used by universities feels like a kind of literary lockjaw that is too dull even to poke fun at. Joe Moran considers the causes and disastrous consequences

A look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Deborah D. Rogers is unconvinced by an ambitious attempt to apply the insights of neuroscience to centuries of literature

Charlotte Jones enjoys a historical account of radical politics that may have important lessons for today

Tributes paid to authority on the American Dream who ‘confounded the supposed dichotomy between the academy and activism’

A look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Lisa Hopkins enjoys a vivid picture of the part of London where Shakespeare once resided

A PowerPoint marathon or a ‘captured’ lecture will always be a pale imitation of a live experience, in which an expert practitioner taps into ‘the dangerous energy of all those watching eyes’, says Richard Sugg

The linguist and author of How We Read Now on the power of reading, what is lost when we rely on digital media, and the future of publishing

Peter J. Smith admires a bold attempt to show how details of poetic form reflected deep political and religious divisions in early modern England

Robert Eaglestone finds much to admire in an unapologetic attempt to justify the humanities in their own terms

What strikes some as a tedious chore prone to bias can transform lives and evoke enduring gratitude. Academics should embrace the opportunity to knit the plot of a person, says Douglas Dowland

Be careful about what you give away in your excitement about signing a contract for a book, says Lennard Davis

Our regular look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Book sets out to challenge the simplistic and divisive thinking to be found in disciplines as diverse as economics and literary studies

Ruth Heholt discovers how supernatural fiction is deeply revealing about changing attitudes to class and gender 

Playwright can help us see beyond the limitations of the biomedical model, argues palliative care doctor

Tributes paid to a scholar notable for ‘taking down the borders’ around the study of literature

The British sinologist talks about the book that sparked her interest in China, and why she decided to translate an ancient epic

Lennard Davis reflects on the dilemmas of the biographer in reading a new life of his friend and mentor Edward Said

If writers aren’t held responsible for their words, they have no incentive to write reflectively and precisely, says Joe Moran

Robert Eaglestone relishes a business history that is as much of a page-turner as a novel 

Our regular look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Our regular look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers 

Shazia Jagot’s life was transformed by the chance to read Chaucer as an undergraduate. It is crucial, she argues, that a new generation of black and ethnic minority students get the same opportunity

The English professor and author of Bookishness on what drew her to book history and how humans and computers will shape reading in the future

Bryan Cheyette praises an ambitious account of the place of literature in addressing today’s fundamental issues of persecution and injustice 

The impact of the Black Lives Matter movement has raised urgent issues for universities about who should be taught what – and how. After 40 years of pushing to widen the range of voices taught on literature courses, Lyn Innes still sees much to be done that is crucial for students of all races

Charlotte Jones is fascinated by a study of the places in between and their significance in contemporary fiction

The crime writer on how to teach mystery writing, why she loves self-help books, and the literary appeal of a campus murder

If we can’t find the narrative forms to make the world real to one another, we risk losing our politics to the fantasists and cynics, says Lyndsey Stonebridge

The pandemic has brought the power and consolations of scholarship to the fore. But with a particularly grim Halloween upon us, M. R. James’ ghost stories warn us that the pursuit of knowledge does not always end well, writes Shane McCorristine

Tributes paid to ‘a man of many worlds’ who was also ‘a uniquely versatile intellectual’

Jane O’Grady is enthralled by a meticulous meditation on possible worlds and paths not taken 

David Gewanter suggests that time has not been kind to the works of the wild-living poets and novelists of the Beat generation

Clive Bloom finds the rap sheet on an iconic cultural figure frustratingly incomplete

The lockdown has illustrated that we don't need to sacrifice academic interaction to save the planet, says Adnan Ajšić

Tributes paid to the British academy’s leading expert on Polish literature and culture

Tributes paid to a ‘steely’ dean of undergraduates who helped forge a new generation of leaders

New survey aims to foster more international collaboration in studying contemporary writing and help academics understand the needs of potential overseas students