Narrative Non-Fiction: Practice as Research - PhD

University of Kent

This is an innovative and exciting research programme in which you produce a full-length work of narrative non-fiction of 80,000-100,000 words. This can be in the genre of memoir, travel-writing, biography or nature-writing, but will quite likely be a blend of manner, form and mode.

Your work will make an original contribution in the field of creative non-fiction and contribute new knowledge within, and occasionally beyond, the humanities. Alongside this you will produce a situating document that contextualises the text’s ideas, placing it within its own practice, precursors and traditions (3,500-15,000 words plus full bibliography).

About the School of English

The School of English has a strong international reputation and global perspective, apparent both in the background of its staff and in the diversity of our teaching and research interests.

Our expertise ranges from the medieval to the postmodern, including British, American and Irish literature, postcolonial writing, 18th-century studies, Shakespeare, early modern literature and culture, Victorian studies, modern poetry, critical theory and cultural history. The international standing of the School ensures that we have a lively, confident research culture, sustained by a vibrant, ambitious intellectual community. We also count a number of distinguished creative writers among our staff, and we actively explore crossovers between critical and creative writing in all our areas of teaching and research.