My research and teaching combine insights from intercultural education and drama pedagogy with an ethnomethodological perspective that makes use of Conversation Analysis (CA) and Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA). I am also interested in interactional approaches to qualitative research interviews, and examining the role of reflexivity in applied linguistic and educational research. I have recently begun work on a number of projects exploring the intersections between critical approaches to intercultural communication and neurodiversity.
I am an Assistant Professor (Teaching Focussed) in Applied Linguistics, specialising in intercultural communication. I lead BA modules on Intercultural Pragmatics, Communication Modes, and Culture and Interpersonal Relations. I also lead and/or co-teach on various modules for the MSc in Intercultural Communication for Business and the Professions (ICBP), including Understanding Culture, Globalisation and Diversity in the Workplace, and Intercultural Coaching and Development. With a background in teaching literature and drama in language-learning contexts, I also regularly contribute to modules for the MA TESOL and MA Drama and English Language Teaching (DELT). I have previously taught at universities in the UK and China, including spending more than a decade working at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, designing and delivering modules on various aspects of Anglophone drama and literature. These teaching and research experiences fed into my ESRC-funded PhD thesis (on intercultural Shakespeare in Chinese higher education), as well as various aspects of the book Translating Shakespeare: Access and Mediation (2025), which I co-edited with Liz Oakley-Brown.
- Lees, Duncan, 2023. Encouraging deep learning through an interactive, intercultural approach to Shakespeare. In Shaules, Joseph; McConachy, Troy (eds.), Transformation, Embodiment, and Wellbeing in Foreign Language Pedagogy: Enacting Deep Learning, Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 129-152
- Lees, Duncan, 2021. Citizen of the world, or citizen of nowhere? Shakespeare Lives in China in 2016. In Memorialising Shakespeare: Commemoration and Collective Identity, 1916?2016, Switzerland, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, pp. 199-224
- Lindsay, Geoff, Winston, Joe, Franks, A, Lees, D., 2018. The work of Royal Shakespeare Company Education : in the first year of the Associate Schools Programme. University of Warwick, CEDAR