One of the world’s leading English literature departments is celebrating awards, nominations, and grant success—and has once more secured a top 20 world ranking.

English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick has been ranked 20th in the world for English Literature in the 2019 QS Subject Rankings, the third year in a row the department has achieved a top 20 ranking. The department was previously ranked 1st in REF2014.

Recent achievements include multiple awards and honours.

We That Are Young, the debut novel by Preti Taneja, a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow mentored by Shakespeare scholar, Professor Carol Rutter, is to be adapted into a TV series by Gaumont studios. The novel reimagines Shakespeare’s King Lear in the context of an ageing businessman in modern-day India, and won the 2018 Desmond Elliott prize for new fiction.

Dr Matt Franks was awarded the 2018 Gerald Kahan Scholar’s Prize (HM category) for the best published essay in the field by the American Society for Theatre Research; whilst Professor Stephen Shapiro received the 2019 Outstanding Journal Reviewer Award (Liverpool University Press), for services to Science Fiction Texts and Studies.

Professor Thomas Docherty’s Literature and Capital has been nominated for the 2019 James Russell Lowell Prize, Dr Will Eaves’ Murmur has been shortlisted for the 2019 Republic of Consciousness Prize and longlisted for the 2019 Wellcome Book Prize, Professor Sarah Moss’ Ghost Wall has been longlisted for the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction and Professor Shapiro’s Pentecostal Modernism: Lovecraft, Los Angeles, and World-Systems Culture has been long listed for the 2019 Allan Lloyd Smith Prize by the International Gothic Studies Association.

Dr Graeme Macdonald has been awarded a 2018 FORMA major grant for his project Climaginaries, involving a multidisciplinary group of scholars from Lund, Utrecht, Durham and Warwick Universities exploring innovative and creative ways of envisioning how a post-fossil world might look like, and the means through which it can transpire.

Commenting on the department’s QS ranking and achievements, Professor Emma Mason, Head of English and Comparative Literary Studies, said:

"I am delighted with the diverse achievements of colleagues in our extraordinary English and Comparative Literary Studies department. Our success is founded on the verve and commitment of our staff and students alike, and allows us to continue to lead literary critical and creative studies in the UK and internationally."

Full list of nominations, awards and grants as follows:

· Thomas Docherty's Literature and Capital (Bloomsbury, 2018), has been nominated for the 2019 James Russell Lowell Prize.

· Will Eaves's novel, Murmur, has been shortlisted for the 2019 Republic of Consciousness Prize and longlisted for the 2019 Wellcome Book Prize.

· Matt Franks has been awarded the 2018 Gerald Kahan Scholar’s Prize (HM category) for the best published essay in the field by the American Society for Theatre Research.

· Graeme Macdonald has been awarded a 2018 FORMAS major grant for his multidisciplinary project, Climaginaries: https://www.climaginaries.org

· Sarah Moss has been longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019 for her novel, Ghost Wall.

· Stephen Shapiro has been awarded the 2019 Outstanding Journal Reviewer Award, Liverpool University Press, for services to Science Fiction Texts and Studies and Pentecostal Modernism: Lovecraft, Los Angeles, and World-Systems Culture (Bloomsbury, 2017) has been long listed for the 2019 Allan Lloyd Smith Prize by the International Gothic Studies Association.

· Preti Taneja won the Desmond Elliott prize for We That Are Young in 2018.

12 March 2019

 

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