Welcome to the School of Arts

Subject Areas

Our undergraduate students are registered on programmes from 6 broad subject areas: Dance and Music, Drama, Theatre & Performance, Humanities, Languages and Linguistics, Literature and Creative Writing and Media, Film and Cultural Studies.

Postgraduate and Research

More than a third of our 400 postgraduate students are studying for the award of MPhil/PhD. Research centres in Arts include: Children’s Literature, English Local and Regional History (including the Hearth Tax Project), Postcolonial and Transcultural Studies, Film and Audio-Visual Cultures, English Language Testing, Hispanic Studies, Renaissance Studies, Romanticism, and Dance. The School also has a full calendar of open research seminars and organizes at least two major conferences a year, including high profile events at remote locations like the ICA, Tate Modern, the NFT, and the Royal Geographical Society.

We have a good track record in attracting external research funding from the AHRC, the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust. In RAE 2001 academic staff in History were rated 5 in recognition of their international excellence. English and Theology & Religious Studies (with Philosophy) and Dance scored 4, and all other subject areas that were entered scored 3a. In RAE 2008, we intend to enter more staff in more units of assessment, and further increase our grades.

Events and Partnerships

The School has also been successful in promoting its work through initiatives like Dance Diary and open seminars sponsored by the Royal Philosophical Society. The School is a member of the West Focus (Creative Industries) partnership and Roehampton’s Centre for Excellence in Human Rights and Citizenship Crucible.

Scope of School

The School of Arts has approximately 145 academic staff, 2000 undergraduate students, and 400 postgraduate students and is predominantly located in Digby Stuart College and we also make extensive use of both specialist teaching space and offices at Southlands and Froebel College.