Our research

A Renaissance sketch of a the back of a male's upper body.

Bee-stung lips: Blazoning the male body in sixteenth-century print

Professor Cathy Shrank delves into the work of Elizabethan poet Richard Barnfield, who she believes deserves a wider audience.

Read the blog

A red moon on a black background — Image credit: Salt Publishing

Awkward, Failing, Hungry: How Queer Theory shapes my creative practice

Clare Fisher, writer and lecturer from the School of English, discusses the relationship between theory and literature, and considers how reading queer theory has shaped their creative practice.

Read Clare's blog

Black and white portrait of John Addington Symonds

The colony, the carpenter's shop, and the making of the queer "man of letters": hybridity, art and sexuality in J A Symonds's writing

Dr Amber Regis from the School of English explores the lives, work and legacies of transgressive figures, particularly women writers and queer artists from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Read the article on Cairn

Queer sensation and non-representational queer reading: a case study of Wu Hao's All in my Family

Dr Xi Liu from the School of East Asian Studies explores queer sensation through a case study of the Netflix documentary All in My Family.

Read the article on Taylor and Francis Online

Abstract blue and white painting of people singing

Is the folk music scene in England adequately safe for LGBTQ+ people?

The report 'Accessing Folk Singing in England', by Dr Fay Hield and Access Folk, gathers current issues faced by different sectors of society when accessing folk singing in England. One of the themes specifically looks at gender and sexuality, on pages 10-11.

Accessing Folk Singing in England

The history of the emergence of gay people in Current Affairs TV shows 1950s-1990s

Whether channel surfing or browsing streaming platforms, it is difficult to find a television programme airing in Britain that doesn’t portray gay or queer people in some shape or form. This Pride Month, Heather Sadiq reflects on these advancements and asks how did Britain get here?

Read Heather's blog

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

School of English student, Valentia describes the book as being full of glitz, glamour, bisexuality and happy queer endings and delves into how the book discusses sexuality. This book originally became a trend on TikTok and has become a cult book to read.

Read Valentia's blog

Transvocality: Voice banking and song making

Professor Nicola Dibben from the Department of Music, with colleagues from Computer Science, and collaborators Coda Nicolaeff, Ilā Kamalgharan and Trans Voices, share their project Transvocality for Pride Month 2023.

Read the press release

A portrait of Johann Winckelmann dressed in a red velvet robe

Death in Trieste. From murder to cultural myth

Murder! In hotel room ten, with a rope and a knife. Seán Williams follows in the footsteps of the most famous art historian of all time during a period of history where where the government are ramping up anti-LGBT rhetoric.

Listen on BBC Radio 3

Marions-nous! Gay Rites: the Campaign for Gay Marriage in France

This article by Dr Wendy Michallat focuses on the current political debate surrounding the campaign for the legalisation of gay marriage in France. The article examines why, in a political climate generally opposed to this campaign, the marriage debate has nevertheless served to raise the profile of gay and lesbian rights in France generally.