Research clusters

We are a research-intensive community. Our scholars engage in broad academic and creative activity.

Our work spans diverse areas, methods and models. We work across historical periods and national and geographical boundaries. We surpass theoretical methodologies and forms of media.

We share our research and creative work in peer-reviewed books and journals. Performances and readings. Print and digital formats. And presentations at national and international conferences.

We have a well-established tradition of engaging our local and national communities through:

• public talks and broadcasts

• newspaper and magazine writing

• and other interventions

Regular external funding supports our research and creative activities.

Creative Writing has been a hallmark of our department since early in our history. We have offered creative writing:

• At the undergraduate level since 1974
• As a thesis option in our MA program since 1987
• In our PhD program since 1990

Our faculty and students earn national and international acclaim. They actively contribute to the Calgary and Canadian arts communities.

Learn more about creative writing at UCalgary

Scholars in our department study how texts are transformed by the technologies they inhabit, from the codex to the computer.

We study the histories of texts’ material conditions of production and reception. We curate exhibits and edit texts for publication. And we study and teach letterpress technologies for disseminating texts.

Our research in traditional British literature examines and challenges period formation from the medieval to Modernism.

And our focus on historical texts extends to Canadian, American and Transatlantic as well as Transnational literatures.

We also study texts’ material histories from medieval manuscripts to printed books. Our digital humanists design databases, produce and theorize digital editions, and use machines to treat texts as data for visualizations. We collaborate with our colleagues in libraries and archives, and in fields from computer science to museum and media studies.