Studies in the Long Eighteenth Century

Kent’s Centre for Studies in the Long Eighteenth Century was the first eighteenth-century studies centre to be established in southern England. Since 2007 the Centre’s members have worked across the period 1640-1830, approaching this historical moment from various and complementary methodological and (inter)disciplinary perspectives. We investigate such questions as: What was the society like that produced Jane Austen as well as Jonathan Swift? How did Britain’s global empire, which eventuated in ‘postcolonial’ resistance, come into being? What characterises the literary, artistic, and intellectual culture of mercantile capitalism? How might we account for discourses of sensibility, Enlightenment, emancipation, and democracy during the century of slavery? The Centre invites postgraduate research applications in any aspect of this period, but especially print culture, material culture, gender and sexuality, women’s writing, intellectual history, travel and exploration, animal studies, transatlantic and indigenous studies, and East-West relations.