New research

The 乐播传媒 is a major research institution and the School of English is ranked 9th in the UK for its research power.

If you are studying at 乐播传媒 you can be confident you will be engaging with staff who are producing internationally excellent and often world-leading research.

One of our strengths is the focus on research that crosses subject boundaries both within English and across different disciplines such as psychology, IT, and nursing. Our Research page tells you more.

Original thinking

Masters degrees

PhD degrees

Drama and Creative Writing research group

Student research projects

Discovering Research

Second year English student Maddi Maya took part in Dr Christina Lee's research project, transcribing 16th - 18th century manuscripts to discover the ingredients in those recipes. This is what Maddi had to say about the project:

"I did a research project with Christina Lee this year. I got to go and work with some old manuscripts and that experience was so valuable. We were transcribing these manuscripts which were being worked on. There was a 16th, 17th and 18th century one. My job was to go into Manuscripts and Special Collections and sit for hours trying to decode these recipes! We were working with biochemistry, who were taking samples off the manuscript paper and trying to find protein signatures that matched the ingredients from the recipes which were written down. They were trying to figure out if the recipes had been used or not. It was amazing. The experience led me down a totally different route. I’m looking for work experience and potentially future jobs in archiving and manuscripts now. Christina is also just so lovely and supportive and has been really encouraging."

Read Maddi's full profile

Find out more about Christina Lee's work

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Evangeline Hibbs

Eva Hibbs is a PhD Researcher in Creative Writing, specialising in multi-modal narratives and neurodiversity in fiction. Both her creative and critical work engages with LGBTQAI+ experiences, effects of grief and where mindscapes become supernatural.
Her fiction has been published in the Irish Literary Review, the Oxonian Review, Popshot Magazine, Brittle Star Magazine and Litro Magazine, among others. Her debut novel A Second Self was longlisted for the Masters Review Excerpt contest.

Eva facilitates creative writing workshops in schools, universities and local community settings. She is the founder and developmental editor for multi-modal publishing collective, All Around Publishing, who will be publishing their fifth illustrated title in 2027. In June 2026, she led a participatory session at Falmouth University on Confession in the Short Story. In October 2026 she will be running a Taking New Perspectives workshop as part of the 乐播传媒 Advantage Award.

Dylan Spicer

Dylan is a PhD student in Creative Writing whose research explores how contemporary online liminal spaces, as seen in works such as The Backrooms and The Mandela Catalogue, continue the traditions of psychological horror and place established from Gothic literature onwards. His work examines how these digital spaces reshape and expand concepts of liminality in a distinct new subgenre, while demonstrating their connections to longstanding literary traditions.

Alongside his research, Dylan has produced a range of creative projects, including an audio drama exploring a hidden story within Homer’s Odyssey, a mixed-media project centred on the goddess Sulis Minerva, and The Butter Mouse, a flash fiction blog that combines writing, video, photography, cocktail recipes, and other media to tell an ongoing narrative.

Glen Hall

My research topic is 'A search for truth and authenticity in The Last druid’s transition from Postmodern fantasy to metamodern fiction'. My research is currently focused on investigating the author/character ‘dark journey of the soul’ which becomes a metaphor for The Last druid’s transition from a postmodern fantasy to metamodern fiction. A transition that emerges from the yearning for authentic reconciliation, not only between author/character but between past/present self, whilst knowing and acknowledging this might be an impossibility. I am particularly interested in the transition from postmodernist to Metamodernist fiction with a focus on autofictional fracture and authentic reconciliation.

Publications:
Hall Glen, The Fall (G22 Publishing, Newcastle 2017)
Hall, Glen, The Shadow Ruins (G22 Publishing, Newcastle 2018)
Hall, Glen, The Last Druid (G22 Publishing, Newcastle 2026)

I have been building and leading businesses for the past twenty five years. I founded and helped build the Write Research Group into the number one talent intelligence business in the UK before it was acquired by Capita Group in 2013. I was very grateful to be awarded the 2020 Northeast Entrepreneur of the Year by the Entrepreneur's Forum which aims to inspire and support fellow entrepreneurs.I launched my current venture, Talent Insight Group, to give something back to its community guided by our social cohesion, values and purpose: with the ambition of creating a culture that promotes kindness, authenticity and continuous learning. These values mean a proportion of Talent Insight's annual profits go to charities who give people and children - who might be disadvantaged in some way – belief that they are important and valued.I have published widely on talent intelligence, HR Transformation and the future of the workplace.

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Jessica Padilla-Sachez

My practice-based PhD, tentatively-titled “Flȃneurs in Love: Writing Psychogeography into LGBTQ+ Young Adult Historical Fiction”, is an interdisciplinary project which examines how writing psychogeography into LGBTQ+ YA historical fiction can limit ‘writerly-presentism’: that is, “the imposition of a writer’s modern values, beliefs, or awareness onto a past era” (Power, 2003). I posit that using an innovative technique to exclude the modern day queer experience from historical narratives will allow for subcategories within the genre of queer fiction to expand as widely as other major genres without risking misappropriation or distorted presentations of the past. A reflective analysis of my findings will make up approximately 30% of my thesis, while the remaining 70% will consist of an original novel (or extended extract if the final wordcount surpasses the project limit). This piece of long-form prose will be centred around two queer teens living in Paris during an alternative timeline where the Cold War erupts in late 1951.

I’m currently a Postgraduate Associate Fellow at the Royal Geographical Society and have presented at the following conferences: “Narrative ethics and character in the representation of the past in contemporary English-speaking fiction” (Université de Caen Normandie, October 2022), “Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual International Conference 2023 & 2025” (dual workshop co-convenor role undertaken in 2025). My article “ The Future of LGBTQ+ YA Historical Fiction: An Exploration of Narrative Trends” will be published in the December 2026 issue of The Journal of Historical Fictions.

Shuyu Liu

Shuyu Liu is a 4th year PhD researcher in the Department of English at the 乐播传媒. Her research examines how British theatres have used broadcast technologies to reshape their artistic practices, and institutional identities in the digital age.

She also researches the circulation of fan-filmed German and Austrian musicals on East Asian social media, exploring how unofficial recordings contribute to transnational audience engagement and digital theatre cultures. She has presented her research at the British Shakespeare Association Conference (2024, 2025), TaPRA (2024, 2025), and the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) Conference (2025, 2026). Beyond academia, Shuyu has been actively involved in theatre practice as a Young Associate at Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and has directed productions for Lyric’s Evolution Festival and Lyric Labs, bringing together research, directing, and public engagement.

Staff research projects

School of English

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