Subject Areas 

Languages and Literature 

SOAS makes a unique contribution to Area Studies of Asia, Africa and the Near and Middle East, extending strengths elsewhere in the consortium (e.g. the Middle East and North Africa Centre at Sussex (MENACS)). CHASE members share a commitment to world-changing enquiry, especially in American and Latin American area studies: e.g. Birkbeck Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies (CILAVS), Courtauld Centre for American Art, Essex Collection of Art from Latin America (ESCALA), Kent Centre for American Studies (whose research includes the £980k AHRC award for ‘Beyond the Spectacle: Native North American Presence in Britain’). Centres for study of China and South East Asia at SOAS are complemented the Goldsmiths Confucius Institute, and the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Art and Culture, in which SOAS and UEA are partners.  

CHASE includes leading research centres in Modern Languages, often in close dialogue with other disciplines. Kent and Essex offer outstanding environments for the study of modern European languages: e.g. Kent’s Centre for Modern European Literature and Culture (including an AHRC ’Beyond Text’ Large Grant); Essex has the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and its Linguistics department was in the top 10 REF2014 for research quality. SOAS is the only UK institution to undertake research in up to 30 African and Asian languages, supporting doctoral students via their Endangered Language Archive, SOAS World Languages Institute, language teaching and outreach, and world-leading language-based research, e.g. ‘A History of the Tibetan Verb’ (£790k AHRC GCRF). UEA’s British Centre for Literary Translation provides a focus for translation studies across CHASE, while Birkbeck hosts the Centre for Multilingual and Multicultural Research (CMMR), including a £1m project comparing youth language and language change in Paris and London. 

We have world-leading research strengths in Literatures across the consortium and across periods and genres, ranging from the Early Modern and Renaissance (Sussex, Kent, UEA, Birkbeck) to expertise on the nineteenth century and the relation between science, natural history and literature. Synergies across CHASE in modern and 21st century literature are outstanding (Sussex Centre for Modernist Studies, Kent Centre for Modern European Literature and Language, Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Literature) and we have a distinctive and a long-established strand of creative and critical writing (UEA, Goldsmiths, Kent, Sussex, Essex, Birkbeck). CHASE has an established network of scholars in the field of North American Poetics (CHASE School of American Visual Arts and Text) as well as key research strengths in the medical humanities (e.g. prosthetics and writing). SOAS consolidates and expands the global reach of literature research within the consortium, including African, Asian and postcolonial literatures (SOAS, Sussex) and Caribbean and Diasporic Literatures (Goldsmiths). 

Histories, Cultures and Heritage  

Our combined resources in Visual Arts and Cultures offer an exceptional research environment, including four top-20 submissions to REF2014 (Courtauld, Essex, SOAS, UEA) and internationally significant collections: e.g. The Courtauld Gallery, UEA’s Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts. Work on visual arts and visual cultures extends from the Palaeolithic to the present day and is global in scope, including research on European, American, Asian and Pacific art. The synergy with studies in media and technology is one of the distinctive strengths of the consortium, and its appeal to doctoral researchers working on the cusp between image, text and culture (e.g. Contested Bodies: Northern Irish Masculinities and the Legacy of the ‘Troubles’, PhD project, Courtauld). Current projects include ‘Scrambled Messages: The Telegraphic Imaginary 1857–1900’ (AHRC, Courtauld) and ‘A Life More Photographic: mediated presence and photography’s possible futures’ (Leverhulme, Goldsmiths).