Professor Clare Lees

Professor Clare Lees' research interests include early medieval literatures, languages and cultures of Britain and Ireland, gender and sexuality studies, and histories of place and belief. Her most recent work explores how modern and contemporary poets, writers and artists engage with early medieval cultures. She enjoys working creatively and critically. In her view, English Studies is a wide-ranging, inclusive discipline committed to a broad and generous definition of its field, from the earliest centuries of writing in English to its most contemporary digital iterations.

During the course of her career in the US and the UK, Clare has supervised over 20 PhD students and mentored several Early Career researchers in medieval literature and culture, many of whom have gone on to academic careers. She joined SAS in 2018 as Director of the Institute of English Studies, after nearly two decades as Professor of Medieval Literature and History of the Language at King's College London. A longstanding Fellow of the English Association and Fellow of King's College London, Clare works closely with colleagues in English Studies nationally in the English Association and University English and is a former member of the AHRC Peer Review College. She was a member of the English subpanel for REF2014 and is a member again for REF2021.

Internationally, she has served as a research assessor in the USA, Canada and Australia, as well as for research funding organisations in Europe such as the Institut Francais, the RCN (Norway) and the ERC. She was the founding Director of the London Arts and Humanities Partnership (LAHP), an AHRC-Doctoral Training Partnership and has a strong career-long interest in postgraduate and early career research.

Find out more about the Institute of English Studies.