# King's College London Faculty of Arts and Humanities

The King's College London Faculty of Arts & Humanities is one of the nine academic Faculties of study of King's College London. It is situated on the Strand in the heart of central London, in the vicinity of many renowned cultural institutions with which the Faculty has close links, including the British Museum, Shakespeare's Globe, the National Portrait Gallery and the British Library. In the 2024 Times Higher Education World University Rankings by subject, King's Arts & Humanities ranked in the top twenty worldwide.
The Faculty of Arts & Humanities offers study at undergraduate and graduate level in a wide range of subject areas. Many of the departments and programmes offer joint undergraduate degrees, including some with the Departments of Geography and War Studies, in the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy, and with Mathematics in the Faculty of Natural & Mathematical Sciences. As a member of the Russell Group and the Golden triangle, the Faculty receives a high number of applications.
The Faculty is a member of The Council of University Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (DASSH UK), and of London Citizens. The current Executive Dean of Faculty is Professor Simon Tanner, who took over in an interim position from Professor Marion Thain in November 2024.

## History

In the late 1980s, King's College London's Faculty of Arts merged with the Faculties of Music and Theology as the School of Humanities and took on the name of the School of Arts & Humanities in 2009. The original Arts departments such as War Studies and Geography formed part of the Faculty known now as Social Science & Public Policy while the Arts & Humanities expanded from its 'classical' humanities roots. Over the past few years, the Faculty has established interdisciplinary programmes such Liberal Arts and led new developments in teaching and research, for instance through the Department of Digital Humanities, Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries.The School of Arts & Humanities became the Faculty of Arts & Humanities in 2014.
In 2023, the Digital Futures Institute and the Global Cultures Institute were launched as part of a new Faculty vision to showcase how arts and humanities expertise were addressing some of society's most pressing challenges.

## Departments

The following departments and centres can be found in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities:
* Classics
* Culture, Media & Creative Industries
* Digital Humanities
* English
* Film Studies
* History
* Languages, Literatures and Cultures
* Interdisciplinary Humanities
* Music
* Philosophy
* Theology & Religious Studies

## Notable people
### Current Professorial staff

* Edward Adams, Professor of New Testament Studies
* Btihaj Ajana, Professor of Ethics and Digital Culture
* Maria Alvarez, Professor of Philosophy
* Sarah Atkinson, Professor of Screen Media
* Matthew Bell, Professor of German and Comparative Literature
* George Benjamin, Henry Purcell Professor of Composition
* Chris Berry, Professor of Film Studies
* Francisco Bethencourt, Charles Boxer Professor
* Clare Birchall, Professor of Contemporary Culture
* Jim Bjork, Professor of Modern European History
* Federico Bonaddio, Modern Spanish Studies
* Fay Bound Alberti, Professor in Modern History
* Hugh Bowden, Professor of Ancient History
* Catherine Boyle, Professor of Latin American Cultural Studies
* Bill Brewer, Susan Stebbing Professor of Philosophy
* Helen Brookman, Professor in Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Education
* Emily Butterworth, Professor of Early Modern French
* Clare Carlisle, Professor of Philosophy
* David Carpenter, Professor of Medieval History
* Erica Carter, Professor of German and Film
* Jinhee Choi, Professor of Film Studies
* Roberta Comunian, Professor of Creative Economies
* Steven Connor, Professor of Living Well With Technology
* Sarah Cooper, Professor of Film Studies
* Julia Crick, Professor of Palaeography and Manuscript Studies
* Kate Devlin, Professor of Artificial Intelligence & Society
* Emma Dillion, Thurston Dart Professor of Music (Medieval Music and Cultures)
* Richard Drayton, Rhodes Professor of Imperial History
* Stuart Dunn, Professor of Spatial Humanities
* David Edgerton (historian), Hans Rausing Professor of the History of Science and Technology
* Max Edling, Professor of Early American History
* Jane Elliott, Professor of Contemporary Literature, Culture and Theory
* Lara Feigel, Professor of Modern Literature and Culture
* Patrick ffrench, Professor of French
* Rosalind Galt, Professor of Film Studies
* Paul Gilroy, Professor of American & English Literature
* Kelina Gotman, Professor of Performance and the Humanities
* Laura Gowling, Professor of Early Modern History
* Toby Green, Professor of Precolonial and Lusophone African History and Culture
* Christopher Hamilton, Professor of Philosophy
* Nicholas Harrison, Professor of French and Postcolonial Studies
* Matthew Head, Professor of Music
* Peter Heather, Professor of Medieval History
* Christopher Hughes, Professor of Philosophy
* Paul Joyce, Samuel Davidson Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible
* Ananya Jahanara Kabir, Professor of English Literature
* Richard Kirkland, Professor of Irish Literature & Cultural Theory
* Ismene Lada-Richards, Professor of Classical Literature & Performance Culture
* Stephen Lovell, Professor of Modern History
* Javed Majeed, Professor of English and Comparative Literature
* Johanna Malt, Professor of French Literature & Visual Culture
* Paul McDonald, Professor of Media Industries
* Siobhán McIlvanney, Professor of French and Francophone Women's Writing
* Gordon McMullan, Professor of English
* Eliot Michaelson, Professor of Philosophy
* Lucy Munro, Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature
* Ruvani Ranasinha, Professor of Global Literatures
* Dominic Rathbone, Professor of Ancient History
* Alan Read, Professor of Theatre
* Anna Reading, Professor of Culture and Creative Industries
* Paul Readman, Professor in Modern British History
* Andrea Sangiovanni, Professor of Philosophy
* Christina Scharff, Professor of Culture and Subjectivity
* Lydia Schumacher, Professor of Historical and Philosophical Theology
* Katherine Butler Schofield, Professor of South Asian Music and History
* Martin Stokes, King Edward Professor of Music

### Former academic staff

* Maria Rosa Antognazza, Professor of Philosophy
* Arthur Burns, Professor of History
* Roderick Beaton, Koraes Professor of Modern Greek & Byzantine History, Language & Literature
* Harrison Birtwistle, British contemporary composer
* Averil Cameron, Warden of Keble College, Oxford, Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine History in the University of Oxford, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford
* A. G. Dickens (1910-2001), historian, former Director of the Institute of Historical Research
* Richard Dyer, Professor of Film Studies
* Simon Gaunt, Professor of French Literature
* John Eliot Gardiner, English conductor
* John Elliott, historian
* Edith Hall, Professor of Classics
* F. J. C. Hearnshaw (1869-1946), historian
* Judith Herrin, Emeritus Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies
* Brian Hurwitz, D'Oyly Carte Professor of Medicine & the Arts
* Efraim Karsh, Founding Director and Emeritus Professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies
* Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate
* P. J. Marshall, Emeritus Rhodes Professor of Imperial History, President of the Royal Historical Society from 1997 to 2001
* Janet Nelson, Emeritus Professor of Medieval History, President of the Royal Historical Society from 2001 to 2005
* Richard Overy, historian
* Roger Parker, Thurston Dart Professor of Music
* Curtis Price, Warden of New College, Oxford
* David Profumo, an English novelist, 6th Baron Profumo
* Conrad Russell, 5th Earl Russell (1937-2004), 5th Earl Russell
* Richard Sorabji, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy
* Susan Stebbing (1885-1943), Lecturer in Philosophy
* Joan E. Taylor, Professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism
* Patrick Wright, Professor of Literature and Visual & Material Culture

### Deans of Faculty

* Barry Ife (Spanish): August 1989 - July 1997
* Linda Newson (Geography): August 1997 - July 2000
* Michael Knibb (Theology): August 2000 - July 2001
* David Ricks (CHS/CompLit): August 2001 - July 2004
* Ann Thompson (English): August 2004 - December 2007
* Jan Palmowski (German): January 2008 - December 2012
* Simon Gaunt (French): January 2013 - December 2013
* Russell Goulbourne (French): January 2014 - August 2018
* Jo Malt (French): September 2018 - December 2018 (Interim)
* Marion Thain (English): December 2018 - October 2024
* Simon Tanner (Digital Humanities): November 2024 - Present Day (Interim)

### Notable alumni

* Lord Carey
* Alain de Botton
* Anne Dudley
* John Eliot Gardiner
* Greer Garson
* W. S. Gilbert
* Thomas Hardy
* Michael Morpurgo
* Michael Nyman
* John Ruskin
* Jonathan Sacks
* David Tang
* Desmond Tutu
* Virginia Woolf