King's College London Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Faculty of Arts & Humanities,
King's College London
Former names	King's College, London Faculty of Arts (1831) ; King's College, London Faculties of Music and Theology (1831) ; King's College London School of Humanities (1988) ; King's College London School of Arts and Humanities (2009) ; King's College London Faculty of Arts & Humanities (2014)
Established	1831; 193 years ago
Parent institution	King's College London
Executive Dean of Faculty	Professor Marion Thain
Location	London, United Kingdom
Website	kcl.ac.uk/artshums/

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.^[1] In the 2024 Times Higher Education World University Rankings by subject, King's Arts & Humanities ranked in the top twenty worldwide.^[2]

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.^[3] 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 Marion Thain, who took over from Professor Russell Goulbourne in December 2018.

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.^[4] 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.^[5]

Departments

Greek marble statues at the main hall of King's Building: lyric poet Sappho (fronting) and dramatist Sophocles (back turned)

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
Liberal Arts
Music
Philosophy
Theology & Religious Studies

Notable people

Current academic staff

Roderick Beaton, Koraes Professor of Modern Greek & Byzantine History, Language & Literature
George Benjamin, Henry Purcell Professor of Composition
Francisco Bethencourt, Charles Boxer Professor
Catherine Boyle, Professor of Latin American Cultural Studies
David Carpenter, Professor of Medieval History
Richard Drayton, Rhodes Professor of Imperial History
Richard Dyer, Professor of Film Studies
Paul Gilroy, Professor of American & English Literature
Edith Hall, Professor of Classics
Brian Hurwitz, D'Oyly Carte Professor of Medicine & the Arts
Paul Joyce, Samuel Davidson Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible
Roger Parker, Thurston Dart Professor of Music
Martin Stokes, King Edward Professor of Music
Joan E. Taylor, Professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism
Patrick Wright, Professor of Literature and Visual & Material Culture

Former academic staff

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
Simon Gaunt, Professor of French Literature
John Eliot Gardiner, English conductor
John Elliott, historian
F. J. C. Hearnshaw (1869-1946), historian
Judith Herrin, Emeritus Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies
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
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