For the last ten years, since the teacher education reform of 2011, Swedish institutions of higher education have been tasked with strengthening the links between academic subject studies and professional preparation. To accommodate this requirement, English departments at many universities nationally have incorporated elements of literature teaching and learning in literature courses within the teacher education programmes. With an intent to explore the effects of this change in the content and function of literature courses in teacher education, the current paper seeks to shed light on teacher educators’ views on literature education research and its use in literature teaching within teacher education programmes. It presents results from an interview study with 21 PhD holders in literature who are also teacher educators within the subject of English at Swedish higher education institutions. A thematic analysis of these 21 semi-structured interviews shows that the participants have limited experiences of doing literature education research and that some express mixed attitudes regarding the nature and quality of that research. It also shows that literature education research is not often incorporated in literature courses within teacher education. The paper presents these results and discusses some of their implications for teacher education and for the field of literature education research.