English Faculty Teachers' Conference 2025

The annual English Teachers' Conference, hosted virtually by the English Faculty at the University of Oxford, will take place online on the 8 February 2025 from 11am - 3pm. The conference is free to attend but booking is required. We will circulate the link to the talks after registration closes. If you have any questions, please email us at outreach@ell.ox.ac.uk.

Register for your free ticket via Eventbrite

 

Programme

11:00 – 11:05: Introduction and welcome from Professor Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, Director of Schools Liaison

11:05 – 11.30: Lecture and Q&A: Professor Ros Ballaster – ‘What is (in) a Context?’

The term 'contextus' derives from the Latin 'contextus': 'con' (together) and 'texere' (weave). A context is woven into a text. We will take a look at the different kinds of context you can bring to analysing a literary text: biographical; social and political; literary, cultural and generic. We will weigh up the relative importance of different contexts thinking about poetry published in the period of debates and legislation around the abolition of slavery in the late eighteenth century. You will learn more about the history and the literature of that time and its continuing relevance in our own context today: especially debates about critical fabulation as a necessary response to absent, partial, troubled and politically problematic archives.

11.30 – 11.55: Lecture and Q&A: Professor Adam Smyth – ‘Literature’s Material Forms’

Why should readers of literature be interested in the ways in which texts were produced, circulated, and consumed? How does thinking about media — manuscript, print or digital — help us notice new things about literary writing? What is the relationship between text and book? This short talk will offer some case studies that open up questions about the material forms that writing takes.

11:55 – 12:00: Break

12:00 – 13:00: Resources showcase

13:00 – 13:45: The Oxford Admissions Process: Talk and Q&A from Professor Sos Eltis, Director of Undergraduate Admissions

13:45 – 14:00: Break

14:00 – 15:00: Panel discussion – New Ways into English

15:00: Conference ends

For more related information and resources, please visit the English Faculty's 'For Teachers and Advisors' webpage, where you can sign up to receive our English Faculty Outreach newsletter for news about events and opportunities for teachers and schools.

 

Teachers Conference poster