Welcome to the Spotlight Newsletter.
We took advantage of a return to a more ‘normal’ Michaelmas Term this year with a full schedule of lectures, student socials and exhibitions in the foyer, and a huge variety of inspiring research seminars and events. Jeanette Winterson held her first lecture as Visiting Professor of Creative Media on ‘The Word-Zoo’, exploring language in the time of tabloids, TikTok, conspiracy cults, Brexit, and AI. You can watch a recording of her lecture on our website. Some of our students were also lucky enough to join creative writing workshops with Jeanette Winterson where she discussed everything from stalking your characters home to writing with your whole body.
We also welcomed back Alice Oswald for her final year as Professor of Poetry. She held a lecture on ‘Meandering Fortune-graphs’, a conversation between the Book of Job and David Jones’ In Parenthesis. Keep an eye out for dates for her next lectures; the final one will take place in Oxford's Natural History Museum.
Other stand-out events this term have included ‘Sancho’s Britain’ with Paterson Joseph; the new twice-termly Laura Marcus Life-Writing workshops (a collaboration with the Oxford Centre for Life Writing); and the Astor lecture and workshops with Professor Ardis Butterfield.
There was a new season of the Ten-Minute Book Club, led by Dr Alexandra Paddock, which is available to browse on our website. The book club aims to offer a quick and accessible way into some of the greatest writing by extraordinary writers from all backgrounds. New research projects led by Faculty members include Virtual Chaucer and Their Finest Hour, both of which you can find out more about later in this newsletter. Other Faculty-led projects have also been busy: Prismatic Jane Eyre and TRACTION have created teaching resources based on their research, and in July, the first instalment of the Murray Scriptorium was published.
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