Welcome to the Spotlight Newsletter.
This Trinity Term is Professor Marion Turner's final term as Chair of the English Faculty Board. We are sad to see Professor Turner step down as Chair, but look forward to welcoming Professor Simon Horobin who will take over the role in October. Alongside her tenure as Chair, Professor Turner curated an exhibition on Chaucer Here and Now at the Bodleian Libraries and published an accompanying book. We wish her a very well-deserved rest this summer!
We also say farewell to David Baddiel who has held the role of Visiting Professor of Creative Media this year. You can watch him in conversation with Professor Robert Douglas-Fairhurst on our YouTube channel. He also held a creative writing workshop with a lucky group of undergraduates in Trinity Term.
Our Faculty members have been busy in the past few months with events, exhibitions and other public engagement activities. Professor Dirk Van Hulle is co-curator of the Write Cut Rewrite exhibition at the Bodleian's Weston Library which runs until January 2025. Read our Spotlight on Research section below to find out more. A.E Stallings has continued her termly lectures as our current Professor of Poetry. You can watch all her talks on the Oxford podcast site.
Their Finest Hour, a research project led by Professor Stuart Lee, has launched an online archive with over 25,000 newly uncovered artefacts from the Second World War. The archive contains a remarkable range of stories and objects that capture both the extraordinary and everyday lives of those who experienced the war.
Professor Lynda Mugglestone has also featured in the press in recent months as the curator of a new exhibition: Desks, Drudgery and the Dictionary: Samuel Johnson’s Garret Lexicography at Dr Johnson's House in London. The star attraction of this exhibition is Johnson’s ‘dictionary desk’ which was gifted to Pembroke College in 1867. However, Professor Mugglestone's research has raised questions of its authenticity. You can visit the exhibition and make up your own mind on whether or not the desk is a fake.
In Michaelmas Term we have some extremely exciting events planned, in particular Teju Cole’s Clarendon lectures (29 October, 31 October, 5 November, 7 November) and Kathryn Schwarz’s Wells Lectures (12, 14, 19, 21 November). Keep an eye on our website event page for further details.
Read on to find out more about current research projects at the Faculty and meet our staff and alumni. You can also read profiles of two of our students – both of whom happen to be medievalists this time.
