Some face-to-face events are returning. Check carefully for any requirements.

Oct 31 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm Blackwell's Bookshop
Blackwell’s are delighted to be hosting a special Hallowe’en event exploring black magic, with Thomas Waters and Lucie McKnight Hardy as they discuss their books ‘Cursed Britain: A History of Witchcraft and Black Magic in[...]
Nov 5 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm Wolfson College - Leonard Wolfson Auditorium
Join prize-winning author Olivia Laing in conversation with Professor Dame Hermione Lee. Olivia Laing is the author of To the River, The Trip to Echo Spring and The Lonely City. Her latest book, Crudo, is[...]
Nov 14 @ 5:15 pm – 6:45 pm Shulman Auditorium
Join Galician poet Chus Pato and Canadian translator Erín Moure for a reading from Chus Pato’s new book of poems, Un libre favor. The event marks the completion of their residency with The Queen’s College[...]
Nov 19 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm Wolfson College - Leonard Wolfson Auditorium
Biographer and critic Lucasta Miller will give this term’s lecture in memory of Harry M Weinrebe, philanthropist and founder of the Dorset Foundation. A former visiting scholar at the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing and Beaufort[...]
Dec 2 @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm Wolfson College
Join us for a reception to celebrate Elleke Boehmer’s new short story collection, with a reading of the story, ‘The Biographer and the Wife’, and a discussion of the biographer as a source of creative[...]
Jan 15 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Blackwell's Boookshop
Blackwell’s is thrilled to be welcoming Jenny Hartley, author of ‘Charles Dickens: A Very Short Introduction’ to explore all elements of one of our most popular authors. Why not make 2020 the year you pick[...]
Jan 23 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Blackwell's Bookshop
Make 2020 the year when you delve into Crime Fiction with this talk from best-selling author, Sophie Hannah, on her new book, Haven’t They Grown as part of our For Learning, For Life series. Synopsis:[...]
Jan 31 @ 5:45 pm – 7:00 pm Simpkins Lee Theatre, Lady Margaret Hall
Claire Tomalin was born in 1933 in London to an English mother, the composer Muriel Herbert (linnrecords.com), and a French father. After a somewhat disorganised wartime childhood she studied at Cambridge, married the journalist Nicholas[...]
Feb 4 @ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm Oxford Brookes University, Union Hall John Henry Brookes Building, Headington Campus
Discover how art can inflict both harm and harmony in this special live performance of Iris Murdoch’s Art and Eros. A panel discussion will follow a 45 minute play acted by Oxford Brookes University drama[...]
Feb 4 @ 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm Oxford Brookes University, Student Union Gallery
What’s it like to be haunted? Writer Jay Bernard’s augmented reality installation explores this question – unpicking how we can be haunted by our histories and our everyday lives. Listen to a reading while exploring[...]
Feb 19 @ 5:00 pm – 6:15 pm Oxford Martin School
In modern high-tech health care, patients appear to be the stumbling block. Uninformed, anxious, noncompliant individuals with unhealthy lifestyles who demand treatments advertised by celebrities and insist on unnecessary but expensive diagnostics may eventually turn[...]
Feb 21 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Kellogg, College
Lecture by Jinny Blom who has created over 250 gardens and landscapes, Laurent-Perrier garden which gained a Gold at Chelsea. Artist in Residence for Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, she is author of The Thoughtful Gardener:[...]
Feb 25 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm Wolfson College, Leonard Wolfson Auditorium
James Joyce by Richard Ellmann was described by Anthony Burgess as “the greatest literary biography of the twentieth century.” After making a case in support of this claim, I shall tell the story of the[...]
Feb 27 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm Lincoln College, Oakshott Room
Lincoln Leads is a series of seminars tackling a different theme every week. All are warmly invited to attend this year’s Shakespeare Seminar on February 27th which will explore the question ‘Can Editing Influence a[...]
Mar 10 @ 1:15 pm – 3:00 pm Wolfson College, The Buttery
Blake Gopnik’s definitive biography digs deep into the radical genius of Andy Warhol. Based on years of archival research and on interviews with hundreds of Warhol’s surviving friends, lovers and enemies, Warhol traces the artist’s[...]
Mar 14 @ 1:45 pm – 4:00 pm Friends Meeting House
Talk, followed by walking tour of the park. Jane Kilsby, local historian shares her recent research into this well-loved 19th century public park. Maximum 20
Mar 16 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm Wolfson College, Leonard Wolfson Auditorium
Please note that this event has been cancelled. Join novelist Sarah Moss and historian Sarah Knott in conversation with critic Merve Emre.
Mar 28 @ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm The Sheldonian
A conversation about life-writing and the Lives of Houses. With Hermione Lee, Roy Foster, Alexandra Harris, and Robert Douglas-Fairhurst.
Apr 7 @ 9:30 am – 6:00 pm Rewley House
An exploration of the work of prolific writer Jenny Diski, with a keynote lecture from Blake Morrison.
May 15 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Kellogg College
Lecture by Linda Farrar, a freelance researcher, lecturer and author of Ancient Roman Gardens. The art of gardening has a long history, with gardens being used in most ancient cultures to enhance living areas, and[...]
Sep 12 @ 10:30 am – 1:00 pm Lady Margaret Hall
Tea/coffee, biscuits on arrival in the Committee Room. Introductory talk from Sophie Huxley, Gardener, LMH, followed by tour of the garden. Parking for 5 cars only (priority to Blue Card holders). Maximum 20 persons
Oct 13 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Online
In this talk Natasha Randall explores the task of biographical research into the figure of the literary translator Constance Garnett. Translators notionally produce non-original text but are there aspects of their work, their semantic tendencies[...]
Oct 15 all-day Online
Narrative Futures is an interactive podcast featuring interviews with leading authors and editors in the speculative genre and writing prompts designed to support the imagination of better futures. Narrative Futures is the capstone podcast project[...]
Oct 23 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Kellogg College
Friday 23 October Lecture by Advolly Richmond. Thomas Birch was a trained botanist, and head gardener at Orwell Park, Ipswich, before travelling to the Gold Coast. He became part of the international network of correspondents[...]
Oct 27 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Online
Lt. Major Cecilia Diaconeasa was a Cold War secret police informant who in March 1983, several weeks after the birth of her baby daughter, was assigned to extract confessions from a woman suspected of collaborating[...]
Nov 3 @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm Online
This is the Weinrebe Lecture in Life-Writing for Michaelmas Term 2020. Hermione Lee, whose biography of Tom Stoppard is published by Faber on 1 October, talks about his life and work, and the challenges for[...]
Nov 10 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Online
In her mid-20s, Heidi Williamson was part of a Scottish community that suffered an inconceivable tragedy, the Dunblane Primary School shooting. Through poems about landscape and loss, the poems in her third collection, Return by[...]
Nov 17 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Online
Following her Research Forum talk in Trinity 2020, ‘The Elusive Subject: Biographies of Exiles’ Soledad Fox Maura returns to the OCLW programme for the launch of her first novel, Madrid Again (Simon & Schuster), in[...]
Nov 20 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Kellogg College
Lecture by Hanna Zembrzycka-Kisiel, Principal Major Applications Officer at South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse Councils. Hanna uses the research insights of her recent MA Thesis to explore the reality of poor urban design[...]
Dec 11 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Kellogg College
Lecture by Jane Owen, preceded by OGT’s Christmas drinks party. Jane Owen, Founder Member of OGT, avid gardener, garden historian and previously Deputy Editor of the Financial Times, gives us her personal take on garden[...]