Saturday
27th
January
at
3:00pm: Professor
Sandie
Byrne on 'Saki,
the Master
Story-Teller' in the
Woodstock Town Hall  Saki (the pen name of H.H.Munro) the master of the short story is famed for his black humour. His work is undergoing a major revival and will be discussed along with some of his contemporaries such as John Buchan and Rudyard Kipling. Professor Sandie Byrne has written a book on Saki and contributed to a TV film. She is a Fellow of Kellogg College at the University of Oxford and the Director of Studies in English Literature at OUDCE. Saturday
24th
February
at
3:00pm: Professor Roy Foster on Seamus
Heaney in the Woodstock Town Hall
 Roy Foster’s reflection upon the impact and legacy of Seamus Heaney will be forthcoming from Princeton University Press in the acclaimed Writers on Writers series in 2018. Professor Roy Foster is Emeritus Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Hertford College. Among his many publications is his celebrated two-volume biography of W.B.Yeats, and Vivid Faces: the Revolutionary Generation in Ireland 1880-1923.
Wednesday
21st
March
at 8:00 pm: Professor Nora Crook on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in the Woodstock Library
 2018 marks the bi-centenary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Romantic masterpiece which queried the direction of Romanticism. The cultural impact of this work cannot be over-stated: it inspired science fiction and many films and other works of art. Professor Nora Crook, Professor Emerita of Ruskin Anglia University, is a world-leading expert on the Shelley circle whose researches have led to the discovery of significant Shelley papers. Thursday
19th
April
at
8:00pm: Professor Fiona Stafford on The
Memory
of Trees in the Woodstock Town Hall
This talk will be based on the widely-acclaimed study of trees in European art, literature, and folklore written by Professor Stafford which formed the basis for her BBC Radio3 series in 2014. Fiona Stafford is Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford and the editor of Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads OUP 2013
Thursday
17th
May
at
8:00pm: Dr Daniel Tyler on The
Uncommercial
Traveller:
Stories
by
Charles
Dickens in the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Woodstock
 At
the pinnacle of his career,
at
the same time that
he was
writing
Great
Expectations
and
Our
Mutual
Friend,
Dickens penned a miscellaneous
series
of sketches
that
he gathered
together as
The
Uncommercial
Traveller.
Less
well
known
than his major novels,
these tales are
nevertheless
exemplary
of the humour,
social criticism
and lively
writing
for
which Dickens is famous.
This
talk explores
the blend of personal recollection,
travelogue,
and imaginative
fiction
that
makes this late
work
by
Dickens so distinctive. Dr Tyler will also discuss the thematic links between these sketches and the great novels which were contemporaneous with them Daniel Tyler is a Tutor and Fellow at Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge. He is currently editing Bleak House for the Clarendon Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens. His edition of The Uncommercial Traveller has recently been published. Wednesday
13th
June
at
8:00pm: Peter Kemp on 'Cluedo to Cadavers' in the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Woodstock
The
detective story-
famously said to
have
enjoyed a
golden age in the 1920’s
and 30’s-remains
an enormously
popular genre.
What
gives
detective
fiction
its
enduring
appeal? When
did it begin
and how
did it develop?
What
are
its distinctive
features
and who are
its chief exponents?
This
talk will look at
the genre
from
its origins
with Edgar
Allan Poe
and Conan
Doyle
through
P.D.
James and Ruth Rendell
to
contemporary
writers. Peter Kemp is Chief Fiction Reviewer for The Sunday Times and its former Fiction Editor. He is a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He has published books on Muriel Spark, H.G.Wells, and Edith Wharton and edited The Oxford Book of Literary Quotations.
Wednesday
19th
September
at
8:00pm: Dr Tessa Roynon on Marilynne Robinson in the Woodstock Library
An
introduction
to
the novels
of this contemporary
great
American
writer,
whose novels
set in the
American
Midwest
in the middle of the 20th
Century
have
won
many
prizes
including the Pulitzer
and Orange
prizes.
Dr Rowan
Williams
has written
of her work:
“Robinson’s
is a voice
we
urgently
need to
attend
to
…” Dr
Roynon
will
discuss
Robinson’s
triptych:
Gilead,
Lila,
and
Home
with
a focus
on the latter. Dr
Tessa
Roynon
is a
Teaching
and Research
Fellow
at
the Rothermere
American
Institute
in the University
of Oxford.
Please note this change to the programme
in the Woodstock Town Hall November 2018 will mark the centenary of the armistice which brought peace at the end of the First World War. It therefore seems to be a timely occasion to hear an account of one of the most powerful and moving books written about that conflict: Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth (1933) which was instantly seen as speaking for the war generation. Brittain wrote her memoir as a former nurse, who lost her brother, fiance, and close friends in the conflict. Our speaker researched in the Brittain archives for many years and has written her biography. This talk echoes the talk we presented in 2014 to mark the start of the war in that both talks highlight the new roles of women at this time. Saturday
17th November
at
3:00pm: Dr David Grylls on Flaubert's 'Madame Bovary: the great European Novel?' in the Woodstock Town Hall
 The
title of this talk says
it all: this era-defining
novel will
be discussed as a work
in translation
for
all readers. Dr Grylls is a Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford and a former Director of Studies in Literature at OUDCE. His many books and articles include Guardians and Angels: Parents and Children in Victorian Literature; The Paradox of Gissing; and “The Savage Subtext of The Hound of the Baskervilles” in Sherlock Holmes in Context (2017). He reviews books for the Sunday Times. |
