2011 Oxford Literary Festival
| Event Name | 2011 Oxford Literary Festival |
| Start Date | 2nd Apr 2011 |
| End Date | |
| Duration | N/A |
| Description | We are proud to support the Oxford Literary Festival again this year and to provide our iconic buildings as venues for some of the Festival's activities. For bookings please visitwww.OxfordLiteraryFestival.com. 12 noon: Dr. Sarah Thomas, Bodley’s Librarian The Future of the Bodleian Libraries Libraries today are at the epicentre of change as the Internet transforms the speed and mode of the dissemination of ideas. The Bodleian is embracing the future with a revitalising renovation of the New Bodleian Library, created 70 years ago as a storehouse for books, into a welcoming public space for exhibitions and cultural programmes and as a destination for researchers engaged in advanced scholarship using special collections. Simultaneously the Bodleian is building a digital infrastructure to support the mission of the University of Oxford. Dr Sarah Thomas, Bodley's Librarian, will present an illustrated vision of the future of the Bodleian. 16.00: D.R. Thorpe, Philip Ziegler, Vernon Bogdanor The panel will include D.R. Thorpe, biographer of Harold Macmillan, Philip Ziegler, biographer of Harold Wilson and Edward Heath, and Kenneth O Morgan, biographer of James Callaghan. Each speaker will select material from the prime ministerial collections in the Bodleian Library and explore what they reveal about the prime minister, their papers and the times in which they lived. The discussion will be chaired by Professor Vernon Bogdanor, editor of a recent book on postwar British prime ministers. Items selected from the Bodleian's prime ministerial collections by the panel will be on display. This event will last one hour and a quarter. 18.30: Mr Tom Phillips In 1902, the post office allowed personal messages as well as addresses on the backs of postcards. In addition, the proliferation of photographic studios and the mass production of the Box Brownie meant that, for the first time, ‘ordinary’ people could afford to own their portraits, and to have them replicated as a photo postcard for only a penny a card. An industry was born. Within the studio, individuals could choose how they were presented through a variety of dramatic props, theatrical backdrops or costumes. Over 50,000 photo-postcards from this era (1900-1950) have been collected and thematically arranged by the artist Tom Phillips. This archive, recently acquired by the Bodleian Library, is now featured in a series of books, designed and assembled by Tom Phillips. The first four books Readers, Women & Hats (already published), Weddings and Bicycles (both due for publication in May) feature lots of pictures of real and anonymous people under the various headings. Sunday 3 April 12 noon: Dr Stephen Harris, Druce Curator of the Oxford University Herbaria; University Research Lecturer, Dept. of Plant Sciences Examining the changing role of the garden in Britain from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century, Dr Harris will look at the reasons behind the explosion of interest in what Darwin called the ‘abominable’ mystery of plants, and the rise of horticulturalists’ obsession with the cultivation and domination of plant species. The talk will be illustrated with rarely-seen botanical images from the Bodleian Libraries and herbaria in the University of Oxford, among the finest in the world. 14.00: Daisy Hay Shattering the myth of the Romantic poet as a solitary, introspective genius, Daisy Hay reveals the communal existence of the astonishingly youthful circle who gathered around Percy Shelley, Leigh Hunt and Lord Byron in the decade following 1813. Her Young Romantics offers tales of love, betrayal, sacrifice and friendship, all of which were played out against a background of political turbulence and intense literary creativity. She also reveals the central part played in the drama by Elizabeth Kent, Leigh Hunt's sister-in-law, a writer and botanist. And among the wide range of manuscript and archival sources on which she draws is a recently-discovered fragment of memoir by Claire Clairmont, who accompanied the Shelleys on their honeymoon and later became Byron's mistress. 16.00: Ashley Jackson, Professor of Imperial and Military History at King’s College, London and David Tomkins, Project Manager, Mapping Crime beyond the John Johnson Collection, Bodleian Library Illustrating Empire: Images from the John Johnson Collection The Bodleian Library holds a significant collection of ephemera related to the British Empire as seen by generations of people in their everyday lives. This talk will consider some of the themes (e.g. emigration and settlement; imperial authority; exploration and knowledge; travel and communications) encountered in studying the Empire and Britain’s connection with the non-European world, using a selection of evocative illustrations from the Bodleian’s John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera. |