Skip to main content
Home

Main navigation

  • Home
  • Series
  • People
  • Depts & Colleges
  • Open Education

Main navigation

  • Home
  • Series
  • People
  • Depts & Colleges
  • Open Education

Ursula K. Le Guin

Series
Fantasy Literature
Embed
A brief introduction to the writer Ursula K. Le Guin.
Caroline Batten offers a basic introduction to author Ursula K. Le Guin's life, work, and lasting impact on the genres of fantasy and science fiction. This ten-minute lecture is based on a talk given at 'Here Be Dragons': The Oxford Fantasy Literature Summer School in 2018.

Caroline Batten is a doctoral researcher in Old English and Old Norse literature at the University of Oxford. Her doctoral thesis is the first stylometric analysis of the Old English metrical charms, and her scholarship more broadly examines gender and sexuality in Old English and Old Norse texts in relation to magic and the supernatural, understandings of disease and the body, and performative speech. She earned her M.Phil from the University of Oxford and her B.A. from Swarthmore College, and currently teaches medieval English literature at Worcester College and St. John’s College, Oxford.

Episode Information

Series
Fantasy Literature
People
Caroline Batten
Keywords
fantasy literature
literary criticism
Le Guin
Left Hand of Darkness
Earthsea
science fiction
feminism
wizards
Department: Faculty of English Language and Literature
Date Added: 13/05/2020
Duration: 00:11:38

Subscribe

Download

T. H. White

Series
Fantasy Literature
Embed
A brief introduction to the writer T. H. White.
This short lecture introduces T.H.White, focusing on his Arthurian epic 'The Once and Future King' and its relation to Sir Thomas Malory’s 'Le Morte Darthur'.

Gabriel Schenk completed his DPhil at Pembroke College in 2014. His thesis analyses depictions of King Arthur, focusing on a period spanning the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries when the figure of Arthur became increasingly protean and multifaceted.

He lectures online at Signum University, teaching courses on cultural histories, Arthuriana, and the works of the Inklings. He has also taught small groups and individuals in Uganda, Poland, Turkey, and across the UK.
He is one of the founders and organisers of the Pembroke Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature – an annual lecture that promotes the study of fantasy, science-fiction, and other types of speculative fiction – and works for the literary estates of Owen Barfield and P.H. Newby.

Episode Information

Series
Fantasy Literature
People
Gabriel Schenk
Keywords
fantasy literature
Arthurian
literary criticism
Department: Faculty of English Language and Literature
Date Added: 12/05/2020
Duration: 00:10:11

Subscribe

Download

Diana Wynne Jones

Series
Fantasy Literature
Embed
A brief introduction to the writer Diana Wynne Jones.
This short lecture outlines Diana Wynne Jones’s early life, her major works, and a core element of her writing: the combination of different images and sources to create new, joyful stories.

Gabriel Schenk completed his DPhil at Pembroke College in 2014. His thesis analyses depictions of King Arthur, focusing on a period spanning the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries when the figure of Arthur became increasingly protean and multifaceted.

He lectures online at Signum University, teaching courses on cultural histories, Arthuriana, and the works of the Inklings. He has also taught small groups and individuals in Uganda, Poland, Turkey, and across the UK.
He is one of the founders and organisers of the Pembroke Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature – an annual lecture that promotes the study of fantasy, science-fiction, and other types of speculative fiction – and works for the literary estates of Owen Barfield and P.H. Newby.

Episode Information

Series
Fantasy Literature
People
Gabriel Schenk
Keywords
fantasy literature
oxford
literary criticism
Department: Faculty of English Language and Literature
Date Added: 12/05/2020
Duration: 00:10:42

Subscribe

Download

Why 'Game of Thrones' Matters

Series
Fantasy Literature
Embed
'Game of Thrones' and storytelling.
In 'Why Game of Thrones Matters', Carolyne Larrington discusses some reasons for the popularity of the HBO series, explores some of its principal themes and considers ways in which it both is – and isn't – like other epic fantasies.

Carolyne Larrington teaches medieval English literature at St John's College, Oxford. She is the author of 'Winter is Coming: the Medieval World of Game of Thrones' (Bloomsbury, 2015) and her new book on the show, 'All Men Must Die' is forthcoming from Bloomsbury later this year.

Episode Information

Series
Fantasy Literature
People
Carolyne Larrington
Keywords
fantasy literature
television
adaptations
Department: Faculty of English Language and Literature
Date Added: 12/05/2020
Duration: 00:56:42

Subscribe

Download

Re-Enchanted: The Rise of Children’s Fantasy Literature in the Twentieth Century

Series
Fantasy Literature
Embed
A guest lecture by Dr Maria Cecire (Bard College) discussing children's fantasy literature.
Maria Sachiko Cecire introduces the idea of an Oxford School of children’s fantasy literature, describing how J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis pushed back against "modern" cultural changes in the first half of the 20th-century through both the fiction they wrote while medievalists at the University of Oxford and as the architects of a new English curriculum that inspired future fantasy writers including Susan Cooper, Diana Wynne Jones, and Philip Pullman. Cecire addresses the after-effects of this legacy, with an emphasis on the colonialist fantasies of white male heroism that circulated in the genre well after the end of empire and 21st-century responses by authors (such as Junot Díaz) whose fiction reclaims enchantment for audiences often excluded by mainstream fantasy. This lecture has been adapted from material published by the University of Minnesota Press in Cecire's book 'Re-Enchanted: The Rise of Children’s Fantasy Literature in the Twentieth Century' (available at: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/re-enchanted).

Maria Sachiko Cecire is Associate Professor of Literature and Director of the Center for Experimental Humanities at Bard College (USA). She is the author of 'Re-Enchanted: The Rise of Children’s Fantasy Literature in the Twentieth Century' (University of Minnesota Press, 2019), and co-editor of 'Space and Place in Children’s Literature, 1789-Present' (Routledge, 2015) with Hannah Field, Kavita Mudan Finn, and Malini Roy.

Episode Information

Series
Fantasy Literature
People
Maria Cecire
Keywords
fantasy literature
oxford
literary criticism
Department: Faculty of English Language and Literature
Date Added: 12/05/2020
Duration: 00:48:24

Subscribe

Download

Interview: Catherine Butler

Series
Fantasy Literature
Embed
An Interview with Dr Catherine Butler, author of the book 'Four British Fantasists'.
An interview with Dr Catherine Butler (Cardiff University) by Will Brockbank (Oxford). Dr Butler has contributed much to fantasy literature studies, most notably her book 'Four British Fantasists'. The interview looks at the definition of fantasy, the 'Oxford School', the relationship between children's writing and fantasy covering a range of writers - J. R. R. Tolkien, Alan Garner, Susan Cooper, and Philip Pullman.

Will Brockbank is a DPhil candidate in Old English and Old Norse language and literature at Jesus College, Oxford. He fondly remembers childhood bedtime readings of 'The Hobbit' with his dad. Little did he expect back then that he would later do his MPhil in Medieval English at Pembroke College, where Tolkien was Professor of Anglo-Saxon from 1925 to 1945. When he is not grappling with 'Beowulf' and the 'Poetic Edda', Will is usually dreaming of the islands of the North Atlantic.

Episode Information

Series
Fantasy Literature
People
Catherine Butler
Will Brockbank
Keywords
fantasy literature
interview
literary criticism
Department: Faculty of English Language and Literature
Date Added: 12/05/2020
Duration: 00:34:27

Subscribe

Download

Alan Garner

Series
Fantasy Literature
Embed
A brief introduction to the British fantasy writer, Alan Garner.
This short lecture offers an overview of the fantasy writer Alan Garner's early fiction, from 'The Weirdstone of Brisingamen' to 'Red Shift', and traces several of Garner's mythological sources and the central themes of his work.

Felix Taylor is a DPhil candidate in English at St Hugh's College. His thesis explores the influence of Welsh mythology and folklore in twentieth-century British fiction.

Episode Information

Series
Fantasy Literature
People
Felix Taylor
Keywords
fantasy
fiction
British writers
literary
Department: Faculty of English Language and Literature
Date Added: 12/05/2020
Duration: 00:08:54

Subscribe

Download

Approaching Fantasy Literature

Series
Fantasy Literature
Embed
A short introduction to reading and studying fantasy literature.
This shortened version of a lecture seeks to introduce the listener to the concept of fantasy literature. It begin by looking at how one can define the genre of fantasy and what texts it might, or might not contain. We look at two standard approaches adopted by scholars - the chronological 'long history' of fantasy, and common tropes, structures, and motifs. The talk touches briefly on world-building and immersion, engaging with Tolkien's essay 'On Fairy-stories'.

Episode Information

Series
Fantasy Literature
People
Stuart Lee
Keywords
fiction
fantasy
literary criticism
Department: Faculty of English Language and Literature
Date Added: 12/05/2020
Duration: 00:29:47

Subscribe

Download

H. P. Lovecraft

Series
Fantasy Literature
Embed
A brief introduction to the writer, H. P. Lovecraft.
A brief introduction to the American writer H. P. Lovecraft, the master of 'weird fiction'. The talk explores the definition of fantasy literature, why Lovecraft could be considered a writer of fantasy, his life and stories, and critiquing his works.

Episode Information

Series
Fantasy Literature
People
Stuart Lee
Keywords
fiction
fantasy
american literature
Department: Faculty of English Language and Literature
Date Added: 12/05/2020
Duration: 00:18:37

Subscribe

Download

Fantasy Literature

Image
Fantasy Literature
Fantasy Literature has emerged as one of the most important genres over the past few decades and now enjoys extraordinary levels of popularity. The impact of Tolkien’s Middle-earth works and the serialisation of George Martin’s ‘Game of Thrones’ books has moved these and their contemporaries into mainstream culture. As the popularity grows so does interest in the roots of fantasy, the main writers and themes, and how to approach these texts.
Oxford is a natural home to fantasy literature with those who worked or studied here having written so many famous and influential texts (e.g. Lewis Carroll (C. L. Dodgson), C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Susan Cooper, Diana Wynne Jones, Alan Garner, and Philip Pullman to name but a few) – leading to the notion of an ‘Oxford School of Fantasy’. These lectures, short talks, and interviews seek to take listeners into these works and these writers and beyond.
All material released under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ .
[Artwork by Minjie Su.]

Subscribe

Pagination

  • First page
  • Previous page
  • …
  • Page 1593
  • Page 1594
  • Page 1595
  • Page 1596
  • Page 1597
  • Page 1598
  • Page 1599
  • Page 1600
  • Page 1601
  • …
  • Next page
  • Last page

Footer

  • About
  • Accessibility
  • Contribute
  • Copyright
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Login
'Oxford Podcasts' X Account @oxfordpodcasts | Upcoming Talks in Oxford | © 2011-2026 The University of Oxford