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10 Dec 24 | Job & Opportunities
Invitation for researchers: Medieval Afterlives Season Workshop
Date: Tuesday 21 January, 13.00-14.00, with lunch provided from 12.30 (Lunch and refreshments provided)
Location: Colin Matthews Room, Radcliffe Humanities (and online via MS Teams)
This is an invitation to attend a session to brainstorm ideas for a Cultural Programme Season on Medieval Afterlives. Prof. Marion Turner (English), Prof. Henrike Lähnemann (MML), Prof Nancy Thebaut (History of Art), and Prof. Elizabeth Eva Leach (Music) are already collaborating with the Cultural Programme on possible opportunities for the season and we are keen now to extend an invitation to others to join the conversation.
The aim of the session is to explore and test the potential for the season and bring together researchers who could be involved in shaping and delivering it.
The focus of the season will be on contemporary creativity, while also centring Oxford’s extraordinary medieval resources where appropriate – our manuscripts, instruments, objects, architecture, and spaces. This season might engage with novelists, poets, musicians, graphic artists, puppeteers, playwrights, actors, composers, designers, children’s book writers, textile workers, cartoonists, computer game programmers, AI technology, and more.
We would like the season to be ambitious and international while also engaging grass-roots, local communities, especially schools and young people. It will be wide-ranging, inclusive, accessible, innovative, and fun.
We also want to be open about the dark side of medieval appropriations in recent years, especially by the far right, and to examine and counter these narratives. While we want to bring in high-profile writers and artists, we also want to celebrate the creativity of everyone, including students. The season would be likely to take place circa 2028.
One overarching question might be whether this kind of contemporary creativity is an end in itself, or a gateway to the medieval past.
Please come along to this initial group meeting for all interested parties, which will be structured around the question:
What has medieval research to do with contemporary creativity?
If you have something you would like to share or discuss in advance, please feel free to reach out to the researchers who are already involved or the Cultural Programme via justine.shaw@humanities.ox.ac.uk.
Please RSVP to: culturalprogramme@humanities.ox.ac.uk with ‘Medieval Afterlives Workshop’ in the subject line by 7 January 2025.
We hope to see you on 21 January 2025
John Fulljames
10 Dec 24