The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing

Call for Papers for the Launch and Winter Symposium – “Writing Tasmanian Lives” 22–24 June 2022

Writing Lives is a new research program based in the School of Humanities at the University of Tasmania, harnessing existing expertise and building capacity in critical studies of life writing, biography, oral history, microhistory, history of ideas, memoir, and personal writing such as letters and diaries. Our program is working to foster dialogue about life writing as a form and genre that crosses disciplinary boundaries and embraces possibilities offered by texts, objects, and nonhuman as well as human lives.

oclw.web.ox.ac.uk

For the life-writing academics out there, here's a call for papers which may be of interest:

Life Writing, Creativity, and the Social (Bielefeld, 24-25 Jun 22) Much has been written in academia about narrating one’s own life and the lives of others that scholars have subsumed amongst others under life writing which includes a multiplicity of different (sub-)genres such as autobiography, biography or diary (see, e.g., Smith and Watson 2010). In the last d...

Richard Mabey is the 'bubbling wellspring of modern nature writing', as Alexandra Harris describes him in her introduction to this term's Weinrebe conversation.

Richard and Alexandra delve into a life-writing classic, Richard's biography of naturalist Gilbert White (1720-1793), which won the Whitbread Biography Prize in 1986. They discuss what drew Richard to write about 'this quiet curate of Selbourne' and the ways in which a writer's sense of place might shape their writing.

Here's the first full-length episode of our new podcast series, Writing Lives: Biography and Beyond

Richard Mabey & Alexandra Harris: Lives of Naturalists by Writing Lives: Biography and Beyond • A podcast on Anchor Celebrated nature writer Richard Mabey discusses the relationship between biography, nature, and place with literary critic Alexandra Harris. They delve into a life-writing classic, Richard's biography of the eighteenth-century naturalist Gilbert White, which won the Whitbread Biography Prize in 198...

Here's the trailer for our soon-to-be launched new podcast series, Writing Lives: Biography and Beyond, with absolutely beautiful cover art from Una of Una Comics (currently a Visiting Scholar at OCLW).

It launches on 6 May with guests including Plath biographer Heather Clark, nature writer Richard Mabey, and more.

Writing Lives: Biography & Beyond • A podcast on Anchor Join biographer Kate Kennedy and poet Katherine Collins as they talk to leading biographers and academics from around the world. From medieval records to social media trends, diaries to musical scores, they explore how we write about lives from every perspective. Find out more about OCLW: www.oclw.w...

News and new events from the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing - https://mailchi.mp/20a4ff40e39a/life-writing-news-michaelmas-1608791

For those interested, the Orient-Institut Istanbul has kindly invited OCLW enthusiasts to join their Spring lecture series, “Life Narratives and Gender: Voices of Women in the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean.”

Prof. Leigh Gilmore will give the opening lecture tomorrow, April 28th.

Please click here to view the full program:https://www.oiist.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/LIFE_NARRATIVES_BOOKLET_SPREAD.pdf

Sylvia Plath: An Iconic Life - https://mailchi.mp/f55cf430336a/life-writing-news-michaelmas-1601795

Heidi Williamson was part of a community that suffered an inconceivable tragedy, the Dunblane Primary School shooting. Her third collection, Return by Minor Road , explores the lasting impact of being an ‘incoherent bystander’.

http://ow.ly/v3dj50BLS5s

Rachel Mairs explores the potential of phrasebooks as a source for life-writing, taking as case studies several native Arabic speakers who worked closely with European archaeologists and missionaries in the nineteenth century.

http://ow.ly/g9DF50BKNA3

Life-writing frequently has to negotiate the non-verbal: the creative minds of composers, choreographers or artists; the sound and light of childhood; the world of animal experience. How can these worlds be captured in words?

http://ow.ly/2SFg50BKJqW

LIVE Writing prompt: Found in the news - https://mailchi.mp/e7c4ae28222a/welcome-to-the-live-writing-of-immeasurable-events-4764448