English Faculty, University of Oxford

25/09/2026

21/09/2026

Join us for our next English Faculty / Oxford World’s Classics Shakespeare webinar with Prof Emma Smith. This month we’ll be exploring RICHARD III with guest Susan L. Anderson (Mary Baldwin University), who wrote the introduction for the New Oxford Shakespeare edition of the play.

5 October
6-7.15pm (British Summer Time)
Online via Zoom

In the introduction, Susan L. Anderson details how Shakespeare’s telling of the final chapter in the Wars of the Roses has irrevocably shaped both the reputation of the historical figure of Richard III and the way disability is represented on stage and in fiction.

This is a free public event and everyone is welcome! Register via Eventbrite and you will be sent a link to the Zoom webinar: https://shakespeare-webinar-richard-iii.eventbrite.co.uk

The event is run by Oxford University’s English Faculty in collaboration with Oxford University Press, the publishers of the Oxford World’s Classics series. Oxford World’s Classics are proud to be publishing new editions of the works of Shakespeare. Learn more: https://pages.oup.com/trade/collection/86933dcpp/owc-shakespeare

17/09/2026

We look forward to welcoming everyone to the Oxford University Open Day tomorrow (18 Sept)! Come and visit the English Faculty in the Schwarzman Centre for taster lectures, info talks, and Q&As with current students!

No booking required: https://english.web.ox.ac.uk/event/open-day-for-prospective-students-18-september-2026

16/09/2026

Calling all English & Drama teachers!

We're delighted to invite English and Drama teachers from state schools to: 'Reimagining Ibsen's A Doll’s House: an event for English and Drama Teachers'

Join us for a performance of Burning Down the House, inspired by Henrik Ibsen’s 'A Doll’s House', with a pre-show discussion on how performance and adaptation can offer fresh perspectives on teaching the play.

30 September 2026
Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities

6.30pm: Preshow discussion with Professor Kirsten Shepherd, exploring the research and creative processes behind the show, and how performance and adaptation can offer fresh perspectives on teaching A Doll’s House.

7.30pm: Performance of Burning Down the House, with tickets free-of-charge for confirmed attendees.

Places are limited and this opportunity is for teachers currently working at UK state-funded schools and colleges. Please note that, while attendance and the performance ticket are free, we are unfortunately unable to cover travel or other expenses associated with attending the event.

Register for your place on Eventbrite:

We are delighted to invite English and Drama teachers from state schools to a special event at the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities at 6.30pm on 30 September, exploring Burning Down the House, a new theatre production by Breach Theatre inspired by Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.

03/09/2026

We’re excited about our next English Faculty Open Day for prospective students! If you’re interested in finding out more about studying English at Oxford, you will not want to miss this one!

In the morning, we have taster lectures from Prof Marion Turner on ‘Chaucer, T.S. Eliot, and Zadie Smith: Influence, Adaptation, and Medieval Modernity’ and Prof Devyani Sharma on ‘From mead-hall to Southall: Cycles of social change in English speech’.

We will then move into the impressive Sohmen Concert Hall for our Information Talk by Prof Sos Eltis, where you can learn more about the English course at Oxford, how it’s taught, and how to apply. Followed by a session on Humanities Joint Schools.

Our student ambassadors will also have a stall in the atrium to answer any questions you have about the English course or life in Oxford.

No booking required; please just turn up!

See the full programme on the English Faculty website:
https://english.web.ox.ac.uk/event/open-day-for-prospective-students-18-september-2026

03/09/2026

Congratulations to Dr Stephen Turton who has been awarded a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant for his project on James Murray and the Correspondence Networks of the Oxford English Dictionary, 1879–1915 (ENCOED).

ENCOED will create a digital edition of the letters of James A. H. Murray, the first chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1879 to 1915. Making the OED would not have been possible without the information Murray received about words, their meanings, and their origins from hundreds of scholars, authors, and volunteers writing to him from around the world. The largest collection of these letters—over 7,000—is held by the Bodleian Library. ENCOED will transcribe and publish the entire collection, using it to reconstruct and analyse Murray’s global web of correspondence through commentaries, maps, and network graphs.

The ERC’s Starting Grants aim to help researchers “develop ambitious ideas, build their own teams and establish their independence at a pivotal stage in their careers”. Dr Turton’s grant is one of 421 grants, worth a total of €705 million, awarded to early career researchers across Europe.

Dr Turton commented: “The OED remains a monumental work of human collaboration, and Murray’s letters reveal the passion, tenacity, and comradeship that first brought the dictionary into being. Getting to share the letters with the world through the Starting Grant is an immense privilege”.

13/08/2026

Prof Michèle Mendelssohn has co-authored an essay with Dr Charlie Tyson for the The Guardian on joyless decadence: ‘Why does everything feel so joyless? Welcome to the age of decadence without pleasure’

“The problem with contemporary culture isn’t that we’re too decadent. We have inherited the surfaces of decadence – luxury, excess, artifice, bodily display – but have surrendered the fin de siècle’s commitment to pleasure.”

Read the essay: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/26/age-of-decadence-pleasure-ai

(Link in bio)

11/08/2026

Congratulations to Professor Laura Ashe who has been awarded the New Chaucer Society’s 2026 Publication Prize for her book, Chaucer’s Ethical Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2025). The prize recognizes Professor Ashe’s book as Best Monograph on Chaucer published in 2024 or 2025.

During the congress’s closing event, outgoing society president, Professor Candace Barrington (Central Connecticut State University) recognized Professor Ashe’s winning book. The committee applauded Ashe for her enormous argumentative verve, which is clearly the product of long teaching of Chaucer. Her book’s unabashedly personal approach yields exhilarating and intense engagement with key philosophical questions that Chaucer’s poetry raises by way of two unusual interlocutors, Wittgenstein and Hegel. With its convincing arguments, delivered with force and supported by masterful close readings, the book attests to how such traditional methods of analysis, in concert with ideas that matter to us now, continue to yield groundbreaking contributions to Chaucer studies.

Professor Ashe commented: “I’m absolutely delighted with this honour, and tremendously grateful that my work has been recognized by such an impressive judging panel.”

The New Chaucer Society, a global academic organization founded in 1977, provides a forum for teachers and scholars of Geoffrey Chaucer and his age, a period roughly defined as 1300-1500. Its biennial congresses attract hundreds of members from around the world who share the latest scholarship and pedagogical techniques with one another. In addition, the 2026 Congress included plenaries on recent editions of Chaucer’s works, Professor Barrington’s Presidential Address, “Welcome the Stranger,” and Professor Holly Crocker’s NCS Biennial Lecture, “Chaucer’s Enchanted Subjects.”