Monday 1 April 2019

Stephen Law

What Am I Doing With My Life?
St Cross College 10:00am Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Richard Harries

Seeing God in Art: The Christian Faith in 30 Images
Weston Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Clare Hastings

Hold the Front Page! For the star of Fleet Street
St Cross College 12:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Adrian Tinniswood

The House Party: Leisure, Pleasure and the Country House Weekend
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 12:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Adam Kucharski

The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread and Why they Stop
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
John Guy

Gresham’s Law: The Life and World of Queen Elizabeth I’s Banker
Bodleian: Divinity School 12:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Alastair Lack

Literary Oxford with Alastair Lack
St John’s College 2:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Iain MacGregor

Checkpoint Charlie: The Cold War, the Berlin Wall and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth
Weston Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Anna Hope

Expectation
Bodleian: Divinity School 2:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind Chaired by Ian Goldin

The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Rob Hopkins

From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 2:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
David Miles

The Land of the White Horse: Visions of England
St Cross College 2:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Errol Fuller

Elephant
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 4:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Roger Crowley

Accursed Tower: The Crusaders’ Last Battle for the Holy Land
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Richard Hamilton

Tangier: From the Romans to The Rolling Stones
St Cross College 4:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Alessandron Bianchi

Art and Literature in Print: The Publishing Market in Tokugawa Japan
Weston Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Jonathan Sacks

Morality: Why We Need it and How to Find It
Sheldonian Theatre 6:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Adam Sisman

The Professor and the Parson: A Story of Desire, Deceit and Defrocking
Weston Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Jonathan Sumption

Trials of the State: Law and the Decline of Politics
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Faith Martin

The English Country Murder Mystery
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 6:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event

Festival information:

A stimulating and rewarding on-stage conversation; a lively informed and tolerant audience; privileged access to the great treasures of the Bodleian, and finally, wonderfully interesting dinner companions to help me conclude the best day I have enjoyed at any festival – anywhere.

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

The Oxford festival is the most elegant and atmospheric of literary festivals. It’s a pleasure to both attend and perform there.

Every literary festival stays in an author’s mind for slightly individual reasons. I shall remember the Oxford festival for: - the size of the audience: at the top end of the range - their intelligence – this makes a huge difference for a speaker. In the Oxford audience I encountered many experts in the field my book covered and even one of the ambassadors I’d quoted - the beauty and the grace of the place itself – incomparable - the willingness of my hearers to buy books afterwards; I’ve never sold more.

The Oxford Literary Festival has in my mind become the leading literary festival of the year. The organisation, the roster of speakers, the ambience and the sheer quality of it all is superb. May it now go from strength to strength each year stretching its ambition more and more. I believe it will.

I came away buzzing and reassured that we still have in this century a wide ranging community fascinated not just by famous authors (I’ve rarely seen so many concentrated in one place) but by challenging ideas and questions.

It was a privilege for me to visit the festival to receive the Bodley Medal. As an incidental blessing I saw Oxford at its most mysterious and atmospheric. It was a day of piercing cold and as I walked through the twilight from the Sheldonian to Christ Church, the streets were empty and the whole city was shutting itself away. Christ Church was silent except for the footfall of unseen persons around corners and the sounds of evensong creeping from behind closed doors. For the first time I understood thoroughly the power of college ghost stories.

I loved the whole atmosphere of the Oxford Literary Festival. From breakfast, alongside some of the attendees, who were talking books with each other a mile a minute, to the public event at The Sheldonian where everyone was lively and engaged – I felt I had arrived in a kind of literary heaven.