Oxford Fantasy Lectures

Thanks to following Professor Carolyne Larrington on Twitter I chanced upon the fact that Oxford University has a whole bunch of interesting lectures on the subject of fantasy literature that they ave made available for free online. Carolyne, of course, talks about A Game of Thrones, but there’s also a bunch of short introductions to other writers, plus some interesting longer pieces. There’s a great interview with my friend, Cathy Butler. There’s Margaret Kean on Phillip Pullman, and several other pieces, some of which involve Dimitra Fimi. One of the most interesting is Maria Cecire from Bard College giving a Black American woman’s view on the very English topic of rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge literary departments.

I haven’t managed to listen to them all yet, but I suspect that many of you will find them interesting. Some of the are a few years old now, but what they say is quite current. And the set is being added to. Carolyne says that she’s working on a piece on Sylvia Townsend Warner which I am very much looking forward to.

Access to the lectures is a little complicated. You can see some of them via the main Oxford podcasts site here. However, if you go through the Writers Inspire website then you get more choices, and a separation into those with audio only and those with slides, but not publication dates. Anyway, if you go through the latter route in the audio only you can find a great talk by Phillip Pullman on the creation of the Lyra’s Oxford book.

Enjoy!