Oxford Scholars Program Seminars
Students select one seminar to dive into for the three-week program. Mornings at Oxford are spent in 12-person seminars taught by British university scholars—tutors, as they are known in Oxford—who are experts in their field. These gifted and experienced instructors are passionate about sharing their knowledge.
2026 Seminars
The Art and Architecture of the English Medieval Church | Dr. Gillian White
Course Description: This course reveals the beautiful legacy of the art and architecture of the English medieval church. We’ll follow the stylistic developments of cathedral and abbey architecture from the Romanesque to the Perpendicular styles and also look at some of the smaller gems, the parish churches and chapels that served the daily needs of the faithful.
We’ll also enjoy a range of decorative arts including stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, metalwork, tomb sculpture, and England’s most prestigious output, the fine embroideries known as Opus Anglicanum. How were these objects made, how did they assist worship, and what can they reveal about medieval English society? Amidst the straightforward narratives, what secret fears lurk in the shadowy edges of this world?
We will also think about the patrons, the men and women who commissioned the buildings and artefacts. Who were they and what might their motivations have been?
About the Tutor: Dr. Gillian White specialises in the history and visual arts of late medieval and sixteenth-century England. After completing an M.A. in Medieval Studies at York University, she worked for the Warwickshire Museum and the National Trust, before studying for her PhD and turning to lecturing. She taught for some years at Leicester University and in the continuing education departments at Warwick and Bristol. She has been teaching here in the Department for Continuing Education at Oxford University for nearly eighteen years, as well as freelance lecturing, and has been involved with this summer school for over a decade.
Recommended Reading:
Ayers, Tim (ed). The History of British Art 600-1600 (Tate Publishing 2008)
Cannon, Jon. Medieval Church Architecture (Shire Publications 2014)
Orme, Nicholas. Going to Church in Medieval England (Yale University Press 2022)
Field Trips and Associated Cost: Field trips may include visits to Odda’s Chapel, St. Mary’s Priory, Gloucester Cathedral with the Stonemason’s Yard, Winchester Cathedral, and St. Mary’s Church. Seminar and field trip fee $385.
We’ll also enjoy a range of decorative arts including stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, metalwork, tomb sculpture, and England’s most prestigious output, the fine embroideries known as Opus Anglicanum. How were these objects made, how did they assist worship, and what can they reveal about medieval English society? Amidst the straightforward narratives, what secret fears lurk in the shadowy edges of this world?
We will also think about the patrons, the men and women who commissioned the buildings and artefacts. Who were they and what might their motivations have been?
About the Tutor: Dr. Gillian White specialises in the history and visual arts of late medieval and sixteenth-century England. After completing an M.A. in Medieval Studies at York University, she worked for the Warwickshire Museum and the National Trust, before studying for her PhD and turning to lecturing. She taught for some years at Leicester University and in the continuing education departments at Warwick and Bristol. She has been teaching here in the Department for Continuing Education at Oxford University for nearly eighteen years, as well as freelance lecturing, and has been involved with this summer school for over a decade.
Recommended Reading:
Field Trips and Associated Cost: Field trips may include visits to Odda’s Chapel, St. Mary’s Priory, Gloucester Cathedral with the Stonemason’s Yard, Winchester Cathedral, and St. Mary’s Church. Seminar and field trip fee $385.
The Ethics and Philosophy of AI | Benjamin H. Lang
Course Description: The advent of modern AI technology represents no less than a Promethean step in human evolution. Its rapid uptake and sudden ubiquity in application comfortably puts it in league with other paradigm-shifting, general-purpose technologies like harnessed electricity, telephones, and the internet. Despite its nascence as a technology, AI already sees regular and widespread use in cybersecurity, advertising, criminal justice, social media, personal finance, administration, customer service, and healthcare, to name a few notable industries.
This course covers a series of ethical issues and philosophical questions introduced, exacerbated, or complicated by the advent of artificial intelligence technologies. Readings will explore both contemporary quandaries posed by current AI technology, as well as those expected to emerge as AI technology is further developed.
During seminars, students will engage in open dialogue both with the tutor and with each other. Conversations will consider the philosophical arguments for and against various propositions about the nature, purpose, and moral permissibility of AI technology, and be expected to articulate and defend their own views in response.
About the Tutor: Benjamin H. Lang studied Philosophy at Furman for his undergraduate studies, before obtaining a Masters in Bioethics at New York University. Shortly after, the tutor spent several years working at Baylor College of Medicine on NIH and AHRQ-funded grants at the intersection of AI and Ethics in cardiology care. He is now in the final year of his PhD at the University of Oxford dissertating on the Philosophy of AI, a topic he has taught extensively through the Department for Continuing Education as well as various study-abroad programs through the University of Oxford.
Recommended Reading:
Danaher, John. Automation and Utopia: Human Flourishing in a World without Work (Harvard University Press 2019)
Liao, S. Matthew, ed. Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (OUP USA 2020)
Bostrom, Nick. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (OUP Oxford 2014)
Field Trips and Associated Cost: Field trips may include visits to The Bodleian Library and Oxford Museums, Bletchley Park / The National Museum of Computing (Milton Keynes area), and The Centre for Computing History. Seminar and field trip fee $329.
This course covers a series of ethical issues and philosophical questions introduced, exacerbated, or complicated by the advent of artificial intelligence technologies. Readings will explore both contemporary quandaries posed by current AI technology, as well as those expected to emerge as AI technology is further developed.
During seminars, students will engage in open dialogue both with the tutor and with each other. Conversations will consider the philosophical arguments for and against various propositions about the nature, purpose, and moral permissibility of AI technology, and be expected to articulate and defend their own views in response.
About the Tutor: Benjamin H. Lang studied Philosophy at Furman for his undergraduate studies, before obtaining a Masters in Bioethics at New York University. Shortly after, the tutor spent several years working at Baylor College of Medicine on NIH and AHRQ-funded grants at the intersection of AI and Ethics in cardiology care. He is now in the final year of his PhD at the University of Oxford dissertating on the Philosophy of AI, a topic he has taught extensively through the Department for Continuing Education as well as various study-abroad programs through the University of Oxford.
Recommended Reading:
Field Trips and Associated Cost: Field trips may include visits to The Bodleian Library and Oxford Museums, Bletchley Park / The National Museum of Computing (Milton Keynes area), and The Centre for Computing History. Seminar and field trip fee $329.
[WAITLIST ONLY] Winston Churchill: Stateman, Prophet and Chronicler | Dr. Michael Redley
Course Description: During the three weeks, participants will explore Winston Churchill's career as a soldier, politician, journalist and historian, and as a central figure in British life in the first half of the twentieth century. They will consider his books, journalism and speeches as well as the way he is represented today in popular culture, not least film. Outings will take place to Blenheim Palace where he was born, to the War Rooms under Whitehall in London, the scene of the Darkest Hour, and, above all, to his own family home at Chartwell, with its views he loved over the Weald of Kent.
Churchill adhered to ideas of the mid-Victorian Liberalism long after most had rejected them as obsolete, and he was considered by his own contemporaries as trapped by history as much as he was steeped in it. But his influence as a shaper of events was profound. We consider the sources of his effectiveness as a peacetime politician and war leader, the part played in his life by ideas of empire, and why he was extraordinarily perceptive on the issue of totalitarianism, with its significance today.
Churchill once wrote, ‘Words are the only things which last for ever’, and he produced a torrent of them throughout his long life. It has become increasingly evident in recent years that his part as a prophet and a chronicler was no less important for his influence than his role as a politician. He reacted against much in the modern world, and we will see how this makes him controversial now just as he was in his own lifetime.
About the Tutor: Michael studied anthropology and economics as well as history. Doctoral work was on European farming settlements in East Africa. He has had a career in public administration in Britain, as a civil servant in the Treasury and in Defence, and in ‘quango’ agencies responsible for regulating commercial media, including television and radio, and in the administration of the University of Oxford. For more than fifteen years, he has taught at all levels in the University’s Department for Continuing Education, mostly on historical topics in the twentieth century, touching particularly on political leadership, social and economic issues, war, propaganda and culture.
Recommended Reading:
Churchill, W.S. My Early Life (Eland 2022)
Addison, PO. Churchill: The Unexpected Hero (OUP 2006)
Reynolds, D.Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the leaders who shaped him (Collins 2023)
Clarke, P. Hope and Glory: Britain 1900-2000, chapters 1-7
Field Trips and Associated Cost: Field trips may include visits to Blenheim Palace, Chartwell, and The War Rooms in London. Seminar and field trip fee $462.
Churchill adhered to ideas of the mid-Victorian Liberalism long after most had rejected them as obsolete, and he was considered by his own contemporaries as trapped by history as much as he was steeped in it. But his influence as a shaper of events was profound. We consider the sources of his effectiveness as a peacetime politician and war leader, the part played in his life by ideas of empire, and why he was extraordinarily perceptive on the issue of totalitarianism, with its significance today.
Churchill once wrote, ‘Words are the only things which last for ever’, and he produced a torrent of them throughout his long life. It has become increasingly evident in recent years that his part as a prophet and a chronicler was no less important for his influence than his role as a politician. He reacted against much in the modern world, and we will see how this makes him controversial now just as he was in his own lifetime.
About the Tutor: Michael studied anthropology and economics as well as history. Doctoral work was on European farming settlements in East Africa. He has had a career in public administration in Britain, as a civil servant in the Treasury and in Defence, and in ‘quango’ agencies responsible for regulating commercial media, including television and radio, and in the administration of the University of Oxford. For more than fifteen years, he has taught at all levels in the University’s Department for Continuing Education, mostly on historical topics in the twentieth century, touching particularly on political leadership, social and economic issues, war, propaganda and culture.
Recommended Reading:
Field Trips and Associated Cost: Field trips may include visits to Blenheim Palace, Chartwell, and The War Rooms in London. Seminar and field trip fee $462.
[WAITLIST ONLY] Collectors, Controversies, and Classical Antiquities | Dr. Steve Kershaw
Course Description: From the ‘Elgin marbles’ to Grecian urns, Greek and Roman art is greatly admired, and with good reason. It has also been highly sought after by collectors, from Roman times to the 21st century. On this course we will primarily explore the activities and attitudes of British collectors of classical antiquities during the Enlightenment, or ‘Long’ 18th Century, and explore the wider influence of this process up till the present day. We will also examine the types of ancient artworks that were the object of their interest, notably inscriptions, vases, architecture and sculpture, and, in so doing, attempt to make the beauty and desirability of Greek and Roman art more readily accessible and comprehensible.
Our explorations will start by considering Greek and Roman attitudes to art and its acquisition, and their impact on modern views about the ethics of ownership of art: Why do we value art? Who should "own" art? Does art have a fixed location where it belongs? What should happen to it in time of war? When should the victors in war allow the defeated to retain their art, and why should they? Why, and at what point, were viewers exhorted to see and understand ancient statues not as religious images but as works of art? Then, focussing principally on inscriptions and free standing sculpture, students will explore the establishment of the classical collections of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford through the personalities of Arundel, Roe, Pomfret, Ashmole, Tradescant and others. We will then turn to the activities of the Society of Dilettanti, as we concentrate particularly on James ‘Athenian Stuart, Nicholas Revett and Richard Payne-Knight. The British diplomat, connoisseur and archaeologist Sir William Hamilton, whose fine collection of Greek vases and antiquities was sold to the British Museum and helped to generate English interest in the art of the classical civilisations will provide the subject of the third phase. General Napoleon Bonaparte’s extensive and systematic looting of the Italian peninsula, and the response of the Duke of Wellington, leading to the restitution of priceless artworks to the Vatican, gives our studies an international aspect, until finally, turning to architectural sculpture, we will explore the activities of Charles Robert Cockerell at Aegina and Bassai, and Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, on the Acropolis in Athens, engaging with their influence on the British, Ashmolean, Munich, and New Acropolis Museums.
In order to experience some of the evidence at first hand, we will take field trips that will tie in with our studies, to the British Museum, Shugborough Hall and the Wedgwood Museum, Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, and Charles Ede, one of the world’s leading dealerships for works of ancient art from Egypt, Greece and the Roman Empire. Our ultimate goal is to undertake an interesting, enjoyable and relevant learning experience that will develop skills of observation and analysis with further applications in study, work and leisure.
About the Tutor: Dr. Kershaw is a tutor for the University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education, a lecturer for the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a Guest Speaker for various cultural travel companies. Steve has spent over 35 years travelling extensively in the world of the Ancient Greeks and Romans both physically and intellectually. He was an expert contributor to the History Channel’s Barbarians Rising series, and his publications include A Brief Guide to Classical Civilization; Barbarians: Rebellion and Resistance to the Roman Empire; The Harvest of War: Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis; and Mythologica - an award-winning children’s book on Greek Mythology.
Recommended Reading:
Constantine, D. In the Footsteps of the Gods: Travellers to Greece and the Quest for the Hellenic Ideal (revised paperback edn.) . (London, 2011)
Cuno, J. (ed.) Whose Culture? The Promise of Museums and the Debate Over Antiquities (Princeton & Oxford, 2009)
St.Clair, W. Lord Elgin and the Marbles (Oxford & New York 1983)
Field Trips and Associated Cost: Field trips may include visits to The British Museum, Shugborough Hall, the Wedgwood Museum, Sir John Soane’s Museum, and Charles Ede Gallery. Seminar and field trip fee $406.
Our explorations will start by considering Greek and Roman attitudes to art and its acquisition, and their impact on modern views about the ethics of ownership of art: Why do we value art? Who should "own" art? Does art have a fixed location where it belongs? What should happen to it in time of war? When should the victors in war allow the defeated to retain their art, and why should they? Why, and at what point, were viewers exhorted to see and understand ancient statues not as religious images but as works of art? Then, focussing principally on inscriptions and free standing sculpture, students will explore the establishment of the classical collections of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford through the personalities of Arundel, Roe, Pomfret, Ashmole, Tradescant and others. We will then turn to the activities of the Society of Dilettanti, as we concentrate particularly on James ‘Athenian Stuart, Nicholas Revett and Richard Payne-Knight. The British diplomat, connoisseur and archaeologist Sir William Hamilton, whose fine collection of Greek vases and antiquities was sold to the British Museum and helped to generate English interest in the art of the classical civilisations will provide the subject of the third phase. General Napoleon Bonaparte’s extensive and systematic looting of the Italian peninsula, and the response of the Duke of Wellington, leading to the restitution of priceless artworks to the Vatican, gives our studies an international aspect, until finally, turning to architectural sculpture, we will explore the activities of Charles Robert Cockerell at Aegina and Bassai, and Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, on the Acropolis in Athens, engaging with their influence on the British, Ashmolean, Munich, and New Acropolis Museums.
In order to experience some of the evidence at first hand, we will take field trips that will tie in with our studies, to the British Museum, Shugborough Hall and the Wedgwood Museum, Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, and Charles Ede, one of the world’s leading dealerships for works of ancient art from Egypt, Greece and the Roman Empire. Our ultimate goal is to undertake an interesting, enjoyable and relevant learning experience that will develop skills of observation and analysis with further applications in study, work and leisure.
About the Tutor: Dr. Kershaw is a tutor for the University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education, a lecturer for the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a Guest Speaker for various cultural travel companies. Steve has spent over 35 years travelling extensively in the world of the Ancient Greeks and Romans both physically and intellectually. He was an expert contributor to the History Channel’s Barbarians Rising series, and his publications include A Brief Guide to Classical Civilization; Barbarians: Rebellion and Resistance to the Roman Empire; The Harvest of War: Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis; and Mythologica - an award-winning children’s book on Greek Mythology.
Recommended Reading:
Field Trips and Associated Cost: Field trips may include visits to The British Museum, Shugborough Hall, the Wedgwood Museum, Sir John Soane’s Museum, and Charles Ede Gallery. Seminar and field trip fee $406.
[WAITLIST ONLY] Shakespeare’s Women | Lynn Robson
Course Description: ‘Maid, widow, wife’: women had limited social roles in Shakespeare’s England, but he used his all-male company of actors to give them dramatic roles of depth and complexity, challenging himself as a playwright, and widening our understanding of what it means to be human. Shakespeare forms his women characters and their stories through their interactions with their male counterparts showing that although there may be fewer of them, their dramatic power is never secondary.
In this course we’ll explore the full range of Shakespeare’s roles for women, from Tamora, the vengeful empress (Titus Andronicus), to Hermione (The Winter’s Tale), a wronged queen fighting for justice; a cross-dressed Rosalind playing with her temporary freedom (As You Like It), and Isabella, (Measure for Measure) facing impossible choices as she struggles to reconcile faith and family; from the silenced Lavinia, to Paulina’s searing eloquence; from Cleopatra’s mature seductiveness (Antony and Cleopatra), to the power of Perdita’s youthful promise. We’ll use stage and screen adaptations to think about how Shakespeare’s characters and the dilemmas they face still seem to be ‘for all time.’
As we read the plays against the backdrop of the cultural, political and social worlds Shakespeare inhabited, we’ll consider the lives of ordinary and extraordinary women in early modern England: not only Elizabeth I (exceptional in so many ways), but the roles, and expectations of women such as Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, and his daughters, Susannah and Judith.
This course is open to all-comers, to ‘the great variety of readers’: if you already know something about Shakespeare, come and find out more; if you’ve always wanted to study him, then this is the class that will introduce you to the world’s greatest playwright.
About the Tutor: Lynn Robson is Fellow Emerita in English Literature at Regent’s Park College, and an Honorary Academic Associate of Oxford Lifelong Learning. She specialises in 16th and 17th Century literature, and teaches Oxford Lifelong Learning students, from those attending summer schools to part-time undergraduates, as well as Masters’ and Doctoral students. She’s currently working on a book on Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall Trilogy.
Recommended Reading:
Titus Andronicus
As You Like It
Measure for Measure
Antony and Cleopatra
The Winter’s Tale
Additionally, the tutor highly recommends watching the plays as part of preparation for this course.
Titus Andronicus There are several excellent versions of this available: Julie Taymor’s film Titus, starring Anthony Hopkins; Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre directed by Lucy Bailey (2014) (Globe Player), and RSC (2017), directed by Blanche McIntyre, available via Marquee TV – a month’s subscription is £8.99, cancel anytime.
As You Like It: Shakespeare’s Globe (2009), available on Globe Player.
Measure for Measure RSC production (2019) is available on Marquee TV- a month’s subscription (cancel anytime) is £8.99.
Antony and Cleopatra: Shakespeare’s Globe (2014), on Globe Player
The Winter’s Tale There are very few available recordings of this play. One to recommend is an RSC production from 1998, directed by Gregory Doran and starring Antony Sher. It is available on DVD from Amazon. A recent Shakespeare’s Globe production is available on Globe Player.
Field Trip and Associated Costs:Field trips are TBC. Seminar and field trip fee will show on the final invoice, ranging from $400-$600.
In this course we’ll explore the full range of Shakespeare’s roles for women, from Tamora, the vengeful empress (Titus Andronicus), to Hermione (The Winter’s Tale), a wronged queen fighting for justice; a cross-dressed Rosalind playing with her temporary freedom (As You Like It), and Isabella, (Measure for Measure) facing impossible choices as she struggles to reconcile faith and family; from the silenced Lavinia, to Paulina’s searing eloquence; from Cleopatra’s mature seductiveness (Antony and Cleopatra), to the power of Perdita’s youthful promise. We’ll use stage and screen adaptations to think about how Shakespeare’s characters and the dilemmas they face still seem to be ‘for all time.’
As we read the plays against the backdrop of the cultural, political and social worlds Shakespeare inhabited, we’ll consider the lives of ordinary and extraordinary women in early modern England: not only Elizabeth I (exceptional in so many ways), but the roles, and expectations of women such as Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, and his daughters, Susannah and Judith.
This course is open to all-comers, to ‘the great variety of readers’: if you already know something about Shakespeare, come and find out more; if you’ve always wanted to study him, then this is the class that will introduce you to the world’s greatest playwright.
About the Tutor: Lynn Robson is Fellow Emerita in English Literature at Regent’s Park College, and an Honorary Academic Associate of Oxford Lifelong Learning. She specialises in 16th and 17th Century literature, and teaches Oxford Lifelong Learning students, from those attending summer schools to part-time undergraduates, as well as Masters’ and Doctoral students. She’s currently working on a book on Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall Trilogy.
Recommended Reading:
Additionally, the tutor highly recommends watching the plays as part of preparation for this course.
Field Trip and Associated Costs:Field trips are TBC. Seminar and field trip fee will show on the final invoice, ranging from $400-$600.
Understanding the Cosmos | Dr. Tim Barrett
Course Description: Is the cosmos finite or infinite? Do we inhabit the only universe? Did it all begin a mere 14 billion years ago? With the aid of images, imagination and discussion we uncover the fascinating history and mind-bending architecture of space and time, and in simple terms, the scientific methods and theories shaping our current understanding. This non-mathematical foundation encompasses the life and death of stars, dark matter, dark energy, exoplanets, the Theory of Relativity, and quantum mechanics. We will search for the echo of the Big Bang, and shudder at the thought of Black Holes, Heat Death and the Big Crunch. A great way to discover all-things cosmological via the most astounding discoveries humankind has ever made.
About the Tutor: Dr. Tim Barrett lectures in political history and the history of science and has been an Oxford University Department for Continuing Education tutor for almost twenty years. Tim is also an Honorary Research Fellow at Keele University, Staffordshire.
Recommended Reading:
Ferreira, P. The State of the Universe (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2006)
Greene, B. The Fabric of the Cosmos (Penguin Books, 2007)
Field Trips and Associated Cost: Field trips may include visits to Greenwich Observatory and Planetarium, Cavendish Laboratory Museum, Old Cavendish Laboratory and historic ‘Eagle’ pub in Cambridge. Seminar and field trip fee $322.
About the Tutor: Dr. Tim Barrett lectures in political history and the history of science and has been an Oxford University Department for Continuing Education tutor for almost twenty years. Tim is also an Honorary Research Fellow at Keele University, Staffordshire.
Recommended Reading:
Field Trips and Associated Cost: Field trips may include visits to Greenwich Observatory and Planetarium, Cavendish Laboratory Museum, Old Cavendish Laboratory and historic ‘Eagle’ pub in Cambridge. Seminar and field trip fee $322.
[WAITLIST ONLY] Dark Imaginings: Nineteenth-Century Gothic Literature | Dr. Emma Plaskitt
Course Description: Beginning in 1764 with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, the Gothic movement was initially a reaction to Enlightenment rationality and classical influence, and later an expression of the shock felt throughout Europe at the violence and terror of the French Revolution. Its conventions included ruined buildings, aristocratic villains, persecuted maidens, the supernatural, and the theme of physical and psychological imprisonment. A transgressive sub-genre of the novel, it evolved in the nineteenth century to reflect concerns about science, religion, race, gender, imperialism, and cultural degeneration. This course will briefly examine its origins before focusing on how and why the Gothic manifests in nineteenth-century British literature and art. We will examine and discuss its treatment by the Romantics (Coleridge, Byron, and the Shelleys) who associated it with creativity and imaginative freedom, as well as Victorian writers such as Le Fanu, Hardy, Doyle, Stoker, Wilde, and Stevenson. How does the so-called female Gothic, exemplified by writers such as the Brontës, Gilman, and Eliot differ from the male? As well as providing “the luxury of a…frightened imagination” (Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey), why does the gothic genre lend itself so well to social commentary? Why do we remain fascinated with the forbidden? Enjoy being terrified? And what can this tell us about ourselves? These are some of the questions we will address as we look at a range of short stories, novellas, poetry exacts, and novels.
About the Tutor: Emma Plaskitt is a graduate of Merton College, Oxford, where she wrote her doctoral thesis on the eighteenth-century novel. She has taught English literature 1640-1901 for many Oxford colleges and Oxford Lifelong Learning programmes. Having worked for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, where she wrote various articles on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women writers, she now focuses on teaching and is a tutor and lecturer for the SCIO Study Abroad Programme, Oxford, and Stanford University at Oxford. A specialist in the literature of the long eighteenth century, her research interests include the Victorian novel—particularly the gothic and sensation novel.
Recommended Reading:
John Polidori. The Vampyre (novella)
Percy Shelley. Zastrozzi (novella)
Percy Shelley. St. Irvyne (novella)
Mary Shelley. Frankenstein
Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre
Sheridan Le Fanu. Carmilla (novella)
George Eliot. The Lifted Veil (novella)
Thomas Hardy. “The Withered Arm”, “Barbara of the House of Grebe” (short stories)
Arthur Conan Doyle. “Lot 249”, “The Case of Lady Sannox” (short stories)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman. “The Yellow Wallpaper” (short story)
Robert Louis Stevenson. Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde (novella)
Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray (novella)
Bram Stoker. Dracula (1897)
Field Trips and Associated Cost: Field trips may include visits to The National Gallery, The National Portrait Gallery, Newstead Abbey, Highgate Cemetery, and The Victoria and Albert Museum. Seminar and field trip fee $427.
About the Tutor: Emma Plaskitt is a graduate of Merton College, Oxford, where she wrote her doctoral thesis on the eighteenth-century novel. She has taught English literature 1640-1901 for many Oxford colleges and Oxford Lifelong Learning programmes. Having worked for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, where she wrote various articles on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women writers, she now focuses on teaching and is a tutor and lecturer for the SCIO Study Abroad Programme, Oxford, and Stanford University at Oxford. A specialist in the literature of the long eighteenth century, her research interests include the Victorian novel—particularly the gothic and sensation novel.
Recommended Reading:
Field Trips and Associated Cost: Field trips may include visits to The National Gallery, The National Portrait Gallery, Newstead Abbey, Highgate Cemetery, and The Victoria and Albert Museum. Seminar and field trip fee $427.
Britain and Empire: Ideas, Identities, and Power | Dr. Matthew Kidd
Course Description: Over three weeks, participants will explore the rise, nature, and legacy of the British Empire, focusing on the forces that sustained it and the consequences that it produced. We will examine the moral and political ideas that underpinned imperial rule, the role of commerce and industry, and the participation of people across the social spectrum in the making of empire.
The course will consider how Britain’s global reach transformed both those it ruled and the society at home – from the circulation of goods and ideas to the impact on politics, identity, and popular culture. Alongside this, participants will engage with the rich and often contested historiography of the empire, from older narratives of progress and civilisation to later interpretations that emphasise exploitation, violence, and cultural exchange.
Attention will also be given to Britain’s relationship with the United States as a former colony and emerging power, and to how historians have interpreted that transatlantic connection. Field visits will offer first-hand engagement with sites that embody imperial histories and debates, from Oxford’s collections to London’s museums and archives that record the governance of the empire.
About the Tutor: Dr. Matthew Kidd is a Departmental Lecturer at the University of Oxford, where he teaches modern British history. His research and teaching focus on the social and political thought of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain, and he has led major digital humanities projects exploring the Second World War and the use of AI in historical research.
Recommended Reading:
Coming soon
Field Trips and Associated Cost: Field trips may include visits to Ashmolean and Pitt Rivers Museums, British Museum, and the M Shed museum. Seminar and field trip fee $245.
The course will consider how Britain’s global reach transformed both those it ruled and the society at home – from the circulation of goods and ideas to the impact on politics, identity, and popular culture. Alongside this, participants will engage with the rich and often contested historiography of the empire, from older narratives of progress and civilisation to later interpretations that emphasise exploitation, violence, and cultural exchange.
Attention will also be given to Britain’s relationship with the United States as a former colony and emerging power, and to how historians have interpreted that transatlantic connection. Field visits will offer first-hand engagement with sites that embody imperial histories and debates, from Oxford’s collections to London’s museums and archives that record the governance of the empire.
About the Tutor: Dr. Matthew Kidd is a Departmental Lecturer at the University of Oxford, where he teaches modern British history. His research and teaching focus on the social and political thought of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain, and he has led major digital humanities projects exploring the Second World War and the use of AI in historical research.
Recommended Reading:
Coming soon
Field Trips and Associated Cost: Field trips may include visits to Ashmolean and Pitt Rivers Museums, British Museum, and the M Shed museum. Seminar and field trip fee $245.
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