Oxford Conference on the Teaching of Literature

The Oxford Conference investigates what it means to teach an increasingly international English language and literature, and also considers the contribution that literature can make to intercultural awareness. It takes place in March/April each year with a different theme (apart from 2008). (Currently, the planning of further Oxford Conferences are on hold.) 

In 2006 we looked at recent developments in post-colonial theory; at what the fast-changing international context means for literature as a channel for intercultural understanding; how far we can say that there is a ‘standard’ form of English and that this is what we should be teaching; and what are the challenges of texts produced in unfamiliar cultural contexts, for both teachers and students?
 

In 2007 52 delegates from 34 countries attended the Oxford Conference, which had the theme was Reading lives: the literature of life and the life of literature in intercultural education. It investigated the meanings of life for literature in English. The event addressed the many ways in which the concept of 'Life' offers a provocative, problematic but indispensable model for talking about Literature - and Literature offers such powerful means to explore and understand Life.

Speakers have included writers and academics such as Jonathan Bate, Peter Childs, Rachel Cusk, Victoria Glendinning, Andrew O'Hagan, Blake Morrison, Ankhi Mukherjee, Grace Nichols, Anne Whitehead, George Szirtes, Romesh Gunesekera, Patience Agbabi, Valentine Cunningham, Margaret Drabble, W. N. Herbert, Ali Smith, D. J. Taylor and Colm Tóibín.

For more information about the Oxford Conference see the British Council Literature Department website.