Daily schedule
After registration on Sunday afternoon, we invite you to a welcome meeting in the Amersi Lecture Theatre in New Quad, where you will meet your tutors. Join us in Deer Park afterwards for our opening drinks reception, followed by dinner in Brasenose’s historic dining hall (informal dress).
Seminars take place on weekday mornings. Most afternoons are free, allowing you time to explore Oxford, enjoy a variety of optional social events (see details below), or to sit back and relax in one of the college's atmospheric quads.
Your course culminates on Friday evening with a closing drinks reception and gala farewell dinner at which Certificates of Attendance are awarded. For this special occasion smart dress is encouraged (no requirement to wear dinner suits or gowns).
Social programme
We warmly invite all Inspiring Oxford students to take part in our optional social programme, with all events provided at no additional cost. Events are likely to include:
- Croquet on the quad
- Chauffeured punting from Magdalen Bridge
- Expert-led walking tours of Oxford
- Optional visit to an Oxford Library or the Ashmolean Museum
- River Thames afternoon cruise
- Quiz night in the college bar
- Scottish country dance evening (where you do the dancing!)
Seminars
Monday
What is a Child?
In our first seminars we explore how childhood has been defined and how those definitions have shaped children’s literature. Were children simply small adults? Were they 'fresh from the hands of God', pure beings corrupted by adult society? Or, as Rousseau’s tabula rasa theory suggested, blank slates to be written upon? We will reflect on how these differing ideas of childhood influenced the forms and themes of children’s literature.
Tuesday
What is Good for a Child?
Today we examine early children’s literature, which often served moral and educational purposes. We will uncover the hidden diversity of the genre as it appeared in periodicals, pamphlets, political and religious materials, stage performances, and even in seemingly neutral educational toys. Through this, we will re-evaluate early bestsellers such as Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and the works of Isaac Watts and Anna Laetitia Barbauld.
Wednesday
The Golden Age of Children’s Literature
Often associated with fairy tales, nonsense, and classics like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this period is considered the 'Golden Age'. We will study how fantasy and escapism developed; were they acts of rebellion against moralizing texts or simply imaginative retreats? Today's seminars will explore the works of the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, alongside their surprising contemporaries, from Natural Histories to Catechisms. We will also look at the visual culture of the era – its illustrators, toys, games and magic lantern shows.
Thursday
Nostalgic Neverlands
This session turns to the darker, more serious side of children’s literature. We will explore stories that address war, illness and death, examining how they offered comfort and reflection. Texts include Peter Pan, The Wind in the Willows and Howl’s Moving Castle. We will ask how and why children’s literature can sometimes achieve more emotional or philosophical depth than adult writing, and why many return to these stories during times of hardship, such as pandemics or war.
Friday
Future Wonderlands
Children’s storytelling has become a vast global industry, spanning books, films, franchises, video games, and digital media. Recognising that children’s literature has always been multifaceted, our seminars today follow iconic stories like Alice in Wonderland into their modern forms. We will explore how these adaptations reveal the enduring cultural power of children’s storytelling and what they suggest about the future of human imagination.
