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
Nonsense, Romance and Myth Oxford’s Fantasy Pioneers
The week opens with early Oxford voices who helped define modern fantasy. We begin with Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland and explore how nonsense literature opened new creative possibilities. The focus then shifts to William Morris and his role in establishing heroic fantasy romance. The session concludes with an introduction to Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, linking these two later writers to the traditions they inherited.
Tuesday
The Worlds They Built
This day examines the two most influential secondary worlds to come out of Oxford. We consider Tolkien’s construction of Middle-earth as a full mythic system with its own histories and languages. We then turn to Lewis’s Narnia and its blending of moral allegory, fairy tale and religious meaning, expressed through talking animals and enchanted landscapes. Together, these works show two contrasting approaches to world-building.
Wednesday
Post-War Heirs and Their Themes
Attention then turns to later fantasy writers influenced by these predecessors. This session focuses on recurring post-war themes such as the existence of other worlds, the narrative uses of time travel and the continued centrality of children as protagonists. These motifs show how fantasy adapted to new cultural contexts and broadened its readership.
Thursday
Britain’s Mythic Imprint
Today we explore how British mythology shaped children’s fantasy in the later twentieth century. We consider the Wild Hunt in the works of Penelope Lively, Susan Cooper and Alan Garner. Arthurian traditions are examined through Cooper’s Dark Is Rising sequence. Discussion then turns to Garner’s Moon of Gomrath and The Owl Service and their engagement with local legend and supernatural folklore.
An afternoon walking tour offers the chance to visit Tolkien’s Merton College and Lewis’s Magdalen College, linking the course material to the places where these writers lived and worked.
Friday
Other Oxfords
On our final day we look at later writers who reimagine Oxford in modern fantasy. We begin with Penelope Lively’s use of the city through a historian’s perspective. We then consider Diana Wynne Jones’s Fire and Hemlock, followed by Lyra’s Oxford in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. Our course concludes with language and magic in R.F. Kuang’s Babel, showing how Oxford continues to inspire new interpretations of fantasy, scholarship and power.
