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 and field trip
This course explores how Tolkien’s early life, friendships and wartime experiences shaped the beginnings of Middle-earth. Rather than treating his legendarium as separate from history, the programme connects his creative work to the cultural background of the First World War and to the literary responses that followed it. Each day builds a fuller picture of how biography, creativity and conflict influenced Tolkien’s ideas and stories.
Monday
Life, Legendarium and History
The week begins with an overview of Tolkien’s life and early creative work. We consider what biographical criticism can contribute to our understanding of his writing and look at Tolkien as a young language creator, parodist and friend. The session concludes with the wider context of the First World War and its cultural impact, preparing us to understand how this period shaped his imagination.
Tuesday
The Birth of Middle-earth
This day focuses on Tolkien’s creative breakthrough in 1914, including the invention of Eärendil, and his experimental adaptation of the Finnish Kullervo story. We examine his army training and how the war deepened his appreciation for fairy stories. The programme also introduces the TCBS fellowship, a group of close friends whose shared artistic ambitions helped inspire Tolkien's early myth making.
Wednesday
The Battle of the Somme and the Breaking of the Fellowship
We then explore the Battle of the Somme, one of the most devastating military events in history. The session looks at what happened to Tolkien’s friends and at his own role as a battalion signal officer, and at his war poetry. Our discussion also considers the circumstances that led to Tolkien’s survival and how illness brought him out of active service.
Thursday
War Writing, Disenchantment and Re-Enchantment
Today we examine the cultural background to war writing, including propaganda, patriotism and poetry. We consider Arthur Machen’s The Bowmen (1914) and its influence on supernatural responses to the war, as well as the voices of the Great War poets. We conclude by looking at Tolkien’s work in terms of his own theory of escape, enchantment and recovery through fairy story.
An afternoon walking tour of Exeter College offers a chance to explore Tolkien’s undergraduate environment between 1911 and 1915.
Friday
The Book of Lost Tales and After
The final day turns to The Book of Lost Tales, the earliest form of The Silmarillion and investigates when Tolkien wrote The Book of Lost Tales. We consider how his creation myth can be read as a wartime manifesto for Middle-earth, and how the tales of Túrin and Tinúviel. Our week concludes by examining The Hobbit as a literary analogue to the British soldier.
