’Natural home for life writing’ launched in Oxford

The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing was launched at Wolfson College on 15 November

A new centre for life writing has been set up at Wolfson College.

The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing was launched at Wolfson on 15 November with an inaugural lecture and reception, held in association with the Faculties of English Language and Literature, History, Modern Languages and Music.

The centre aims to become the natural home of life-writing in Oxford and beyond, bringing together a rich variety of approaches to the writing and study of life stories and providing an outlet for people who write biography and memoir, and do research on life narratives. It will host events on themes related to life writing, invite visiting academics to pursue their research in Oxford and host graduate scholarships.

Professor Hermione Lee, an English academic who is president of Wolfson College and director of the Centre for Life Writing, said: ‘I am delighted to launch the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing – a Centre that will cross genres and boundaries, bringing together experts from across the University to make Wolfson College the natural home of life-writing in Oxford.

The centre is one of a series of ‘research clusters’ at Wolfson, which provide inspiring spaces for innovative forms of academic collaboration and thought and have already helped to enable research projects such as Classics Professor Donna Kurtz’s CLAROS collaboration. The Centre will host a lecture by 2004 Man Booker Prize winner Alan Hollinghurst, an international conference in 2013, regular lectures and seminars, and a lively Life Stories Society.

Michael Wood, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Princeton University, gave an inaugural public lecture at the launch of the centre to an audience of more than 100 people, which will be made available on Oxford Podcasts, iTunes U and the Wolfson College website.

Wolfson College is Oxford’s largest graduate college, having been founded in 1966. The Oxford Centre for Life Writing has been funded by the Dorset Foundation.