The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing at Wolfson College

As part of its academic activities, and thanks to generous funding from The Dorset Foundation, Wolfson College is establishing the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing at Wolfson College.

The Centre for Life-Writing will be college-based, but connects outwards across Faculties and Divisions, with the involvement of members of University Faculties including English, Music, Medieval and Modern Languages, and History.

The Centre will draw together researchers from all over the University, and from the national and international community of scholars, writers, artists and scientists with an interest in the study of life-stories.

The term 'life-writing'goes wider than biography, though biography is a key part of a life-writing programme. It involves autobiography, memoirs, letters, diaries, journals (written and documentary), anthropological data, oral testimony, eye-witness accounts, and the many ethical and philosophical questions raised by the activity of narrating lives. It is not only a literary or historical specialism, but can involve philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, ethnographers and anthropologists. It crosses the arts and sciences. The relation of biography to scientific discovery is an area of increasing interest.
Life-writing is also an integral part of Holocaust, genocide, testimony and confession, and gender and apartheid studies.

Wolfson College already hosts the annual series of Life-Writing lectures in Hilary Term. This Trinity Term the College is holding its annual 'Life Stories Day', with auto/biographical presentations from many of the students and Fellows of the College, and the Art Society is showing an exhibition of 'Life Stories'. There are regular meetings of the student 'Life Writing' group. Several members of the Governing Body work in biography, and in other disciplines connected to auto/biography, such as visual anthropology, museum curating, genetics, and social sciences.

Building on these College interests and activities, the Centre for Life-Writing aims to draw together a rich variety of approaches to the writing and study of life-stories. The Centre proposes to run an annual series of lectures and seminars and a bi-annual international conference, and to invite visiting academics to Oxford to pursue their research. Wolfson College is also happy to host conferences or workshops on themes related to Life-Writing. A post-doctoral Fellow is to be appointed with administrative responsibilities, working with the Director of the Centre, Professor Hermione Lee. Graduate scholarships will be attached to the Centre.

Hermione Lee, President, Wolfson College Oxford.