Research

Life-writing involves, and goes beyond, biography. It encompasses everything from the complete life to the day-in-the-life, from the fictional to the factional. It embraces the lives of objects and institutions as well as the lives of individuals, families and groups.

Life-writing includes autobiography, memoirs, letters, diaries, journals (written and documentary), anthropological data, oral testimony, and eye-witness accounts. It is not only a literary or historical specialism, but is relevant across the arts and sciences, and can involve philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, ethnographers and anthropologists.

Recent areas of interest in life-writing studies include the relation of biography to scientific discovery. Life-writing is also an integral part of studies relating to the Holocaust, genocide, testimony and confession, and gender and apartheid.

Lives in Medicine

The project has been granted pump-priming funding by the John Fell Fund and Dr Jacek Mostwin to develop a major grant application from the Oxford Centre for Life Writing at Wolfson College (OCLW), in conjunction with the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutes, the Oxford e-Research Centre, and the Wolfson College Digital Research Cluster. The major project will seek to improve the quality and ethical environment of medicine by directing the public, the medical and related professions, policy-makers and the medical industries to engage with and learn from the lived experience of patients and practitioners. Read more...

Re:Dress Women Composers

With Radio 3’s excellent focus on programming women composers since 2015, there has been an increasing awareness of the gaps in our knowledge of works written by women. Orchestras and ensembles have been trying to programme more works by women, with a commitment from orchestras such as Southbank Sinfonia to programme 20 pieces by women in 9 months. The Women Composers Project will offer a focal point for researchers and institutions across the world. The project aims to change our understanding of the canon of classical music, and its overwhelmingly male appearance. It will allow access to a whole new repertoire of music by women, presented using innovative and state-of-the-art technologies, and accessible to everyone from school children to managers of professional orchestras. Read more...