The Bodleian Libraries (BODcasts)

Professor Richard Sharpe, Lyell Reader in Bibliography 2018-2019, gives the third lecture in the 2019 Lyell series. Part of the lecture series; Libraries and books in medieval England: the role of libraries in a changing book economy. The histories of libraries in medieval England offer an insight into the intellectual and cultural life of the period. This should not obscure the fact that books ma...

Professor Richard Sharpe, Lyell Reader in Bibliography 2018-2019 gives the second lecture in the 2019 Lyell series. Part of the series; Libraries and books in medieval England: the role of libraries in a changing book economy. The histories of libraries in medieval England offer an insight into the intellectual and cultural life of the period. This should not obscure the fact that books made for i...

Professor Richard Sharpe, Lyell Reader in Bibliography 2018-2019, gives the first of the 2019 Lyell lecture series. Part of the lecture series; Libraries and books in medieval England: the role of libraries in a changing book economy. The histories of libraries in medieval England offer an insight into the intellectual and cultural life of the period. This should not obscure the fact that books ma...

Learn about the conservation of unique Japanese items such as Naraehon, a Japanese genre of lavishly-illustrated literature from the fifteenth-eighteenth centuries.

Thinking 3D is an interdisciplinary exploration of the concept of three-dimensionality and its impact on the arts and sciences, co-investigated by Dr Laura Moretti and Daryl Green. This talk presents an overview of the entire project, offering a comprehensive understanding of the development of communicating three-dimensional concepts via two-dimensional media. This Byrne-Bussey Marconi Lecture wi...

A lecture for the Oxford Bibliographical Society and the Bodleian Centre for the Study of the Book, by Bodleian Printer in Residence, 2018, Emily Martin. Emily describes her artists' books using movable devices, and demonstrating the way these add to the meaning of the text.

An examination of the notebooks in which Mary Shelley drafted Frankenstein. These two notebooks, one purchased probably in Geneva, the second in England, are now kept in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. With: Miranda Seymour, biographer of Mary Shelley, Richard Ovenden, Bodley's Librarian, Stephen Hebron, curator and author of Shelley's Ghost Recorded on Saturday, 24 March, 2018, for Frankenreads 201...

A celebration of Tolkien and his creations, with special guests Dame Marina Warner, Prof Verlyn Flieger and Dr Dimitra Fimi. The panel of guests will consider the origins and the uses of myth-making as a literary genre, the motivation which lay behind Tolkien's own myth creation, and the rise in fantasy literature during his lifetime.

Julia Mattison (RBC Foundation-Bodleian Visiting Fellow at the Bodleian Libraries until 19 December 2018) gives a lecture on reading french in 15th century english. Fifteenth-century English libraries and private collections have long been known to contain manuscripts in French. Studies of these French manuscripts have often emphasized contemporary acts of translation into English. Instead, this t...

Dr Medha Saxena (Delhi, and Byrne Bussey Marconi Fellow), gives the 2018 annual Marconi lecture.

Eleanor Parker, Lecturer in Medieval English Literature, Brasenose College, Oxford, gives the fifth and final talk in the Tolkien: The Maker of Middle Earth lecture series. This lecture focuses on Tolkien and old norse. The language and literature of medieval Scandinavia and Iceland had a profound influence on Tolkien's imagination, and this talk will introduce the language through exploring some...

Mark Atherton, Senior Lecturer in English, Regent's Park College, Oxford, gives the fourth talk in the Tolkien: The Maker of Middle Earth lecture series. This lecture focuses on Tolkien and old english. Old English (Anglo-Saxon) is the early form of English which King Alfred spoke and in which Beowulf is written: as Professor of Anglo-Saxon, Tolkien taught this language, and as a writer he used it...

Elizabeth Solopova, Lecturer in English Literature, Christ Church, Oxford. Tolkien wrote that he was 'fascinated' with the 'beautiful' Gothic language that he started to study at school, and his literary works attest to this interest. The talk explores the influence of the history of the Goths and Gothic written tradition on Tolkien as a writer and scholar. This is the third talk in the Tolkien: T...

Tolkien once termed Welsh 'the elder language of the men of Britain'; this talk explores how the sounds and grammar of Welsh captured Tolkien's imagination and are reflected in Sindarin, one of the two major Elvish languages which he created. Mark Williams, Fitzjames Research Fellow in Old and Middle English, Merton College, Oxford gives the second talk in the Tolkien: The Maker of Middle Earth le...

This lecture is on Tolkien and middle english. Professor Carolyne Larrington, Tutorial Fellow in English Literature, St John's College, Oxford gives the first talk in the Tolkien: The Maker of Middle Earth lecture series. This lecture is on Tolkien and middle english. This series, convened by Dr Stuart Lee, presents five Oxford academics who examine the medieval languages that J.R.R. Tolkien studi...

Two hundred years after it was first published, Nick Groom explains the abiding appeal and extraordinary contemporary relevance of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. Far from being a supernatural Gothic fiction, he will show how deeply concerned the novel is with the most pressing scientific issues of its time, and how these continue to challenge us today in fields from artificial intelligence to...

Tom Shippey's lecture will move from the detail to the (eventual) design of Tolkien's languages, and even the philosophical issues embedded in Tolkien's fiction. Professionally speaking, Tolkien was a philologist, interested above all in the history and relationships of languages. Personally speaking, he was a self-declared 'niggler', who took immense pains over details. It was a vital moment when...

David Pearson, Lyell Reader in Bibliography 2017-18 and Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, University of London gives the fifth and final Lyell lecture on 8th May 2018.

David Pearson, Lyell Reader in Bibliography 2017-18 and Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, University of London gives the fourth Lyell lecture on 3rd May 2018.

David Pearson, Lyell Reader in Bibliography 2017-18 and Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, University of London gives the third Lyell lecture on 1st May 2018.

David Pearson, Lyell Reader in Bibliography 2017-18 and Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, University of London gives the second 2018 Lyell lecture on 26th April 2018.

David Pearson, Lyell Reader in Bibliography 2017-18 and Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, University of London, gives the first of the 2018 Lyell lectures on Tuesday 24 April 2018.

Jacob Ward, Bodleian Libraries Byrne-Bussey Marconi Fellow, Department of Science and Technology Studies, UCL, gives the 2018 Marconi lecture. The term 'wireless' has very different meanings today to what it meant in the early twentieth century. Today, it connotes mobility, flexibility, instantaneity, whereas previously it has connoted fixity - 'the' wireless - and spirituality, with transmitting...

This one-off print comprised text and drawing by artist and writer Tamarin Norwood, concluding her year-long residency at Spike Island Bristol, The Bodleian Libraries helped artist Tamarin Norwood to create an artwork 38 feet long, with text printed in a single continuous line using the replica 17th-century hand-press at the Weston Library for Special Collections.

Russell Maret talks about the development of the primary themes of his artist's books - alphabet design, colour printing, and geometric form, also the influences of history and technology on his methods and subject matter.