Words of Wonder

About the event

Enjoy hands-on activities, storytelling, discussion and readings in this celebration of the wonder of words.

Chat to academics in our ‘Living Library’ (1.30 – 3.30pm) exploring topics including:
- A Jane Austen Object Lesson with Professor Kathryn Sutherland
- The Ormulum with Dr Matthew Holford
- Write, Cut, Reuse: Repurposed manuscripts in medieval bookbinding with Jemima Bennett
- Kafka’s Transformative Communities with Dr Ian Ellison
- Cutting up Books in Renaissance England with Professor Adam Smyth
- Kafka & the Problem of Distraction with Professor Carolin Duttlinger
Experiment with words through black-out and magnetic poetry and collage
Listen to tales of wonder with storyteller Isy Mead, 1.30 – 2pm and 2.30 – 3pm
Have a blind date with a book
Create and recreate stories with collaborative writing and narrative games
Take a tour of Kafka: Making of an Icon and print your own themed keepsake
Design an Odradek, Kafka’s mysterious being, ‘extraordinarily mobile and impossible to catch’

Transfiguration: the power of music and dance with MuMo Creative and Dance for Parkinson’s

11.30am – 12.30pm
Performance and workshop

Experience a synergy of sound, movement and creativity in this workshop co-created by MuMo Creative and their Dance for Parkinson’s group. Drawing inspiration from Kafka’s metamorphosis, the workshop combines live music, dance and creative exercises to boost physical and mental wellbeing, and to celebrate the transformative effects of dance and music.

Visitors are welcome to watch or join in!

MuMo Creative is an Oxford-based charity that offers creative dance, music and movement sessions to promote the physical and mental health of older people with age-related health conditions. This workshop is led by MuMo Creative’s music director Nia Williams and artistic directors Roosa Leimu-Brown and Louisa Dalton.

Talks in the Sir Victor Blank Lecture Theatre

'Kill your darlings': the cutting room floor of literature

11 – 11.20am

This taster talk by Dirk Van Hulle, curator of Write Cut Rewrite, explores notes and drafts by major authors to discover the things that did not make it into the published text.

Transformations Book Launch with the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize

2pm – 3pm

Stories can transform. Come and enjoy readings from prize-wining writers as we launch this special collection of original flash fiction stories from around the world.

You can also book to watch this talk online via Zoom.

The Making of… Beautiful Shells

3.15pm – 4pm

New publication Beautiful Shells puts the beautiful illustrations from a 200 year-old conchology by George Perry into the hands of modern audiences. The book was actively scorned by rival shell fanciers of the time and faded into obscurity.

Join the publisher, Samuel Fanous (Bodleian Library Publishing) and author, Mark Carnall (Oxford University Museum of Natural History) for a discussion about how the book came about - from discovery in the Bodleian Libraries’ special collections through to final publication. The process meant deciding how to present the images in an updated work and making a thousand painful decisions about what to write (and not write) about the shells within.