The open day will be hosted on Teams and will run as follows:

11:00 Welcome and Introduction

11:30 Two live lectures and a pre-recorded third

Reading Shakespeare’s Readers: or, Shakespeare Unbound - Professor Adam Smyth: "This lecture will think about Shakespeare's plays and poems as books that were bought and read. How can we find out how readers in the 16th and 17th centuries read Shakespeare? And how might this change how we think about Shakespeare's writing today?"
Sherlock Holmes and Dorian Gray: Truth, Art and Immorality - Dr Sos Eltis: "Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray were commissioned for Lippincott's over the same dinner with the magazine's editor. This lecture will look at the crucial differences and surprising similarities in the attitudes to truth, beauty and crime that made Holmes an icon of justice and Dorian a poster-boy for corrupt aestheticism."
Whose Language is it Anyway? Variation, Change and the History of the English Language(s) - Dr Nikolas Gunn [pre-recorded]: "People are inclined to feel like they ‘own’ their language, and often with good reason: the language we speak is central to the way we shape our identities and connect to others, anchoring us culturally to a specific time and place. English, however, is boundless in its variety. From the moment you pick up the epic Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf in your first term, studying English at Oxford will consistently challenge your notion of what English actually is. Drawing on examples from the earliest records of English to the present day, this lecture will explore the ways in which English has changed over time – and continues to change today."

12:30 Lunch break

13:00 Oxford Admissions session

13:30 Q&A with undergraduates

14:00 Optional Q&A for teachers

14:30 Closing remarks

State Schools' Open Day