Special Interest Event
Every Spring Christ Church hosts our Special Interest Event, where a group of specialists discuss the chosen topic in a series of lectures during the four-day event.
Thomas Hardy Literature and Context
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Thomas Hardy continues to elicit admiration and controversy almost a century after his death on the 11th Jan 1928. His daring depictions of female agency and desire, inspired by strong role models in his own life, attracted admiration from suffragists and feminists; his innovative style and subject matter - particularly his ardent advocacy of sexual and social freedom - was praised by leading modernist novelists and poets, and influences writers, pop musicians, film makers and even cartoonists across the world today.
Mainly situated in the semi-fictionalised region of Wessex, Hardy’s work offers us vivid portrayals of rural life, with its saturation in folk traditions and gothic horror and its appreciation of music, dancing, cider, the natural and ancient world.
The publication of his last great tragic, and most controversial, novel Jude the Obscure in 1895 (much of which is set in an imagined Oxford or ‘Christminster’) aroused such hostility that Hardy abandoned novel-writing altogether to concentrate on publishing shorter fiction and establishing himself as a poet, which he always declared to have been his primary ambition. Indeed, Thomas Hardy is one of the few great writers to enjoy an equally illustrious career across all three genres.
Join us for this Special Event as we explore some of Hardy’s best-known fiction and poetry, and its contexts, in the company of leading experts on his work. Issues such as sexual equality, university access, finding a basis for Christian faith in the modern world, and the complex relationships between death and desire, the past and the present, the place of Nature, the supernatural and archaeology remain as relevant today as they were in Hardy’s own time
Thomas Hardy Literature and Context — Online brochure, click to view and download
Booking details
The programme fee is £781.00 per person and the en-suite supplement is £107 per room.
The fee includes the full lecture programme, three nights’ accommodation, all meals, dinner wines and refreshments as timetabled. Gratuities are not expected.
Full payment must be made at the time of booking.
A full refund [subject to an administration fee] will be offered in the event of cancellations made up to and including 60 days prior to the start of the event. No refunds will be offered after this time.
All monies are held by Christ Church. Please direct enquiries to: Special Interest Event, The Steward’s Office Christ Church, Oxford, OX1 1DP Tel: +44 (0)1865 276174 Email: specialinterest@chch.ox.ac.uk