Open Day for prospective students: 18 September 2026

The University of Oxford's 2026 Open Days will be held on Wednesday 1, Thursday 2 July, and Friday 18 September.  

On these dates, the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities will be open from 9am – 4pm. All talks will take place in the Schwarzman Centre. We will have a stall in the atrium from 9am – 1pm, where you can meet current students and ask them your questions.   

You can register for the Open Days on the University website. Registration for our Open Days is not compulsory, but you will receive lots of useful information about the event and about applying for undergraduate study at Oxford. 

Provisional programme for talks at the English Faculty on Friday, 18 September: 

10:30 – 10:55: English Taster Lecture, Professor Marion Turner (Lecture Theatre, Basement Level) 

'Chaucer, T.S. Eliot, and Zadie Smith: Influence, Adaptation, and Medieval Modernity’ 

This talk explores some of the ways in which earlier literature has shaped and influenced later texts, in the context of the scope of the Oxford undergraduate course. Taking Chaucer as a case study, Prof Turner traces how his formal innovations impacted English literature, and how modernists such as T.S. Eliot used his work. She then focuses on what Zadie Smith did with Chaucer’s Wife of Bath in her 2021 play, The Wife of Willesden – in which Chaucer’s 14th century character becomes a 21st century Londoner, and an Arthurian story is transposed to 18th century Jamaica. 

Marion Turner is the J.R.R. Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall. Her books include Chaucerian Conflict (OUP, 2007), A Handbook of Middle English Studies (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). Chaucer: A European Life (Princeton, 2019) and The Wife of Bath: A Biography (Princeton, 2023). Her books have won several prizes and have been named as books of the year by many publications including The Sunday Times, the Times Literary Supplement, the New Yorker, BBC History, and The Times. She curated an exhibition, Chaucer Here and Now, at the Bodleian Library in 2023-2024. Prof Turner regularly speaks on the radio and TV, and at literary festivals, schools, and museums. You can hear her talk about Chaucer on Start the Week, Radio 4 here. 

11:05 – 11:30: English Taster Lecture, Professor Devyani Sharma (Lecture Theatre, Basement Level) 

‘From mead-hall to Southall: Cycles of social change in English speech’ 

This short interactive session uses old and new English speech styles to showcase regular cycles in language change. Social contact or upheaval generates changes that can be initially stigmatised, but as the next generation devises even newer registers, earlier innovations become unmarked, sometimes becoming the new standard. This cycle has repeated continually, from Anglo-Saxon, through Middle English, to Cockney and Multicultural London English.     

Devyani Sharma is Professor of Language and Communication in the English Faculty and a Fellow of the British Academy. She is the author of From Deficit to Dialect: The Evolution of English in India and Singapore, and her co-edited works include The Oxford Handbook of World Englishes and Research Methods in Linguistics. She has led several funded projects, including Generations of London , Accent Bias Britain, and Teach Real English!. She engages regularly with extern English al stakeholders and has appeared in Amol Rajan's documentary How to Crack the Class Ceiling, Michael Rosen's Word of Mouth, BBC's One Show, and Woman's Hour. 

11:45 – 12:30: Information Talk ‘English at Oxford’, Professor Sos Eltis (Concert Hall, Basement Level) 

This talk will cover the Oxford course, how it is taught, and how to apply. It will also feature a short mock interview with a current student.  

Sos Eltis is a Professor of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Oxford and a Tutor in English at Brasenose College. She is also Director of Undergraduate Admissions for the English Faculty. She teaches across Victorian, modern and contemporary literature, with a specialism in drama. Her publications include Revising Wilde: Society and Subversion in the Plays of Oscar Wilde and Acts of Desire: Women and Sex on Stage, 1800-1930. She has also edited a collection of Bernard Shaw’s plays, and has written articles on women’s suffrage, sensation and Gothic fiction, and on the plays of Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, Noel Coward, and Harold Pinter. S 

12:45 – 13:30: Humanities Joint Schools Q&A, Dr Mary Marshall 

Concert Hall, Basement Level 

Extra Information

Staff and current students will be present throughout the day to answer questions about the course, studying at Oxford, and the application process. We welcome students interested in joint schools (English and History; English and Classics; English and Modern Languages) to all of our talks. 

The Humanities library will also be open throughout the day. The Library holds the University’s main student lending collections for English Language and Literature, including American and postcolonial literatures. 

Parents are welcome to attend the Open Days, but to avoid overcrowding we would ask that they do not attend the lectures and talks. No booking is required. 

Any questions? Please email the English Faculty Outreach Co-ordinator at outreach@ell.ox.ac.uk