Themes

In this section, we have brought together and arranged by theme academic lectures, primary texts such as ebooks, and contextual material written for this project by contributors from the University of Oxford. You can explore a variety of historical moments and movements in literature, as well as some key debates and ‘approaches’ to literature. These are Open Educational Resources available free for use in education worldwide under the Creative Commons license. Once you have explored these collections, you might like to look at individual writers or explore our resources library.

If you are interested in learning more about contemporary writing from Britain, you can find many similar resources on the Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds website. This follow-on project focuses specifically on current Black and Asian British writing and covers topics such as: reading and identity; Britishness, migration and belonging; authorship, reception and other approaches to literature; and questions of book history. Great Writers Inspire at Home, a series of conversations with contemporary British writers about their work, is also available on the Oxford podcasts page.