The Oxford conference uses lectures and workshops to explore current theoretical issues and teaching practice, and is aimed specifically at those teaching English literature overseas.

Firing the Canon
New ways to approach the English literary syllabus

Corpus Christi College, Oxford
1 - 7 April 2001

What is the canon today and how is it changing?

How can we change or modify the conventional syllabus to suit contemporary needs and interests?

Are there new and more dynamic ways of approaching poetry, fiction and drama?

Can literature teaching be enhanced through the use of film and multi-media technology?

How can new critical approaches help?

These were just a few of the questions that were addressed by the Sixteenth Oxford Conference on the Teaching of Literature. Over the course of a week, we drew on the experience and expertise of a wide range of professional practitioners, including creative writers, academics and the participants themselves. Particular themes and features included talks, workshops, readings and a social programme including a literary walking tour of Oxford.

The chairs were Stephen Regan of Royal Holloway College, University of London and Lizbeth Goodman of the Institute for New Media Performance, University of Surrey. Stephen Regan is the author of Philip Larkin (Macmillan, 1992) and the editor of The Politics of Pleasure (Open University Press, 1993), the New Casebook on Philip Larkin (Macmillan, 1997) and The Eagleton Reader (1998). His latest book is The Nineteenth-Century Novel: A Critical Reader (Routledge, 2001). Lizbeth Goodman is the author of Contemporary Feminist Theatres (Routledge, 1993), the editor of Gender and Literature (Routledge, 1996), The Routledge Reader in Gender and Performance (1999), and the co-editor with W.R.Owens of Shakespeare, Aphra Behn and the Canon (Routledge, 1996). Her latest book is Sexuality in Performance: Replaying Gender in Theatre and Culture (Routledge, 2001).

Among those invited to contribute were academics and critics Elleke Boehmer, John McRae, Roger Moss, Kiernan Ryan, Bob Stein and Peter Widdowson, and the writers Patience Agbabi, Andrea Ashworth, Tony Harrison and Bernard MacLaverty.