News

The OU and University of Zagreb launch the first Croatian chatbot about reading
9th February 2022
A collaboration between academics from The Open University (OU) and the University of Zagreb has launched the first Croatian chatbot about reading.
Stitches and Stories: Transforming Psychology research into textile art
18th January 2022
Inspired by Professor John Dixon’s ESRC-funded Belfast Mobility Project (BMP), The Belfast Quilt, devised by Dr Heather Richardson, is a stunning piece of collaborative textile art - in the form of a patchwork quilt made of upcycled Irish linen.
Creative Writing academic joins the inspiring line-up for Creative Coalition Festival 2022
17th January 2022
Dr Emma Claire Sweeney, Lecturer in Creative Writing for the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), will be among the fantastic line-up of speakers for this year’s Creative Coalition Festival.
Launch of Creative Writing Handbook for Health Care Workers
28th May 2021
The Creative Writing Handbook for Health Care Workers is the result of The Open University and North Tees and Hartlepool Foundation Trust joining forces on a pilot to establish whether creative writing practice could reduce stress with Health Care Workers.
OU English & Creative Writing co-organise 2020 Annual International Vernon Lee Society Lecture
25th November 2020
This year’s annual International Vernon Lee Society Lecture, supported by HOBAR and the IES, was provided by Dustin Friedman (Assistant Professor of Literature at American University in Washington, DC) on October 14, 2020. Friedman’s paper entitled ‘“Sinister Exile”: Queer Myth and Aesthetic Teleology in Walter Pater and Vernon Lee’ contemplated Pater’s ‘Gods in Exile’, Lee’s ‘Dionea’ and the limitation of Western aesthetic ideals.
Michael Rodgers' monograph shortlisted for The European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) Book Award
27th July 2020
Michael Rodgers' (Honorary Associate and Associate Lecturer in English) monograph Nabokov and Nietzsche: Problems and Perspectives (Bloomsbury, 2018) is one of three shortlisted for The European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) Book Award for junior scholars.
Bookshelves in the Age of the COVID-19 Pandemic conference
8th July 2020
As COVID-19 forces us to work from home and attend endless online meetings, our bookshelves are suddenly on public display. An online conference this November will be critically examining this particular cultural phenomenon
Spenser in the Lockdown: Means of Gladsome Solace?
7th July 2020
Richard Danson Brown is a Professor of English Literature at the OU. In this blog, he discusses the work of Edmund Spenser, written in the 16th century, during the height of the plague. Find out what his writing tells us about that experience
Reading for wellbeing on board the Torrens
29th June 2020
Helen Chambers is an Honorary Associate in English at the OU. She explores the role that reading played for those embarking on epic voyages to Australia in the late nineteenth century, namely those who travelled on the purpose-built passenger clipper the Torrens
Books for Travel in a Time of Crisis: the Word Deployed by Ward and Solnit
8th June 2020
In a series by the OU and Institute of English Studies, Professor Sara Haslam highlights the literature of Mary Ward and Rebecca Solnit, two authors who 'simultaneously appreciate the basic connectedness between members of this human race'