Oxford Literary Festival: A student volunteer's view
Oxford Literary Festival: A student volunteer's view
At author talks in the historic City of Spires, I found inspiration in the complexities of the English language
I spent two days volunteering at the Oxford Literary Festival as part of my Didcot Girls’ School Year 12 work experience, hosted by the Journalism and Publishing department of Oxford Brookes University.
Not only did the experience offer me a chance to interact with respected academics and authors, but it also gave me a new insight into the growing world of learning which Oxford itself is so famous for.
Before I volunteered at the Oxford Literary Festival, it did not occur to me just how much I would learn from sitting at the back of the author talks including that of renowned language expert David Crystal to groundbreaking authors Georgina Moore and Lauren Beukes.
As a volunteer, the stewarding system chose where I was needed. Luckily, I did not have to run around Oxford at lightning speed to find my station, as some of my peers did, but stayed in Weston Library opposite the Bodleian Library - the second largest library in Britain. This meant that I ended up sat at the back of lectures on topics I not only knew nothing on, but also had never even thought about.
The lectures, the language and the unexpected learning
From my perspective, this lack of choice was ultimately a very good thing, as it meant that I listened to a range of speakers, who didn't just know their topic like the back of their hand, but were also passionate enough about it to talk about it for a whole hour (as well as answering some involved questions from an audience equally enthralled by the topic at hand).
This way, I also surprised myself in how invested I became in some of these highly specific academic niches such as the changing nature of the English language through time. As the lecture went on, I found myself nodding along and engaging with the information.
Busiest isn’t best!
Greeting people at the door, as it turned out, gave me no way to gauge how interesting I would find the lecture topic myself. Completely countering my assumption made before my time as a volunteer, the busiest lectures were not always the ones I found most interesting.
The first example of this that comes to mind is that of the very last event I attended, interviewing two authors - Georgina Moore and Lauren Beukes - about the mother-daughter relationships in their books. This was the quietest lecture of all the events I attended, and my colleague certainly got her daily steps in carrying the roving mic around to the audience spread few and far between the seats in the hall.
I found myself completely engaged by the way both authors spoke about their work, telling the stories without directly reading any of their own writing. Their pride in their work just spoke for itself.
Overall, in my experience at the Literary Festival, I have a newfound appreciation not just for broad and discussable topics, but also the niche sub-topics which many people find so much joy in talking about. It seems that even if there are only a few people with a single shared interest, the fact that it is shared in the first place is often enough.