Introduction
The leaves are turning crisp, the morning are getting chilly , and the university is starting to see a new cohort incoming – Michaelmas term is officially about to begin! For those of you who are new to the English Faculty Library (hello! welcome!), we release these Service Updates at the beginning and end of every term to keep you abreast of what’s happening in the EFL. This will be especially important this academic year, as we’re getting prepared to move into the new Humanities Library in the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities next summer!
For now though, we’re keeping things classic for the start of term. So grab your KeepCup, your Bod card, and your bookmarks – and come on down to the English Faculty Library!
Bodleian Inductions
Bodleian Libraries Induction Webinars will be running from Wednesday-Friday of 0th week (9th-11th October). These inductions will cover how to use the library service, including:
- The structure of the library service
- Finding books using the library catalogue
- Loaning and using books
- Printing, copying, scanning, computers, and WiFi
- Booking study rooms
- Support for disabled students
- Where to go for help if you need it
The webinar should be already scheduled into your induction timetables, but if you’d like a little more information you can have a nose at our Getting Started page.
English Faculty Library Tours
In addition to the central inductions, we’re also offering in-person library tours of the English Faculty Library. Each tour will last roughly 20 minutes, and will be led by a member of EFL staff. These will be offered throughout the day from Wednesday-Friday of 0th week (9th-11th October), every 30 minutes from 10am-11:30am and from 2pm-4:30pm.
These sessions are run on a drop-in basis – no booking required!
Library Displays: Handle With Care
Curated by Sophie Lay (Senior Library Assistant, Reader Services)
The Bodleian Oath is taken by all readers in the Bodleian Libraries, and it contains a promise not “to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody”. This book display takes you on on a tour through not only some of the rule-breaking at the English Faculty Library, but some of the stories we can glean from damage in books, and how best to take care of library books as you use them.
If you’re interested in this topic, you may also want to check out the Book Marks display at the Weston Library!
Previous Display: James Baldwin, curated by Sophie Lay (Senior Library Assistant, Reader Services)
Vacation Loans
All books that were borrowed for a vacation loan will be due back on Tuesday 15th October. These can be renewed as per the usual Bodleian rules (if they haven’t been requested by another reader and have been out for less than 112 days).
Contact Us
If you have any questions or need help with anything, our library staff will always be available during opening hours to speak with you.
You can also contact us via:
- Telephone: 01865 271050
- Email: efl-enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk
- ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter): @EFLOxford
All our details can be found on the English Faculty Library webpage.
Jeffs weaves into mythological tapestries with a striking voice, calling for a communion between humanity and nature, the medieval and the modern day. Mapping the legendary formation of England, Scotland and Wales from pre-history to the Norman Conquest, Jeffs’ Storyland is inspired by the history of Gildas, The Ruin of Britain, and Layamon’s Brut. It is also rooted in the mythological landscapes of Stonehenge, Tintagel, and the River Humber, Thames and Severn. Arthurian myth is re-embodied through the source material, as Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Life of Merlin and The History of the Kings of Britain inform Jeffs’ chapters on ‘The Deception at Tintagel’ and ‘The Death of Merlin’. Jeffs reimagines the Norse legendary figures ‘Weland the Smith’ and Woden, inspired by Bede’s The Ecclesiastical History of the English People and The Poetic Edda. Integrating academic research with creative reinterpretation, Jeffs elevates the meaning of her writing through art.
In Wild, Jeffs expands her creative scope to imagine stories surrounding medieval archaeological artefacts, specifically the Franks Casket and the Sutton Hoo ship burial. Imagining the journey of the Franks Casket from its whale-bone origins to the hands of its human owner, ‘The Mountain on my Back’ is an especially poignant interpretation. Here, the whale-voiced casket speaks to its owner Etheldreda in a dream, calling to return to the ‘abyss’ of the sea. (p. 92) Jeffs references the Old English Exeter Book poem ‘The Whale’ as inspiration for the reinterpretation. I am reminded of ‘The Dream of the Rood’, where the cross of the Christian crucifixion speaks of its transformation from tree to crucifix, through the combined medieval dream vision structure and the prosopopoeia of an object speaking. Jeffs weaves this structural form into the short story with creative originality and stylistic flare, while centring the importance of the casket as the key to Etheldreda’s freedom.
book! Okay, that’s a bit reductionist perhaps, as Art of the Grimoire is definitely a work of academic rigour. However, it is made accessible (and aesthetic) through the use of full-colour pictures with bitesize, but no less-detailed, accompanying explanations. Owen Davies takes you across time, geography, and genre with his clever use of material; this is a great introduction the magic across history or a refresher if you’re simply tired of reading (The horror! The horror!) and want something easier to digest. From yokai to the Necronomicon and even Coptic magic, this is a delight to the senses – get some knowledge whilst feeding the aesthete within you.
Clocking in at over 700 pages, this may not be the lightest read but it certainly is worth it. Set in a post-climate change world (sounds familiar), a haze has settled across the town of Praiseworthy, Australia, bringing with it the reckoning of a myriad of intergenerational traumas affecting the Aboriginal inhabitants of the community and Australia at large. Each character stands not only on their own, but also as metaphors to critique and satirise the various ways in which society refuses to acknowledge the Aboriginal people as the original custodians of the land. Marrying together personal and historical, oral tradition and prose, this is a brilliant piece of mythic realism that’s not to be missed if you’re interested in the ongoing settler-colonialism within Australia, or ecocriticism in general.
but if not then here’s the tea. Margery was the brains behind The Booke of Margery Kempe written in the 1430s, widely considered to be the first autobiography, which details her pilgrimages and encounters with the divine throughout her life. Julian is a similarly religious figure from the same time period, although she chose to express her faith by devoting herself to life as an anchoress after she received visions from God – becoming her Revelations of Divine Love. The two met in real life according the Margery, with her seeking council from Julian, an encounter that this book hinges on. Rather than dismissing their divine visions as mental illness, MacKenzie treats them with compassion and tells us their stories in their own words, providing insight into the treatment of female mystics during the period in an accessible form.
time it’s coming from Australia, with thanks to Evelyn Araluen (Bundjalung). Her debut collection (and what a debut!) features a mix of stanzaic poetry, free verse, and prose, tackling everything from decolonisaton, to Australiana, and even the pandemic. Rather than divorcing herself from some of these difficult to navigate situations, Araluen acknowledges her own inevitable entanglement in them resulting in a deeply personal collection. Some highlights to get you started include: ‘The Inevitable Pandemic Poem’, ‘Bad Taxidermy’, and ‘The Trope Speaks’. There is grief and rage laced into the poems, but also moments of sentimentality and affection, and through it all a deep love for her community.
again to magic and witchcraft. True to his word, Hutton doesn’t just focus on Europe and the witch trials that took place there, instead, he takes us on a detailed ethnographic survey all the way back to Mesopotamia and its demonology, to Coptic magic (for the second time!), finishing on Britain and its Celtic folklore as well. This is a thorough cross-cultural examination of witchcraft, and perhaps not for the faint-hearted, however it is an undeniably interesting area and a great counterpart to Art of the Grimoire if that interested you as well.
