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Life-Writing and the New Fantastic: Possibilities and Pleasures for Life-Writers and Readers
For many, life-writing aims to authentically narrate the ‘real’, factual experiences of a life. Yet, as Professor Nicholas Royle contends, expressions of ‘the weird’ and ‘the uncanny’—often associated with fantasy and supernatural literature—increasingly seep into contemporary life-writing. After all, lived experience is not always straightforward or easily narrated: memory can blur and distort, coincidence can feel charged with meaning, and the everyday can suddenly seem strange or out of place.
Royle calls this contemporary drift of strangeness into the ‘real’ the ‘New Fantastic’: a way of writing that narrates ordinary life while registering its weirdness—its slips, shocks, and uncanny moments. In turn, this lecture asks: What can these engagements with the weird and the uncanny tell us about life-writing today?
Open to all. Registration is strongly recommended, and required for online attendance.
Date:
10 February 2026, 17:30
Venue:
Wolfson College, Linton Road OX2 6UD
Venue Details:
The Buttery, and online via Zoom
Speaker:
Professor Nicholas Royle (Sussex)
Part of:
Oxford Centre for Life-Writing
Booking required?:
Required
Booking url:
https://oclw.web.ox.ac.uk/event/public-lecture-professor-nicholas-royle-life-writing-and-the-new-fantastic-possibilities-and-p
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editor:
Belinda Clark
