OxTalks Change Freeze Starts 2 March
Oxford Events, the new replacement for OxTalks, will launch on 16th March. The two-week OxTalks freeze period starts on Monday 2nd March. During this time, there will be no facility to publish or edit events. The existing OxTalks site will remain available to view during this period. Once Oxford Events launches, you will need a Halo login to submit events. Full details are available on the Staff Gateway.
Mearcstapan
‘Mearcstapa’ is an Old English compound word found in the poem Beowulf, meaning ‘boundary-walker’. It is used to refer to the Grendelkin, who literally, socially and academically inhabit the margins of their environment. They walk the lines between Heorot and fenland, humanised and dehumanised, recognition and obscurity.
We felt drawn to these mearcstapan, and the word itself. Particularly as people who may sit in the intersections of different identities (race, gender, class, religion, disability, sexuality and more), and/or navigate living in multiple worlds, they felt like kin to us. Even just as undergraduate students, we may often feel like mearcstapan in the world of university — full of passion and growing knowledge about the medieval that means we yearn to connect with others, but without the years of experience and prestige that would facilitate a sense of belonging in many scholarly spaces. We may feel caught between the amateur and academic, the uni bubble and the outside world.
Mearcstapan, then, aims to be a place where we don’t have to be ‘neither’ in our identities or studentships, but ‘both’. We want to make a home on the cusp, one foot in each world, tracing our own desire paths through the landscapes we dwell in.
We’d love for you to come and join us. The way is well-trodden.
Type: Seminar Series
Series organisers:
Ella O'Shea,
Isobel Marklew
Talks:
Saturday 28 February 2026
Class, access and medievalism: Q&A with Molly Cartwright
Date: 28 February 2026, 17:00 - 18:30
Speaker
:
Molly Cartwright
Venue: Mansfield College, Mansfield Road OX1 3TF
Venue Details: Seminar Room West, Mansfield College
Organisers:
Isobel Marklew,
Ella O'Shea
Hosts:
TBA
Saturday 7 March 2026
Mearcstapan Round Table: Religion and medievalism
Date: 7 March 2026, 14:00 - 15:30
Speaker
Various Speakers
Venue: Mansfield College, Mansfield Road OX1 3TF
Venue Details: Seminar Room West, Mansfield College
Organisers:
Isobel Marklew,
Ella O'Shea
Hosts:
TBA
Monday 9 March 2026
Roast and Boast: A silly Beowulf (2007) film night
Date: 9 March 2026, 17:00 - 19:00
Speaker
Various Speakers
Venue: Mansfield College, Mansfield Road OX1 3TF
Venue Details: Mansfield College JCR
Organisers:
TBA
Hosts:
TBA
Editor:
Katy Terry
