Exploring the world of books at Oxford
Welcome to the Taylor Institution Library! The Taylor Institution is the University of Oxford’s library for Modern Foreign Languages. It was funded by Sir Robert Taylor in a codicil to his will in 1788. Due to his will being contested, the University didn’t have access to the funds until 1834, when it was also considering …
A Call for Readers! On the 500th anniversary of their first publication, the four hilarious, successful and witty Reformation Dialogues by Hans Sachs will be reissued in a new edition. This will include new English translations, a historical introduction, linguistic footnotes, and also the 15th century English translation of the first dialogue. We are looking …
Oxford, more than many other cities, is like a game. To merely observe is fascinating. As an Oxford intern you will get the chance to play a little yourself. You won’t have to know all the rules and moves since there’ll be lots of kind players to help you and time to learn as you …
One of the Taylor Editions practicum placement students from the MSc in Digital Scholarship programme writes on creating different TikTok series inspired by the “Epic!: Homer and Nibelungenlied in Translation” and “Kafka’s Languages” exhibitions, as well as creating her own digital edition of a text inspired by the Kafka exhibition, displayed in the Voltaire Room at the Taylor Institution Library from 29 May–13 June.
One of the Taylor Editions practicum placement students from the MSc in Digital Scholarship programme writes on creating a digital edition of her own Slovak language learning notebook. Visit Kafka’s Languages in the Voltaire Room, Taylor Institution Library from 29 May–13 June to see the exhibition that inspired this project. For the 2022–23 academic year, …
«Κελαδήματα» by Tianyi Liu (MSt. Modern Languages 2023/24) For my History of the Book project in Hilary term 2024, I worked on an early 20th century Modern Greek poem called «κελαδήματα» [Birdsongs]. It was published in 1919 in the Greek journal «Ο λόγος», a physical copy of which is available in the Greek Reading Room …
Clara Busch, MSt. Modern Languages 2023-24 It is Monday, January 8th, and a small group of students and scholars gather it the Weston Library to have first look at what is to become the focus of our History of the Book project: Kafka’s Hebrew notebooks. 2024 marks the centenary of the death of Franz Kafka …
The discovery of an unknown Bodleian manuscript of Hieronymus Emser’s defence against Huldrych Zwingli’s 1524 tract opposing the Catholic Mass, which celebrates its quincentenary this year, raises many questions: Who penned or commissioned it, for whom, why, and where did it come from?
Exhibition in the Voltaire Room, Taylor Institution Library29 May to 13 June 2024 Who was Kafka? It is hard to escape Kafka at the moment in Oxford, with the Kafka24 celebrations marking 100 years since his death, on 3 June 1924. He is one of the most significant German-language authors of the 20th century, and …
Exhibition in the Voltaire Room in the Taylor Institution Library May-June 2024 to accompany the workshop ‘The Reading and Reception of the Homeric Poems and the Nibelungenlied in Germany and Europe from the Eighteenth Century to the Present‘. Download the publication including a full catalogue of the exhibition: Mary Boyle, Philip Flacke, Timothy Powell: Epic! Homer and …
Special Collections Exhibition | Taylor Institution Library | University of Oxford 14 – 26 June 2024 When we pick up a book, we often forget that as well as reading a text we are looking at an object. Unlike the relative intangibility of words, which dwell in our minds and memories as well as on …