To celebrate the 2025 conference of the Association for German Studies (AGS), the Taylorian is showing a special exhibition linked to the theme of the conference ‘German in the World’, opening on 2 September 2025 and running until end of October 2025. The catalogue is open access available via the Publications website of the Taylor Editions. Download a copy here.

Both build on the founding principles of the Taylor Institution Library: to chart the development of ‘Nationalliteratur’ in the context of ‘Weltliteratur’, to look at how global perspectives have shaped German literature, and to make visible how in turn German-language poetry, pamphlets, and philosophy has spread across the globe.

The Taylorian itself was founded in the 19th century, at the time of establishing the ‘canon’ of German literature, dedicated to making texts in their original form available to students, starting with incunables and going to the newest contemporary literature. The four figures standing proud over the St Giles entrance of the building represent French, German, Italian, and Spanish literature as a group of women, collectively fighting, scattering a cornucopia, enlightening, and, last but not least, thinking. Learn more about the history of the Taylorian from the memoirs of Luisa Hewitt: The Girl Who Lived in the Library, edited by Christina Ostermann (Oxford 2025)

The display cases present case studies from the canonical to the contemporary, foregrounding the role of books and librarians as cultural ambassadors.

The programme of the conference is here: AGS2025-Programme.pdf and a booklet of abstracts AGS BOOKLET-at-5.pdf. The President’s Guest this year will be the renowned writer, academic, artist and activist Prof. Natasha A. Kelly, founding Director of the Institute for Black German Arts and Culture and author of Schwarz, Deutsch. Weiblich (2023). An excerpt from the book is published for the first time in English in the exhibition catalogue.

Podcast of this year’s AGS President’s guest, Natasha A. Kelly, reading and speaking with Kirstin Gwyer (Oxford).