TORCH Goes Digital! Women

11 May 2020
Mosaic of Notable Women

Good morning, and welcome to the eighth week of #TORCHGoesDigital! We would like to take this opportunity to extend our sincerest gratitude to everyone who tuned in to watch our fifth Big Tent, Live Events! discussion with Professor Philip Ross Bullock and Dr Leah Broad, who spoke on "Celebrating Tchaikovsky". #TORCHGoesDigital! and our Big Tent, Live Events! would not be the successes they are without your interest, appreciation and interaction.

This week, we are focusing on the theme of "Women". We will be examining and celebrating the lives and legacies of history’s most incredible women, from Ada Lovelace to Jin Xing. We will also be considering what it means to be a woman in the twenty-first century. We want to celebrative inclusivity with this week’s theme, and to this end, we will be examining how women’s issues intersect with race, disability, sexuality, trans rights, and more. 

Working with the great wealth of material created by the incredible researchers at the University of Oxford and beyond, the TORCH Team has curated a brilliant programme of blog posts, podcasts, news articles, poems, performances and more for you to enjoy. 

This week, we will be considering questions such as:

  • Who was Professor Merze Tate, the first African American woman to receive a graduate degree from the University of Oxford?

  • Who were the women who shaped the National Trust?

  • What do medieval women want us to remember? 

  • Who was British-North American lesbian poet Elsa Gidlow?

  • How might homeless young women navigate life on the road?

  • Who is Jin Xing, and how is she related to paradoxes of queerness in global China today?

This Wednesday 13th May 2020, from 5.00pm-6.00pm, we have our next Big Tent, Live Events! live-streamed discussion. Celebrated author Maaze Mengiste will be speaking about her incredible new book, The Shadow King.  

Remember, we are happy to feature content submissions related to this theme, be it a poem, artwork, blog post, or book review!

Unleash your creativity, and send your suggestions and content to torch@humanities.ox.ac.uk.