Gifts and Books: from Ancient Temples to Modern Myths
Member Exclusive Lectures • 1h 14m
We all know about gift-giving: it can nurture our friendships and help to mark the most important moments in our lives. But gifts can also be a source of anxiety, or a reminder of unequal relationships. Writing has always existed alongside the dynamics of giving and exchanging, and in this lecture, Nicholas Perkins will introduce some striking, beautiful and meaningful books as gifts. He will discuss myths of the gift from a number of cultures and times, and suggest how storytelling itself is a form of gift in our lives.
Nicholas Perkins is a Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Oxford, and Fellow in English at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. His books include Medieval Romance and Material Culture (ed., 2015) and The Gift of Narrative in Medieval England (2021; paperback 2023). This year, he curated a major exhibition in the Bodleian Library, Gifts and Books, and edited a book of essays about this theme: Gifts and Books: From Early Myth to the Present (Bodleian Library, 2023). ‘As every reader knows, books are the best gifts by far, and this exhibition and its lovely accompanying book will give great pleasure to very many visitors and readers’ (Philip Pullman).
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