Conferences / Seminars / Lecture Series 

Webinar Series "Art and Action: Literary Authorship, Politics, and Celebrity Culture," Zoom webinars sponsored by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), 3 July - 25 September 2020.

Workshop "Auto/Biographie, Gender und Celebrity," organised with Julia Lajta-Novak, Carola Bebermeier, and Maren Bagge; Department of European Ethnology, University of Vienna, 15-16 November 2019. 

Panel "Persona Studies and Theatre: Celebrity and Transgression," with contributions by Matt Hargrave, Mary Luckhurst, and Sandra Mayer. Inaugural International Persona Studies Conference, Newcastle University, Newcastle, 25-26 June 2019. 

Workshop "Writing Activism," featuring contributions by Refugee Tales, Karin Amatmoekrim, and Eve Wedderburn; organised by Katherine Collins and Sandra Mayer in collaboration with The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing (OCLW), 26 February 2019. 

Panel Discussion "Oscar Wilde in Vienna: Pleasing and Teasing the Audience," with Sandra Mayer, Mary Luckhurst (University of Bristol), Dominic Janes (Keele University), and Stefano Evangelista (Trinity College, Oxford); a joint event hosted by the TORCH Theatre and Performance Studies and Queer Studies Networks. The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, 8 February 2019.

Roundtable "Patterns of Victorian and Neo-Victorian Celebrity" (with contributions by Charlotte Boyce, Danielle Dove, and Sandra Mayer, chaired by Patricia Pulham). BAVS 2018 Annual Conference "Victorian Patterns," University of Exeter, 29-31 August 2018.

Discussion Panel "Literary Celebrity and Political Persona," featuring contributions by Kirsty Gunn, P David Marshall, and Rachel Potter; organised and chaired by Sandra Mayer in collaboration with The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, Wolfson College, 14 May 2018. Podcast available here

Workshop "Persona Studies," organised in collaboration with the Doctoral Programme of the University of Zurich's English Department, with contributions by Mandy Merck, P David Marshall, and Thomas Keller. 11 May 2018.

Day symposium "Transnational Lives and Cosmopolitan Biographies," convened by Philip Ross Bullock and Sandra Mayer, hosted by the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing in collaboration with the "Writing 1900" network. Wolfson College, Linton Road, 17 March 2018. 

Workshop "Celebrity Cultures", organised by Sandra Mayer in collaboration with the Doctoral Programme of the University of Zurich's English Department, with contributions by Patricia Duncker, Mary Luckhurst, Elisabeth Bronfen, and Sandra Mayer. 1-2 December 2017. 

Half-day colloquium "Life-Writing and Female Celebrity," organised by Sandra Mayer and hosted by the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing in collaboration with The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities. Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford, 4 November 2017, 2-6.15pm. Event programme, poster, abstracts and speaker biographies can be accessed here; podcasts can be accessed through the University of Oxford podcast channel.

One-day colloquium "The Lives of Houses," organised by Sandra Mayer and Oliver Cox, and hosted by the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing in collaboration with The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities. Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford, 27 May 2017. Podcasts available here

Discussion Panel "The Celebrity Interview: History, Aesthetics, Method," organised by Sandra Mayer in collaboration with the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing. Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford, 17 January 2017. See event report; podcasts available here

One-day workshop "Celebiography: Celebrity and Life-Writing in Dialogue," organised by Sandra Mayer in collaboration with the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing. Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford, 19 November 2016. Podcasts available here

Seminar "Life-Writing and Celebrity: Exploring Intersections," convened by Sandra Mayer and Julia Lajta-Novak. 13th Conference of the European Society for the Study of English, NUI Galway, Ireland, 22-26 August 2016. See programme and list of abstracts

One-day symposium "Art and Action: The Intersections of Literary Celebrity and Politics," convened by Sandra Mayer, with the TORCH Celebrity Research Network. Radcliffe Humanities Building, Woodstock Road, Oxford, 5 March 2016, 10am-6pm. Audio podcasts available through the Oxford University Podcast channel. See my conference report. 

Interdisciplinary Distinguished Lecture Series "Cultures of Celebrity," English Department, University of Vienna, winter term 2015/16. (Featuring talks by Richard Dyer, Chris Fletcher, Tom Mole, Diane Negra, Ruth Scobie, etc.)

Conference "After-Image: Life-Writing and Celebrity," The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities and The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, 19 September 2015. Roundtable on "Historical Re-evaluations of Celebrity in the 18th and 19th Centuries." (With Faramerz Dabhoiwala, Jessica Goodman, Tom Mole, Simon Morgan, Ruth Scobie)

Interdisciplinary one-day symposium "The Many Lives of Benjamin Disraeli: Fame, Legacy Representations," convened by Sandra Mayer, with Megan Kearney. Supported by the TORCH Celebrity Research Network and The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing. Radcliffe Humanities Building, Woodstock Road, Oxford, 24 March 2015, 10am-6pm. See our conference report.

Workshop "Discourse on Literary Celebrity across Genres," Authors and the World Project, Lancaster University, 12-13 March 2015.

Workshop "Embodying Literary Celebrity in Multiple Media," Authors and the World Project, Lancaster University, 18-19 September 2014. See my conference report.