15/06/2026
Gonville & Caius College Fellow Professor Jason Scott-Warren has accepted an invitation to deliver the prestigious Lyell Lectures in Oxford next year, and plans to combine his academic and personal passions by analysing the climate crisis and the book.
“I was interested in thinking about how my own area of expertise is affected by factoring in climate; in trying to think through climate,” he says.
“This has taken me out of my comfort zone because I mostly work on sixteenth and seventeenth century books and reading, on print culture and manuscript culture. And instead I'm having to think a lot about where we are now.”
As one of 123 recipients of a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship, Professor Scott-Warren will spend the next academic year, from October 2026, exploring the climate crisis and the book and preparing for the 2027 Lyell Lectures at the University of Oxford. Annually since 1952, “a distinguished scholar has been elected to deliver the lectures, usually six in number, on any topic of bibliography, broadly conceived,” according to the Bodleian Library website. A book based on the lectures is set to follow.
Professor Scott-Warren’s work has been both a catalyst for his environmental activism and an escape from it. His work across literary studies and cultural history is embedded in a past which makes it clear to him how precious time is in the face of the climate emergency. It is a subject he wishes to explore further.
“I'm frustrated by the fact that much of life seems to go on much as usual, without registering the global situation,” he adds.
“A bundle of connected questions is taking shape in my mind in response to this challenge that I've set for myself.”
Full story on the College website.
Gonville & Caius College Fellow Professor Jason Scott-Warren has accepted an invitation to deliver the prestigious Lyell Lectures in Oxford next year, and plans to combine his academic and personal passions by analysing the climate crisis and the book. “I was interested in thinking about how my ow...
