Professor Julie Curtis gave a valedictory lecture on Friday 11 June 2021, to mark her retirement.
This celebration lecture was given to a small audience in person at the faculty, and live-streamed to a wider audience.
The lecture was entitled ‘New Drama in Russian: Performance, Politics and Protest in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus’, and was an introduction to her edited book of the same name, published in 2020. The lecture was recorded and can be viewed on the Faculty’s YouTube channel.
The Chair of the Faculty Board, Professor Almut Suerbaum, says: "Professor Curtis will be much missed in the faculty: her lecture gave the audience a glimpse of her latest research project on 21st-century drama written in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, including workshops held with theatre-makers from those countries and in exile in the UK; and at the same time, it was a demonstration of the power that literature can have."
Julie commented: "Being invited to give a valedictory lecture was a real honour, and I hope it will become established as a tradition in the future. It was a pleasure to celebrate a publication to which so many Oxford colleagues, postgraduates and undergraduates had contributed in various ways. I hope the study of Russian drama will continue to flourish in our Sub-Faculty!"