Oxford and the Rise of Fantasy Literature

What inspired the emergence and flowering of the fantasy genre in the 20th and 21st century?

Oxford - historic, beautiful, and timeless seat of learning - is closely associated with the genre. Towering figures of fantasy literature, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, were both professors at the University of Oxford, and many more, like Diana Wynne Jones or Philip Pullman, were educated at Oxford or, like J. K. Rowling, influenced by its literary products and settings. Oxford and the Rise of Fantasy offers a unique opportunity to examine the fantasy genre from its earliest origins to the present day, exploring at each stage the influence of Oxford and its writers.

The course traces a history of the fantasy genre's formation and crystallization, from its medieval beginnings to the present. You will look at the story-telling and world-building literary devices used by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote his medieval bestseller about King Arthur in Oxford Castle, and the authors of Renaissance Romance fantasies. You will explore Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World, a forerunner of science fiction, and 18th-century Gothic fantasies which paved the way for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The course follows Oxford's own Lewis Carroll, Scottish fantasy author George Macdonald, and the pre-Raphaelite William Morris through to Tolkien and Lewis and beyond. We will also consider recent critical approaches to the fantasy genre as well as discuss whether these pre-21st century texts lend themselves with ease to the modern media of cinema, TV serialisation, or computer games, and which adjustments have been made or are still to be made to make them relevant to our own times.

[J. R. R. Tolkien, 'Annotated watercolur study for "The Hobbit" dustjacket' (1937). Oxford, Bod. MS Tolkien drawings 32. © The Bodleian Library]

Dr Juliana (Julie) Dresvina is a cultural historian whose work bridges scholarship and storytelling. Trained in History, Theology, English, and Psychology, she publishes widely on topics ranging from early medieval saints and monsters to twentieth-century Oxford writers, artists, and myth-makers. Her research focuses on how imagination, faith, and narrative shape human experience across time.

She teaches courses in literary and cultural history with a strong Oxford focus, including Oxford and the Rise of Fantasy, The Inklings of Oxford, and Fantasy in Its Natural Habitat. Alongside her academic career, she is also a practising fantasy writer and has completed two fantasy novels, currently out on submission with her literary agent. She is the 2025–26 Inklings Fellow at the University of Notre Dame, where she works on the legacy and future of fantasy literature.