Oxford English Limited (OEL) was a

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

group of undergraduate and postgraduate students campaigning for progressive reforms in the

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

English Faculty between 1982 and 1992. OEL's demands included the abolition of compulsory

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

and new optional papers in women’s writing and in literary theory. Oxford English Limited was created by Daniel Baron-Cohen,

Ken Hirschkop Ken Hirschkop is a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo in Canada, and the author of several books about Mikhail Bakhtin Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (; rus, Михаи́л Миха́йл ...

and Robin Gable, with support from

Terry Eagleton Terence Francis Eagleton (born 22 February 1943) is an English literary theorist, critic, and public intellectual. He is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University. Eagleton has published over forty books, ...

Wadham College Wadham College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road. Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy Wadham, a ...

. It organised a programme of seminars, visiting speakers, conferences, debates, student questionnaires and campaigns in pursuit of its aims. A typical highlight was the ‘State of Criticism’ conference on 8 March 1986 (masterminded by President of OEL, Peter Higginson), at which more than 400 people assembled in the English Faculty building in St Cross to hear

Raymond Williams Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contribu ...

, Terry Eagleton, Francis Mulhern and others discuss the future of literary studies. OEL activists in later years included Ros Ballaster, David Hawkes, Tony Pinkney, Carol Watts, Stephanie Flood, Forbes Morlock, Sally Ledger, Alastair Williams, Ben Morgan, Terry Murphy and Giles Goodland. Tetsuo Maruko and Craig Dowler played supporting roles from the sidelines. There was some limited support from within the Faculty from

David Norbrook David Norbrook (born 1 June 1950) is an Emeritus Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. He specializes in literature, politics and historiography in the early modern period, and in early modern women's writing. He teaches in literary theory and early ...

and Paul Hamilton and Stephen Regan at

Ruskin College Ruskin College, originally known as Ruskin Hall, Oxford, is a higher education institution and part of the University of West London, in Oxford, England. It is not a Colleges of the University of Oxford, college of Oxford University. Named ...

. In April 1986 OEL created a journal, '' News from Nowhere: Journal of the Oxford English Faculty Opposition'' (ISSN 0957-1868) to further its local polemic aims and to advance work in left-wing and feminist literary theory and cultural studies more generally. Nine issues were published between 1986 and 1991. The editor Tony Pinkney’s contributions across these issues offer a sustained and theorised history (and counter-history) of Oxford English Studies from Matthew Arnold to the 1980s. A one-volume selection from ''News from Nowhere'' will be published by Kelmsgarth Press in 2015. The OEL project at Oxford has been recognised in later histories of the rise of literary theory in the UK. For example, Josephine M. Guy and Ian Small note in their ''Politics and Value in English Studies'' that ‘there has been a long-standing debate in the Oxford periodical ''News from Nowhere'' about the future of English studies in that university’; and Andrew Milner, in his important book ''Re-Imagining Cultural Studies: The Promise of Cultural Materialism'', remarks that ‘a self-proclaimed “third generation” of radical literary theorists would coalesce around Oxford English Limited and the journal, ''News from Nowhere''’. The Oxford English Faculty of the late 1970s, had not proved able to open itself to the waves of Continental theory which were then remaking the very field of literary studies, though work was being done by figures like Anne Jefferson and David Robey in Oxford European language studies. Oxford English Limited, despite its exiguous resources as it battled an entrenched and powerful Faculty, thus represented the new energies of the subject, and it and its

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditiona ...

-inspired journal remain a small but colourful chapter in the wider literary theory ‘revolution’ of the 1980s and 1990s.

References

{{reflist Organizations established in 1982 1992 disestablishments in England Organisations associated with the University of Oxford Culture of the University of Oxford Feminist organisations in England Politics of Oxford Socialist feminist organizations 1982 establishments in England