From February 18 to March 11, 2025, Jhumpa Lahiri, Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing Program, will deliver this year’s Weidenfeld Lectures at the University of Oxford. Alongside these lectures, Lahiri will act as a Visiting Professor at St. Anne’s College, which originally began as a women’s college. This prestigious lecture series, held annually, invites a distinguished scholar to explore themes related to comparative European literature. The first Weidenfeld visiting professorship was held by George Steiner, a renowned literary critic, essayist, and philosopher known for his work on culture, language, and the relationship between literature and society.
Lahiri’s series of four lectures, titled Imperfect Speakers: Understanding Exophonic Women, will focus on the practice of exophonic writing, or writing in a language other than one’s native tongue. Lahiri will explore the questions of what happens when a writer has more than one language to choose from, what happens when a native language is replaced by another, and what inspires or necessitates a writer to practice exophony. These lectures are inspired by Lahiri’s class at Barnard, “Exophonic Women,” which she has now taught twice.