Heritage Pathway is a series of training and engagement activities which run termly. Since 2015, Heritage Pathway has provided undergraduate and postgraduate students, along with Early Career Researchers at the University of Oxford with the skills, knowledge and confidence to engage effectively with a wide range of partners in the heritage, museums and cultural sector.
Heritage Pathway is designed and delivered by Alice Purkiss and Dr Rachel Delman and organised through the Humanities Researcher Training and Development Programme.
Through a combination of lectures, workshops and site visits led by expert practitioners, participants understand their research in a wider context and gain experience in the heritage, museums and cultural sector. Heritage Pathway opens up new avenues for careers and collaborations, while reinforcing researchers’ ability to complete their research projects and academic tasks in a timely fashion.
Heritage Pathway enables participants to:
• Understand the opportunities and constraints within each sector of heritage.
• Understand the different language and vocabulary required to create successful collaborations.
• Explore how their research experience and expertise can contribute to organisations.
• Develop the skills and confidence to create collaborative research-led projects.
• Join a cohort of like-minded undergraduates, postgraduates and early career researchers.
• Develop and enhance networking abilities with internal and external colleagues.
Previous sessions have explored themes including:
• Heritage and its Audiences
• Case Studies in Collaboration: Digital Projects
• Researching, Curating and Interpreting Collections
• Careers in the Heritage and Museums Sectors
• CVs and Cover Letters for the Heritage Sector
• Commercial Heritage
• Cataloguing and Digital Projects
• Cataloguing and Spectrum Standards
• Interpretation
• Diversifying Heritage
• Communicating Heritage
• Working with Objects
• Heritage and Landscape
• Heritage and Authenticity
Site visits always include opportunities to meet with senior leaders and managers to discuss the ways in which research and the day-to-day and strategic concerns of sites and organisations intersect. Previous visits include: Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park, Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, Black Country Living Museum, and Charleston Farmhouse.
For further information please contact training@humanities.ox.ac.uk.
Heritage Events Trinity 2025
Heritage Pathway: Curating Medieval and Early Modern Women’s Lives Today
Wednesday 14th May 2025, 11am - 12.45pm, online - registration required
This session will explore what it means to interpret medieval and early modern women’s lives for audiences today.
Bringing together three speakers who in the past year have curated exhibitions focusing on women’s histories through library collections – from a blockbuster exhibition at the British Library to a more intimate visitor experience at Lambeth Palace Library and a digital offering focusing on the prolific outputs of a single woman – this session will delve into the decision-making processes informing these exhibitions, as well as their reception, afterlives, and legacy.
During the session we will consider:
- How are exhibition topics decided?
- Whose lives are prioritised, and how can silences in historical source material be navigated?
- What are the challenges of curating pre-modern (women)’s lives for twenty-first century audiences
- (How) can multi-sensory and digital approaches enhance engagement?
- What role can temporary interventions play in creating longer-term and more inclusive legacies?
Speakers
- Dr Eleanor Jackson, Curator of Fine Art, York Art Gallery (formerly Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library and Lead Curator of the 2024-5 ‘Medieval Women: in their Own Words’ Exhibition)
- Anna Nadine-Pike: PhD Candidate, University of Kent and Guest Curator of ‘Rewriting the Script: The Works and Words of Esther Inglis’ with the University of Edinburgh
- Dr Julia King: Rare Books Librarian, Lambeth Palace Library. Curator of 'Her Booke': Early Modern Women and their Books in Lambeth Palace Library'
Book now
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Living in Heritage: People, Places, Traces
Wednesday 4th June 2025, 11am - 1pm, TORCH Seminar Room, 3rd Floor, Radcliffe Humanities
In this session our speakers will offer different perspectives on heritage sites as places of occupation – both past and present – and what this means when caring for and interpreting these sites today.
Unlike many museums which display histories in purpose-built spaces divorced from the lives of the people who made, used or traded the collections they display, heritage sites are inscribed (often literally) with the traces of occupants – past and present – who have lived, worked, studied or visited these places.
- What stories and what objects do we privilege over others?
- What lives do we tell, and how do we do it?
- How do we read an object when it is absent, broken, ephemeral, enigmatic, everyday?
- How does living in and engaging with heritage benefit people today?
Speakers:
- Peter Aiers OBE is CEO of The Charterhouse, an almshouse community living in a unique historic site in the heart of London.
- Dr Rachel Conroy is Senior National Curator at the National Trust, responsible for Decorative Art and the North region.
Book now
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Heritage Pathway trip: West Horsley Place
Wednesday 18th June 2025, 8.45am - 5pm, West Horsley Place, Surrey (coach travel outside the Radcliffe Humanities Building)
West Horsley Place is medieval manor house and estate in Surrey. Famous as the location for the BBC comedy series 'Ghosts', this independent heritage site has only been open to the public for a few years. You will meet senior team leaders and have the opportunity for a Q&A session about the challenges and opportunities of launching a heritage charity.
You will explore the house on a guided tour, exploring its nooks and crannies and remarkable stories. The visit will finish with a workshop focussed on designing a new piece of innovative public programming.
Please note:
- We will be travelling by coach which will pick us up at 8.45am outside the Radcliffe Humanities Building. We are planning to be back in Oxford at approximately 5pm.
- This course requires a £20 deposit which will be refunded once you have attended the course, or have cancelled your place at least 72 hours before the course start date.
Book now
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