Higher Education in Inspector Morse, York Festival of Ideas event, organised by Dr Sarah Olive

This year, York Festival of Ideas celebrates ten years of educating, entertaining and inspiring! Under the banner of Infinite Horizons, it presents a diverse and spectacular programme of over 150 free online (and therefore, available internationally) and in-person events. As part of the Festival, Dr Sarah Olive, Senior Lecturer in the Education department, will host a session on Higher Education in Inspector Morse. The event was inspired by Sarah’s research for her forthcoming book chapter '“University politics”: change and continuity in representations of higher education between ITV’s series Inspector Morse and Colin Dexter’s Morse novels’ is forthcoming in the book Television Series as Literature: From the Ordinary to the Unthinkable, edited by Reto Winckler and Victor Martin Huertas (London: Palgrave, out summer 2021).

Sarah and two further expert speakers will explore representations of British higher education in the Inspector Morse series of books by Colin Dexter and ITV's films for television. David Lascelles, one of the producers of the much-celebrated ITV series (series 4 & 5), starring John Thaw in the title role and Kevin Whately as Lewis, will share his insights into the making of the series. He’ll explain the importance of a sense of place to a series like Morse, negotiating Oxford’s busy streets, and faking it, when the team couldn’t make it there. He will share some tidbits from behind the scenes sure to delight the series’ superfans.

Sarah Olive, who is currently writing on the series for a forthcoming book on Television Series as Literature, will challenge perceptions of the series as all 'dreaming spires' and conservative Oxbridge nostalgia. She will suggest that Morse’s character can be a scathing, decidedly left-wing critic of the politics of UK higher education under Thatcher: his dialogue is peppered with sharp comments drawing attention to the insidious class and sexual politics he perceives playing out behind the gorgeous facades of Oxford's colleges. Using illustrative examples from the novels and TV series, Sarah will demonstrate key differences between the representations of the university on page and screen.

Morse’s representations of higher education will be contextualised with reference to other well-known and much-loved crime fiction, such as the writing of Dorothy L. Sayers and P.D. James, by Dr Jem Bloomfield (Nottingham), author of Witchcraft and Paganism in Mid-century Women's Detective Fiction.

This event will play out as a YouTube Premiere. If you register, you’ll be sent a link to the screening a couple of days before it takes place, as well as a reminder an hour before. You can ask your questions live in the YouTube chat throughout the stream.

Book your free place on this 'Higher Education in Inspector Morse' event. Find more details of the whole festival of ideas, which makes for stimulating summer viewing across a range of disciplines and interests.