Non-Fiction Writing: Michael Ignatieff in Conversation with Hermione Lee

This event is the third in the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing / Simon Fraser University Graduate Liberal Studies Jim Babcock Lecture Series in Writing, which will take place in Michaelmas 2024. The other lectures can be found here.

Hermione Lee will be in conversation with the distinguished writer Michael Ignatieff. Their talk will be about biography, autobiography, the challenges of life-writing, and the relations between creative non-fiction and fiction.

In advance of the session, attendees are strongly encouraged to read:

Michael Ignatieff, excerpt from The History of My Privileges

3ignatieff.pdf

It would be helpful if attendees could also consult:

Hermione Lee, Biography: A Very Short Introduction
Michael Ignatieff, Isiah Berlin: A Life
Michael Ignatieff, The Russian Album

Dame Hermione Lee was President of Wolfson College from 2008 to 2017, and is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. A renowned life-writer, her works include notable biographies of Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, Tom Stoppard, and Penelope Fitzgerald. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Literature. In 2024 she was made Dame Grand Cross of the British Empire. She founded the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing at Wolfson College in 2011.

Professor Michael Ignatieff is a Canadian historian, professor, writer, and former politician. He completed his doctorate at Harvard, taught history at the University of British Columbia, and held a Senior Research Fellowship at King’s College Cambridge before transitioning to freelance writing and journalism in London. After directing the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard, Ignatieff entered Canadian politics in 2005, serving as an MP, Leader of the Liberal Party, and Leader of the Opposition. Following his political career, he held academic positions, including Centennial Chair at the Carnegie Council and Edward R. Murrow Chair at Harvard. From 2016 to 2021, he served as Rector and President of Central European University, overseeing its move from Budapest to Vienna. Currently a professor at CEU in Vienna, Ignatieff has authored eighteen books, chaired the Advisory Council of Oxford's Centre for Ethics in AI, and received numerous honours, including the Dan David Prize and the Princess of Asturias Prize. He holds fourteen honorary degrees.