Life-Writing Beyond Words is a research network and termly series of public events, hosted by Felix Appelbe, Ocean Ambassadors, and the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, that explores how we move between words and the non-verbal.

Life-writing is the study of lives, through letters, diaries, performance, memoir, autobiography and biography. But it frequently has to negotiate the non-verbal, for instance when describing the creative minds of composers, choreographers or artists, capturing the sound and light of childhood, or eavesdropping on the world of animal experience. How can these worlds be captured in words?

We are addressing this challenge by convening a network that spans many disciplines, bringing together academics, practitioners and performers who would otherwise not meet. Free-thinking lectures and laboratories will forge new pathways between the verbal and the non-verbal, journeying towards innovative experimental and performative methodologies.

This is the second in a termly series exploring the non-verbal in life-writing, with contributions from Martin Bencsik, Katherine Collins, Eleanor Morgan, Olivier Adam and Aline Penitot.