Talk: Alexander Maitland on Wilfred Thesiger and T.E. Lawrence

Location

Magdalen College, Summer Common Room

Event type

Public

Date

15 November 2023

Time

13:00

We are pleased to announce that on Wednesday 15 November 2023, Magdalen College Archives will be hosting a talk by Alexander Maitland, author, artist and lecturer, on T.E. Lawrence and Wilfred Thesiger. The talk will take place at 13:00 in Magdalen College’s Summer Common Room.

Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003), who was a student at Magdalen from 1929 to 1933, was a renowned explorer in the Middle East and the writer of Arabian Sands (1959) and The Marsh Arabs (1964). He was awarded the Lawrence of Arabia Memorial Medal in 1955.

Alexander Maitland is a friend and biographer of Thesiger and has published and spoken extensively on Thesiger and other British explorers. His latest book is Exploring The World: Two Centuries of Remarkable Adventurers and Their Journeys (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2022).

The talk will be followed by a pop-up exhibition of material on Thesiger from our collections in the Old Library, with a further chance to see the ‘Lawrence in Fragments’ exhibition.

The event, which will be in-person only, is completely free and light refreshments will be provided, but places are limited and will be allotted on a first-come-first-served basis. If you would like to join us for this event, please let us know by emailing lucy.smith@magd.ox.ac.uk.

Photo credit: © Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2004.130.17285.1)