Dr Daniele Nunziata, Lecturer in English Literature at St Anne’s College, was interviewed by Kat Orman for BBC Radio Oxford on Wednesday 15th July 2020. Among other topics, he spoke on the challenges College teaching has faced during the lockdown and the ways in which current events are transforming how we read and write literature. He also discussed the impact of the pandemic on the city’s existing homelessness crisis and the importance played by the NHS in response to the coronavirus outbreak. These themes have informed some of his own writing — he is also a poet — and he concludes the interview with a reading of one of his most recent poems.
Daniele noted that “poetry involves a certain kind of introspection […] and this moment, with lockdown, has forced people to be in a more introspective space, quite literally, and that has facilitated new ways of thinking”. The poem he read on air is “a reflection on […] civic duty; about us taking the time to consider that we are members of a wider community and what it means to think about members of our community who are most in need”.
You can listen to the interview below.