Culture

Between beer gardens and picnics: Climate Culture Care at the Ashmolean

When I returned to Oxford this term, just as England teased us with the sixth heat-wave of the year, I found myself at a loose end. With the deadline for two vacation essays still far in the distance, the sun lit up the sign for Soma Surovi Jannat’s Ashmolean Now exhibition, Climate Culture Care.

“What is a good life?”: The Standard of Living in review 

“What is a good life?” This axiological question, asked earnestly in the opening lines of James Graham’s The Standard of Living – playing at Theatre Royal Haymarket until December 12 – is often overlooked by the fractured and hyper-specialised discipline of economics.

Diverse voices: ‘Inshallah, Madonna, Inshallah’ by Miljenko Jergović 

‘When he created Earth and these lands upon it, when he divided people into...

Art as protest on university campuses

CW: rape. This week, Cornell University has made headlines as prosecutors reopened an investigation into...

‘Whitney’ is a documentary in search of its lost soul

Whitney Houston's turbulent life is rendered conventionally in Kevin Macdonald's new documentary

Modern China from a new perspective

Jacob Cheli talks to BBC Correspondent Michael Bristow about his travels around China with a cross-dressing language teacher

Sexism in Jazz

Lola Grieve explores the underrepresentation of women in jazz in discussion with female jazz musicians at Oxford

For Colored Girls Review – “An intimacy that focuses solely on the lives of black women, the beautiful and the haunting, is...

A powerful performance of Shange's work that presents personal stories of love, loss, hope, and renewal

Dining Al Desko review – ‘pure tragicomedy’

Alastair Curtis' intertwined monologues tease out the humour and poignancy of office life

Romeo and Juliet Review – ‘immensely effective’

A bold and haunting production that places the deadly feud in HM Prison Verona

A Doll’s House Review – ‘the pace of the narrative was stunted’

A cohesive aesthetic experience, but a shortened script hampers character development

No Man Ever – Preview

A production that is wholly and intensely focused on human interaction and language

Is the publishing boom ‘a sign of cultural vitality’?

Despite the recent publishing boom, the literary landscape is looking increasingly

Romeo and Juliet – Preview

A close cast and crew underline the generational aspects of Shakespeare's tale of conflict, all in a female offenders unit

Dining al Desko Preview – ‘a tale of high treachery and highlighters’

An acutely observed examination of inane office politics, despair, and social media

Spotlight: Donald Glover

Donald Glover makes the uncomfortable popular

Disabled characters must no longer be the villains

The representation of disfigurement needs to continue in a way that will do members of the disabled community justice

In search of Irish Revolutionaries

Eric Sheng discusses former Oxford don Roy Fisher’s recent work on Revolutionary Ireland

Redemption for the Fallen Women

The Magdalene Sisters - a film by Peter Mullan - follows the story of four fictional women who writhe against the fate of 30,000...

A Doll’s House preview – ‘a beautiful play to watch’

An intimate cast, toxic relationships, and powerful dialogue magnify a society on the cusp of sexual revolution

Conceptual art is a bubble

Art critic Julian Spalding talks to Barney Pite about how art dealers have a stranglehold on popularity

Had Eno-ugh of revision? Give ‘Ascent’ a listen

Exams coming up? Check out this perfect track to help you cope

The insidious power of borrowing

Cultural synthesis has historically been a tool of colonial oppressors

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