Monday, February 10, 2025

Profiles

Student Spotlight: Diana Volpe and Lina Osman on student activism

With an increased focus on divestment over the past year, Cherwell sat down with two student activists involved in this work, Diana Volpe and Lina Osman. They are the...

Sir Stephen Fry on mythology, knighthood, and student theatre

Acclaimed actor, writer, comedian, and new Visiting Professor of Creative Media Sir Stephen Fry...

D.J. Taylor: “The great and the good very rarely say anything interesting, because they put it in their memoirs”

D.J. Taylor is a biographer, novelist, and literary critic. He has written nearly thirty...

Gered Mankowitz: “AI is a nightmare for photography.”

Over a career spanning more than five decades, Gered Mankowitz’s lens has chronicled the...

In conversation with Moe Sbihi, the British rower ‘Stockholm Syndrome-d’ into Olympic gold 

Three-time Olympic medallist, World Champion rower, MBE, the first British Muslim Olympic flag bearer: the highly decorated Moe Sbihi seems to have done it...

In conversation with Oli Dugmore, the mind behind PoliticsJOE

Oli Dugmore, known best as the mind behind PoliticsJOE, echoes many of the views young, disillusioned voters hold.

Spotlight: Swift Soc President, Lola Milton-Jenkins

Out of all the societies at Oxford, Oxford University Taylor Swift Society is one of the biggest, with around two thousand members. Seraphina Evans...

On poetry, prison, and new notions of time: In conversation with Mohsen Mohamed

Mohsen Mohamed may already be a familiar face for frequenters of Tudor Pret on Cornmarket Street. Stepping into its timbered, softly lit premises, it...

The Former Ambassador

Steven Pifer greets me at the door with a limp. He’d broken his kneecap en route to Kyiv three weeks ago, and scrambling for...

‘There’s a seat at the table for everyone’: In Conversation with Daisy Maskell

CW: Spiking.  Daisy Maskell is, in short, a multimedia superwoman. Her documentaries have aired on BBC and Channel 4, she is the youngest breakfast show...

An activist’s philosophy: Words matter, but actions matter more

The War in the Gaza Strip has been going on for over seven months. In this time, it has cost the lives of over...

‘Act normal, that’s crazy enough’: In conversation with Rutger Bregman, author of Humankind

Why have humans survived as the ones to travel to Mars, create artificial intelligence and make use of the world’s resources unlike any other...

Spotlight: Martian Moves

If you’re at all in tune with Oxford’s nightlife scene, I’m sure you’ve heard of “intergalactic boogie service” Martian Moves – but who are...

Broadway, besties and Brian Cox: A conversation with J. Smith-Cameron

J. Smith-Cameron would like you to know that she is not Succession’s Gerri Kellman. She gently corrects me when I slip up by describing...

‘Women don’t look like that in Algeria’: An interview with Houria Niati

"Yes, I love flowers and I love landscapes, but I am far away from that. When we talk about political art, I didn’t even...

‘Theatre is, at its best, one of the most democratic of the arts’

I had the chance to sit down with Gregory Doran, Oxford University’s Cameron Mackintosh visiting professor and the former artistic director of the Royal...

An interview with Federico Enciso, Paraguay’s First Openly Gay Politician 

I am not going to lie. I myself was pretty much oblivious to Paraguay’s existence before being introduced to the documentary, 108: Cuchillo de...

“They’re side notes in history”: In conversation with Bluestocking Oxford

Perhaps you’ve heard the term ‘bluestocking’ before. Though it came to be used as a misogynistic pejorative, its origins lie in 18th-century Britain, when...

“Everywhere we go, we ask: ‘What are the dominant narratives about the city? And what are they hiding?”

I’ve walked past the Clarendon Building on Broad Street many times – but I’d never thought to ask what it had been used for...

“If you want to understand the mess we’re in today, you need to know some history.”

Eugene Rogan, a historian of the Middle East and fellow of St. Anthony’s College is a tutor I feel slightly in awe of: charismatic...

Seeking asylum from Myanmar: an interview with Jack Sanga

He was a student when Myanmar's military launched a coup against its sitting government in 2021 and has since had to flee after protesting against...

“Poetry is political because it’s so immediate.”

In search of localised wisdom, Cherwell spoke to one of Oxford’s own. Poetry sensation, Birmingham Young Poet Laureate (2018-20), Foyle Young Poet of the...

You see that Cherwell interview? That’s your mum, that is.

David Baddiel gets asked a lot of questions. And, often, they’re all versions of each other: what was it like being the first comic...

“What you’re seeing is a distillation of millions of person hours into a two hour movie.” 

Have you ever wondered how James Bond jumps out of an aeroplane? How Interstellar’s astronaut Cooper enters a black hole? How Rocky rides the...

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