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Jacinda Ardern and eight others awarded with honorary degrees

The recipients include former New Zealand Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern; actress and theatre director Adjoa Andoh MBE; and literary critic and host of Finding Your Roots Henry Louis Gates Jr.

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Features

The BNOC List 2026

As the academic year draws to a close, the most anticipated list in all of Oxford is finally here! This year’s BNOC nomination form received 331 responses over the course of ten days, with the final response coming in just 14 seconds before the form closed (you’ve got to admire the procrastination of an Oxford student).

The life and death of a library

I feel slightly like a fraud when I confess that I never swore Bodley’s above oath, displayed on the entrance desk to Duke Humfrey’s Library. That isn’t to say that I would ever act against it.

The Oxford students who can’t read books

It is difficult to think of a university more entangled with the idea of reading. The institution remains organised around libraries, primary texts, and tutorial reading lists that have become semi-mythological in undergraduate culture. Even maths students do not simply study maths; according to their Bod cards, they “read for” a degree. Entire pedagogies here rest on assumptions that students will disappear into novels, criticism, and archives before resurfacing with an essay and an original argument.

24/7: College porters and the Oxford night shift

For many, the night lodge exists as a background certainty, noticed chiefly in moments of crisis, vulnerability, or inconvenience.

Raising refugee rights: Oxford STAR and Campsfield House

“The Coalition and STAR are quite unique in the emphasis on trying to bridge the gap between students and the community”.

‘It happens here and it’s our responsibility to stop it’: Oxford’s anti-sexual violence campaign

For the co-presidents of It Happens Here, Aparna and Maddie, literacy about consent and sexual violence is needed now more than ever.

Profiles

‘Cecil Rhodes would probably turn in his grave’: Kumi Naidoo on fossil fuels, Amnesty International, and fighting Apartheid

Rhodes scholar Kumi Naidoo reflects on Apartheid in South Africa, his Oxford years, and the fight for environmental justice.

‘The future of British politics is cooperation’: Jonathan Bartley on the Green Party, activism, and the importance of finding common ground

Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party from 2016-2021, discusses Extinction Rebellion, local elections, and rising populism.

‘Genocide – I want you to use that word’: Nick Maynard on working in Gaza’s healthcare system

Professor Nick Maynard, a consultant at Oxford University Hospitals, has been to Gaza three times since 7th October 2023.

Meghan Campbell on women, poverty, and why international law still matters

Meghan Campbell discusses the Oxford Human Rights Hub, the manosphere, and using international law to fight women's poverty.

Culture

‘The Moro Affair’: Astonishingly original, but not quite a story

The acting in 'The Moro Affair' was superb across the board, with Harriet Wilson’s Pope as a standout, and Rosie Sutton’s direction was flawless.

‘Music can be everything’: Aurora Orchestra’s Jane Mitchell on the narratives around classical music

The Aurora Orchestra, who are playing at Oxford’s Schwarzman Centre on the 19th June, are best known for performing their orchestral repertoire from memory.

The ‘Obsession’ Obsession

'Obsession' is a taste of what the next generation of filmmakers looks like.

Slow down, you crazy child: What Oxford student theatre can learn from garden plays

Student theatre strives to be as professional as possible, but the annual garden play offers something unique: permission to have fun.

Life

A love letter to my year abroad 

A year is a long time: enough to call a place home, enough to strip away the bright facade of newness. I’ve spent my year abroad at this university, unstuck in time. My friends at home have lived a thousand different lives in the interim, and I suppose so...

Absence (and digicam photodumps) make the heart grow fonder: Nostalgia for Oxford

Last Michaelmas, as my friends and I were going through our photos from a weekend trip to Bristol, Bath, and Cardiff, my friend said: “When I look at these photos, I feel nostalgia for time that isn’t over yet.” This comment stuck with me, and I have found it...

Do ‘day in the life’ videos make us hate our own?

An alarm flashes on a phone screen: it’s 5am. A hand reaches out to turn it off, and then there is a freshly-brewed coffee, a session at the gym, a perfectly balanced lunch. Before midday, the creator has done a workout, attended two lectures, completed their to-do list, and...

A new kid on the matcha block: NEPA Coffee and Food review

In January 2025, Cherwell provided some guidance on this issue by offering the student body a definitive ranking of Oxford matcha. Since then, however, there have been some new developments.