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Climate activists stage Cornmarket protest against North Sea oilfield

News Archie Johnston and Arina Makarina -
Extinction Rebellion (XR) Oxford held a protest on Cornmarket Street today against the development of the Rosebank oilfield, a region rich in oil deposits in the North Sea. The protesters were joined by the Oxford Climate Choir, another local activist group.  The protesters held banners saying: “Labour MUST STOP ROSEBANK.” The Oxford Climate Choir, a branch of the national Climate Choir Movement, also sang in a musical protest.  The development of the Rosebank oilfield, located around 80 miles north west of...

Comment

Features

Across the Atlantic: American academics are finding a new home at Oxford

Anish Vedantham -
As political and financial pressures mount across American higher education , a quiet migration is underway. A growing number of US academics are relocating elsewhere, and Oxford, with its collegiate community, institutional stability, and...

How to build a ball

Mair Andrews -
Students have started reaching out to Oxfess to solve the annual dilemma: which colleges are hosting balls, and which are the best to go to?  Within weeks of unpacking in Michaelmas, inboxes fill with calls...

Study influencers and Oxford: Rose-tinted computer screens

Angelina Wu -
Searching ‘Oxford’ on YouTube brings up what you might expect. One thumbnail invites the viewer to “Study With Me”, the title superimposed over the Radcliffe Camera. Another recounts “a week in my life at...

Half the world away: How regional transport issues impact far-flung friendships

Frank Duffy -
Travelling cross-country has never been easy, but UK transport is, predictably, delayed in its arrival to the 21st century. Long journey times and sky-high train fares make travelling difficult, frustrating, and expensive. With friends spread across the country, students feel this acutely, but not always equally, as regional differences in...

‘A dangerous moment of repression’: How is the US higher education crisis affecting the UK?

Mary Huan -
Over the last year, universities have become flashpoints of protest and backlash. Student protest is nothing new, but the heavy-handed government response is notable. In the US, President Donald Trump’s administration has utilised the federal government’s power against higher education institutions, particularly those in the Ivy League. Spending cuts,...

The Oxford offer holders trapped in Gaza

Stanley Smith -
Samah and Loay have scholarships to study at Oxford. After succeeding against the odds, they are unable to travel to begin their courses.

Profiles

Interview with Mishal Husain ahead of the Romanes Lecture

Conor Walsh -
Mishal Husain is an award-winning journalist, author, and broadcaster. She was a household name at the BBC for over two decades, working as the broadcaster’s Washington Correspondent and as a presenter on Radio 4’s Today Programme for eleven years. Husain is now Editor at Large at Bloomberg Weekend, and...

In Conversation with Cherry Vann, Archbishop of Wales

Magdalena Lacey-Hughes -
“I have a strongly-rooted faith that my gender and my sexuality is part of who I am and part of what God created, and that therefore is part of what I bring to my ministry.” The recent election of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullaly, was front-page news,...

In Conversation with Sathnam Sanghera

Hattie Simpson -
Sathnam Sanghera doesn’t believe in tidy or easy stories. Whether writing about empire in his award-winning books Empireland and Empireworld, or his own family in his 2009 memoir, The Boy With The Topknot, he seems most at home in the uncomfortable space where opposite things can be true at...

M N Rosen on AI, impact businesses, and the importance of mindfulness

Maddie Gillett -
In August, I had the pleasure of interviewing M.N. Rosen, author of The Consciousness Company, a recent debut novel which explores the impact of AI on identity and autonomy. Rosen works in the finance sector in North London and has worked with early-stage technology and impact businesses.  I asked Rosen...

Culture

The power of the playlist

Sophie Hough -
"These ten precious songs ... will become a time capsule"

Ceilings, wives, and love letters to the city: The Pre Raphaelites in Oxford

Nancy Gittus -
It was in 1857, not long after the construction of the Oxford Union, that its architect, Benjamin Woodward, was visited by his close friend Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It was this very visit that sparked the creation of the second Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood. Upon deciding to take on the painting...

The lying life of authors: John le Carré and authorial double-lives

Apaar Agarwal -
“I’m not a spy who writes novels, I am a writer who briefly worked in the secret world.” This was said by the famous author John le Carré, who is finally getting recognised here in the University of Oxford, with the Bodleian Libraries  hosting the first ever major exhibition...

‘Undeniably and uniformly exceptional’: Uncle Vanya Reviewed

Mair Andrews -
It is a privilege to attend the most anticipated production of the term, and even more so when that it is a triumph. As a piece of student theatre rivalling professional quality, Fennec Fox Production’s Uncle Vanya is doubtless one of the strongest performances to grace the O’Reilly this...

Life

Girlhood will not save you

Lilly Law -
I spent a good deal of time last summer trying to work out why bows made me so irrationally angry. Twice, walking while on the phone to my mum, I burst into a rant after just seeing one. To have one bow-induced word vomit on Cornmarket Street is a...

Grieving in Oxford: Tips from a bereaved student

Eve Ryder -
Grief touches all of us, and yet none of us in quite the same way. My grief is different to yours, to his, to hers, and to theirs. This can make it feel isolating at times. At Oxford, the relentless pace of academic output, the churning mill of essays...

Hyperactive brain, hypoactive thyroid

Olivia-Mae Butterfield -
Many Oxford narratives have been told time and again, but the story of the chronically-ill overachieving student is one which has more fruit to bear. The experience of such an intense, fast-paced university inside a slow, self-destructive body is a poetic oxymoron worthy of exploration. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s...

Grilling the Parsonage: Oxford’s ‘best’ restaurant?

Benjamin Naylor -
Sometimes you want more than just a meal, to celebrate a birthday, an anniversary, a graduation. You want somewhere that feels like it appreciates the occasion, with delicious food, unrushed service – a restaurant with atmosphere. I was chatting with my college dad about the best restaurant in Oxford,...

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