Page 284 – Cherwell

Ground-breaking turtle tracker developed at Oxford

News

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14th January 2022

Ground-breaking turtle tracker developed at Oxford

Two Oxford PhD students have developed SnapperGPS, a low cost, low power wildlife tracking system the size of a pound coin that has revealed unexpectedly diverse behaviour among turtles.

As part of their research project, Amanda Matthes and Jonas Beuchert, supervised by Professor Alex Rogers, built a bare-bones receiver for less than $30. The receiver can run for more than ten years on a single coin cell. This is in contrast to existing devices, which are often expensive and come with heavy batteries for long-term deployments. One tag can easily cost more than $1000, which prohibits the study of many animals.

The core aims of SnapperGPS, to make the hardware as simple and energy efficient as possible, were achieved by doing little signal acquisition and processing on the device itself. By creating a web service that processes the signals in the cloud, the physical tag required far less electronic components, allowing it to be made lighter, smaller and cheaper. This concept of processing signals in the cloud is known as snapshot GNSS and has the advantage of requiring only a few milliseconds of signal to locate the receiver. This is key for accurate tracking, as navigation satellite signals cannot travel through water. However, sea turtles regularly come to the surface to breathe. These short windows of opportunity may not always be enough for traditional GPS methods to resolve the position of the receiver. But a snapshot method only requires a few milliseconds of signal which makes them ideal for such marine applications.

The effectiveness of this cheaper, smaller, and low-power tracking solution was tested when SnapperGPS was deployed on nesting loggerhead sea turtles on the island of Maio in Cape Verde. Loggerhead sea turtles spend most of their life in the ocean, but every two to three years mature females come to a beach to nest. They lay several clutches of eggs separated by roughly two weeks, which makes it possible to recover the hardware and any data it captured.

For this initial deployment, the SnapperGPS tags were placed into custom-made enclosures that were tested to be waterproof to at least 100 metres. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the tags were deployed late in the nesting season, which negatively affected the recovery rate as many turtles were already laying their last nest when they were tagged.

In total twenty tags were deployed and nine recovered. Some experienced unexpected technical failures but the tags that survived were able to capture several location tracks that showed previously unknown behaviour among turtles.

The collection of wildlife location tracking data such as this is vital, as it can inform conservation policy decisions that help protect habitats and prevent human-wildlife conflicts. This data provides novel insights into the loggerhead sea turtle population on Maio, which will help to improve anti-poaching measures, as well as identifying important marine habitats that may need special protection. In future however, the unique properties of this tracker could allow for the detailed study of many species, particularly those which are key to ecosystems but are under researched due to a lack of funds, allowing for a more complex understanding of the natural world and more effective methods to protect it.

The joys of online cooking

Food

Katerina Lygaki

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13th January 2022

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Learning how to cook has been a great source of pride for me. But becoming a chef whose lentil ragu brings tears to people’s eyes is not always an easy journey. Let me let you in on some of the secrets of how I learned from the best – without even stepping foot into a kitchen.

Of course, primarily, it is my raw talent. No recipe is needed when I’m in the kitchen, as I move serenely amongst the pots and pans, intuitively stirring and tasting. However, what also guides my actions is a tiny, talented chef from the most unlikely of backgrounds. Some may call him ratty, others may call him a health hazard, but I like to call him little chef. Okay… I may be describing the plot of Ratatouille right now. Fine, you got me. But I’m not joking about my raw talent and allure in the kitchen. Fine, again… I just might be exaggerating a little.

Cooking used to be a generational experience, with recipes and techniques being passed down from your grandma: the one who pinches your cheeks every time that you visit her. I have countless memories in the kitchen with my own cheek-pinching grandma, making spanakopitas and baklavas. I’ll always cherish these experiences: they taught me how to conduct myself in the kitchen and how to care for the people that I love through food.

However, my real cooking skills stem from somewhere else. As I got older, and my cheeks became less pinchable, I had to make my own way in the modern culinary world. And that is where the magic of YouTube comes into the picture. I cannot count the hours that I’ve spent watching cooking videos on this platform: anything from deep-fried oreos to beef wellingtons.

I started dipping my toes into the online culinary world through channels like ‘Binging with Babish’ and ‘Tasty’. Whilst the former is more traditional, with the chef talking his viewers through the recipes as he cooks, the latter is more experimental, with two-minute videos that cut out the middleman and instead opt for an overhead shot that emphasises the chef’s worktop. Both channels create food that is inspired by pop culture: in Babish’s case by recreating foods from mainstream TV shows, and in Tasty’s by creating outlandish concoctions that are inspired by current trends. Such channels will forever hold a special place in my heart, as they piqued my cooking interests and have consumed a considerable portion of my life.

For all the lovers of pop culture and food, who also want something a bit more refined than Tasty’s TikTok-long videos, I’d strongly recommend you watch ‘About to Eat’. Also created by Buzzfeed, this contains more researched and thoughtful videos that delve into the culinary world with a little more sophistication than Tasty’s Pizza Toastie.

After having submerged myself in the pop culinary world, I decided to explore a bit further. I watched short documentaries on Michelin-Star chefs and some of Julia Child’s TV episodes on YouTube, but these endeavors felt somewhat impersonal. I was looking for quality chefs to guide me through my culinary life. Eventually, after much searching and scrolling, I found just that: channels like ‘Bon Appetit’, ‘Food 52’ and ‘Delish’. These all take the idea of pop foods but approach it through the expertise of professional chefs. Their content is a treat: fun to watch, fun to experience, and even more fun to replicate. What I really take from them is the meaning behind food; something that I glimpsed during my time with my cheek-pinching grandma. The chefs in these channels make sophisticated recipes accessible to all. Three chefs which epitomise this concept for me, and who now have their own YouTube channels, are Carla Lalli Music, Claire Saffitz and Alison Roman.

I love cooking. It makes me happy, and like I said before, it brings tears to anyone who is lucky enough to eat my food. And I only have one all-powerful extrinsic force to thank for that. Thank you, YouTube, for making quality food content available to all, and for igniting my passion for cookery.

Haute Kosher: To life, l’chaim

Naomi Reiter

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12th January 2022

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In the rabbi’s garden, bensching to mark the end of a meal. But aware you’re in a garden, and other people can hear. You’re chanting in Hebrew, and a swastika was found graffitied on a door in the neighbourhood last week.

Yad Vashem. You experience fear, people on the street shouting for your destruction. Shouting that 6 million wasn’t enough. Tiki torches, and push the Jews into the sea. You check the database, over 1000 dead bearing your last name. Yitzak, Moishe, Mordechai, Arieh, Chanah, Miriam, Rivkah, Naomi. Those names again and again and again.

Hatikvah. The sign of Bergen Belsen covered in stones. That’s how we remember. The Jewish people still live. But at what cost? Never Again, but only for us, regardless of what it does to others. “You give an inch and they will take 6 million”. “They want to do it to us again; they are terrorists, so we must defend ourselves” all these and more said on a loop. But rockets against missiles? Stones against teargas? At what point do we admit we’re the powerful party here. But Am Yisrael Chai, and that is all.

Hide your Magen David. A rabbi is stabbed; a Jew on a bus told he’ll have his throat slit for Palestine; convoys of cars call for Jewish women to be raped. Hide your Magen David, don’t let them find you. But you can’t hide, they always find us. But don’t hide, we must mark ourselves and be proud that we are alive. We cannot sit idly and wait for them to put stars on us.

It’s not safe to be a Jew. Don’t reveal your dad’s name, don’t carelessly talk about your weekly Shabbat dinners or that fun joke someone told at the Jewish society meet up. And yet, the frum are still here. They are alive; they have their yeshivas and kosher bakeries and synagogues, but Jewish schools get regular bomb threats and have maximum security. But the frum are still here, so all must be well, right?

Dear Kitty. The girl in the red coat still haunts my memories. A gift of chocolate coins and a children’s book about the Holocaust every Chanukah from my grandma. My grandma who wasn’t there, because her family got out in time. As she was being born in Brooklyn, New York, Jewish children who would’ve been her playmates in Poland were being killed with poison gas.

And one girl, only a few years older than my grandpa, with a face so similar to my own; with the same first name as my mother. Dear Kitty, she wrote in her diary, as I at 14 read and wept for this girl who was so like me. Who was bored at Shabbat dinners and had a wild imagination, and who died – alone, cold and sick in evil claws as our world burned.

I am a similar age to Margot now. Thinking of my future beyond my home and what career I want. I watched her recently, a movie of that story every Jew has engraved into them as surely as they do the blessings over bread and wine. I cried like I never had, I knew how it ended; and yet when those words flashed upon my tiny phone screen: Anne Frank – dead – March 1945 – aged 15. Margot Frank – dead – February 1945 – aged 19. A river fell.

To everyone else, this is an overtold tale: can’t those Jews shut up already? But to me, every face is not an annoyance; it could’ve been me. My brother; my sister; my dad; my mum; my grandparents; all the rabbis and synagogue leaders I’ve ever encountered; my friend who hates Hamantaschen; my friend who cooks kneidelach every Shabbat and stinks up her house; my friend who kvetches about everything including Judaism; it could’ve been one of my young cousins. It could’ve been everyone I have ever known, and so much more.

Shabbat shalom. Friday night dinner; the best chicken soup in the world and voices chattering forever. But what if someone blows up the shul? Impossible as we all had to pass a steady stream of security to get in. So much laughter; so much fear. And yet, we are alive. 6 million are dead and we are alive. What right have I to complain? I have to live a thousand lives – discover elements and cure cancer, I must or what right have I to be alive when they are not?

To life, l’chaim, we must continue on. The Jewish people live. And so we must be alive. To succeed and fail, to feel joy and despair, we must be alive. We must not live in fear; we must live so vibrantly that if we are taken again, we will have left our mark, so that even after our death, we will live.

Choked Up: Race and the climate justice movement

Features

Destiny Boka-Batesa

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11th January 2022

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Choked Up: Race and the climate justice movement

‘As a child it was always the small things I would notice, an ice cream van humming in the playground, parked cars outside the school gates with their engines running, but when my sister started having asthma attacks that’s when I really started to worry, I just felt helpless and like there was nothing I could do’.

When we discuss the climate crisis, we often talk about it in hypothetical terms, using the conditional tense, “if” and “when”. However, this catastrophe has been, and will continue to be, a reality for me; the climate crisis was always on my doorstep. To make things worse, what continues to be a crippling slap in the face for me is air pollution, the silent killer.

Growing up in multiple council estates in South London meant that I was constantly exposed to lethal levels of air pollution. To exemplify the severity of this issue, my neighbouring town, Brixton (Road), breached its annual air pollution levels in just five days, a link to nearly six thousand deaths a year. However, air pollution and the climate crisis is not solely an environmental injustice.

To fully tackle the issue, we must recognise that the climate crisis is holistic: it is one that disproportionately affects people of colour, the poor and those of marginalised genders. Intersectionality is important here because all three identities mentioned form who I am, which adds to each layer of the hardship I am condemned to live by with my peers and loved ones around me.

This is why I co-founded Choked Up with my friends: we saw that our individual needs were being constantly brushed away in the climate movement because they were seen as too ‘complex’. In channelling our climate anxiety on a national scale, Choked Up envision the rights of black and brown lives being enshrined in clean air laws in the UK. Clean air is a necessity for human life, and this law in question would act as a much-needed update on the 1956 Clean Air Act. The law in question would cater to modern-day issues, with the first being the need to protect and uplift our most vulnerable communities, namely the ones aforementioned.

To gain respectability and awareness for our cause, we took advantage of the regional news that was cropping up the most in London last year: the Mayoral Elections. In a (successful) bid to speak out about the disproportionate effects of air pollution in our home towns, we designed road signs that read “pollution zone: breathing kills”, and other statistics highlighting how London’s highly-dense POC communities are also the ones breathing the most toxic air every single day.

We had support from organisations like Purpose and Environmental Defense Fund to put these road signs up in Brixton, Lewisham (South London) and Whitechapel, where we were able to cater for its Bengali population by translating these road signs in Bengali, too. Concerned doctors from the organisation Medact also backed us up from this issue, and expressed their concerns in the form of a letter to all mayoral candidates, discussing the negative health impacts that air pollution has on our communities.

All of these, together, sparked national attention, with the likes of the BBC, The Guardian and even the now-Mayor of London himself, Sadiq Khan, voicing out his admiration towards our hard work. Raising awareness as a campaign is the first step to our end goal, and the next is to take a route towards political lobbying, applying pressure to our MPs, because they represent us and it is their job to, be able to speak about our issues with the access they have to spaces like the House of Commons. Not only were we successful in raising awareness of the fact that this is happening and the fact that this is an inescapable reality, in our aim to voice our demands for the implementation of schemes that prioritised clean air – no more our needs being just pushed away.

Recent success has paid off, as our lobbying has proved a success. Last October, we were glad to see the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone to the North and South Circular areas of London. This initiative recognises that lethal air pollution is not exclusive to central London, in the hope that people living and working in those areas will turn to more sustainable and less polluting modes of transport. Of course, we always have to be sensitive towards those who can’t afford to switch to less polluting vehicles straightaway, whether it be due to finances or convenience, but, hopefully, this expansion will encourage positive changes, enabling those living and working in our most vulnerable communities to live and breathe more safely. However, this is a small step in the long-lasting change we campaigners want to lobby for in our communities.

Additionally, being a minority within a movement that you deserve to be at the forefront of is extremely emotionally taxing. I had to break away from systems that should have supported me as I supported them and create my own with like-minded people in order to be heard. When the climate movement is often unspokenly branded as a white, middle-class movement, it is difficult to have your perspective appreciated because it is not considered as the ‘norm’, but this mindset is a travesty that manifests in injustice and is rooted in prejudice. While people of colour and the working class contribute the least to the climate crisis, we are constantly the ones having to bear the brunt of the earth’s wrath, one perpetuated by the elite, to whom have time and time again displayed levels of apathy so high it kills.

Choked Up were presented the opportunity to attend COP26 for five days, last November, thanks to the The Advocacy Academy, a Brixton-based charity that uplifts teenagers to establish campaigns on social issues they care about. What felt amazing was just seeing the impact we campaigners have on the world already. It was enriching to connect with so many other climate activists from all over to plant the seeds for newer, working relationships. One of the most relieving feelings as an activist is knowing that you are being listened to.

A relationship I take very dearly to heart was one by Jack Harries and his wonderful team, who offered to give us A Seat at the Table: a space to share their platform. In his documentary series, we have an intimate conversation with Jack regarding our activism, what it means to us, and why the specific issue of air pollution hit home to us, among other things, like the work we had done. All of this was made in compilation with other activists who spoke about their vocation to climate activism, all forming an excellent addition in preparation for the Climate of Conferences.

However, as mentioned earlier, clean air is an issue that affects communities at different rates. As a fresher moving to Oxford for Michaelmas term, the first thing I noticed was how clean and crisp the air was. I finally felt like I could breathe. With most of the city pedestrianised, it is refreshing to see students and the public alike cycling and walking around so much more! I could count the number of times I’ve used public transport with my fingers on my hands!

Although a part of me felt a little frustrated by the fact that this lifestyle is not the norm across the whole of the UK, it is a starting point, and I would hope that other towns, particularly London’s impoverished areas, could follow suit. In a mock debate at the Oxford Union, I argued for the notion that ‘this house has no confidence in COP26’ and I still stand by that. Sadly, politicians and world leaders have proven me right as the outcome from this prestigious conference has brought about nothing but disappointment from the public, leaving me with more questions than answers. Will radical change happen in our lifetime, under the (bloodthirsty) hands of our world leaders? Nope. But will the common people, our grassroots organisations seek and attain the justice we deserve? Absolutely.

Campaigning while doing a degree will have its challenges, but this vocation is a true love that I have because it is a part of me that I can extend to those bigger than myself. As Lincoln College’s social backgrounds officer, I can transfer my campaigning skills into such a role, too! To end, I strongly believe in people power, because every single grand movement has started with a conversation, and Choked Up are just getting started with ours.

Image: Li-An Lim via Unsplash.

How (Not) To Be A Knight

Culture
Film

Wang Sum Luk

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6th January 2022

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The Green Knight is a medieval movie for the Internet age. I don’t mean that the titular Green Knight appears to King Arthur’s court on a Zoom call, or that Gawain, the protagonist of the film, Googles where to find the knight to fulfil his quest. I say that because, even though it’s set in a mythic past, the film’s explorations of morality and reputation are uniquely applicable to the question of doing what’s right in a digital world.

In a conversation with a mysterious lord he meets, Gawain expresses his motivations for taking on the dangerous quest of finding the Green Knight: he hopes to be seen as an honourable knight, and thus become part of Arthur’s court. But Gawain’s halting delivery shows that he has never deeply examined this idea of honour.

Gawain is introduced as an inexperienced warrior anxious to make his name in King Arthur’s court, and the fact that Gawain is played by Dev Patel, an actor of Indian descent, complicates this anxiety. As Arthur conspicuously states that his knights have helped cement his rule over the Saxons, who “bow their heads like babes” to their new king, his court becomes linked to ideas of colonialism and conquest. Gawain thus reads as a racial outsider in a hierarchical society, with the “honour” he seeks being bound up with the desire to be accepted by those in power.

In fact, the movie questions whether “honour” is anything more than reputation. Near the film’s conclusion, Gawain experiences a vision where he flees from his quest to meet the Green Knight, returning to Camelot and presumably inventing a story of his success, and eventually succeeding Arthur as king. Even though he flees from his quest, Gawain can wear the public persona of a good knight who has succeeded in his quest; later, when he is king, he upholds this persona through violence, with his soldiers executing a peasant who heckles him. The knightly, or kingly, status that Gawain seeks is thus a matter of public perception, with little to do with Gawain’s morals, or lack thereof.

The film’s costume designer, Malgozia Turzanska, further emphasizes the cost of royal status by having Arthur and Guinevere’s robes be covered with milagros, or small charms, which she imagined were gifts from their subjects. Beneath these charms, they are “barely able to move under all this gratitude” , visually communicating the weight of their responsibilities. The scenes in Arthur’s court are visually claustrophobic, filmed in muted greys, contrasting with the usual portrayal of Medieval courts as places of joy and merriment. Even before Gawain’s vision of ruin, the fact that the court is an eerie, grim place communicates the constricting nature of the world he seeks to be part of.

But this is only a vision, and when Gawain returns to reality, he is given a second chance. So he removes the magical girdle that he believes will protect him from harm, and faces the Knight bravely, knowing that this may end in death…and then, the film ends. As Gawain chooses to fulfil his obligations, he rejects the version of honour that is rooted in public perception—and as he sets that idea aside, we are also excluded from knowing the outcome of his leap of faith. Only in rejecting his desire to be seen as an honourable knight by the world does Gawain, paradoxically, become the traditionally heroic knight.

Comparing this with the modern world, what has changed? I cannot speak for anyone else, but when faced with the many issues in the world that demand my attention, empathy or action, I am often paralyzed. The ritual gestures indicating that my heart is in the right place are easy: to retweet something, share the latest infographic about the latest controversy, send thoughts and prayers.

I would incur no cost doing these little things, and temporarily enjoy being cloaked in support by likes and retweets, like a robe of milagros weighing on my shoulders. But watching Gawain risk his life at the close of his quest made me think of how people around me—many people whom I knew and studied with—were working and sacrificing to do good in the world, from Afghanistan to Texas. I have friends in Oxford whose sincere devotion to doing good deeds make me feel awed, and a little ashamed. It makes me wonder if, even if I did try to imitate them, I could ever come close to doing what they do so seemingly-easily.

But just as Gawain’s biggest step to becoming a knight is to stop worrying about whether he’ll be seen as one, it seems that the real choice is to stop doubting and start doing. That’s the simplest part, and the hardest one.

Image Credit: Wang Sum Luk

Most teaching to be in-person, but face coverings mandatory, University says

News

Charlie Hancock

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6th January 2022

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Most teaching to be in-person, but face coverings mandatory, University says

Oxford University has confirmed that they expect most teaching in Hilary term to take place in-person, according to an email sent to students on January 6th.

However, due to record high rates of COVID-19 across the country, the University assessed that it is “important that we all keep on taking steps to limit the spread of the virus”. Among these steps is wearing face coverings, which will now be mandatory in all teaching and assessment settings for those who are not exempt.

The University also said that assessments are likely to go ahead in their planned format, which varies across departments.

Departments will put alternative arrangements in place for teaching if either staff or students are unable to attend in-person due to illness. However, some staff may choose to teach remotely “because they consider it the most educationally effective approach”.

Residency requirements will remain in place for Hilary term, unless students are “genuinely unable to be in Oxford”. The email tells students it is “important” for them to take a lateral flow test 24 hours before returning to Oxford, another upon arrival, and a third three days later.

Although there is currently a shortage of lateral flow tests available in the UK, the University says that tests will be available from the University and colleges.

Students returning to Oxford from overseas are told to follow international travel rules. From Friday January 7th, fully vaccinated travellers to England will no longer have to take a test two days before travelling. They will still need to take a PCR test upon arrival, but will not have to self-isolate while waiting for the result.

The University is also asking students to receive a booster vaccination “as soon as possible”, and to take a COVID test twice a week. Further information about the University’s testing programme is expected to follow next week.

The University said: “We hope this provides a useful update as you prepare for Hilary term. As ever, the student page of the University’s coronavirus site is the place to find all the latest detailed information, and if you have any specific enquiries about your personal situation, please contact your college or department in the first instance.”

Image: kevinrice via pixabay.com

Seven Oxford University members awarded New Year’s Honours

News

Meg Lintern

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5th January 2022

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Seven Oxford University members awarded New Year’s Honours

Seven members of Oxford University have been recognised by the New Years’ Honours List 2022. The List recognises extraordinary contributions to fields ranging from health to education and aims to praise those who have had a significant positive impact on their community and the wider nation.

Professor Irene Tracey FMedSci, MAE, who is both a Professor of Neuroscience and Warden of Merton College, was appointed CBE for her contributions to medical research. She has served on the UKRI Medical Research Council since 2017 and stood as President-elect of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies.

Professor Tracey said: “I am truly delighted that my past and present team’s research to understand the brain mechanisms underpinning the major medical health problem of chronic pain has been recognised in this way. I am so fortunate to work with such a dedicated group of globally drawn scientists and clinicians, and I am so grateful to Oxford University and my various colleges for all the support over the years.”

Professor Myles Allen, FInstP, Professor of Geosystem Science in the Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment and Department of Physics, a Fellow of Linacre College, and Director of the Oxford Net Zero initiative, has been appointed CBE for services to climate change attribution, prediction, and net zero.

Professor Allen has contributed vastly to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, acting as Coordinating Lead Author of the 2018 Special Report on 1.5°C. He has also instigated the weatherathome and climateprediction.net projects, using publicly-donated computing resources to investigate climate predictions.

Professor Allen said: “All climate research is a team endeavour, and this is particularly true of the net zero journey… I’m honoured to have played my part.”

Coincidentally, Professor Allen is Professor Tracey’s husband.

Professor Jonathan Michie has been appointed OBE for services to education and lifelong learning. Professor Michie is Professor of Innovation and Knowledge Exchange and President of Kellogg College, where he has led Continuing Education for over 13 years. He has been Co-Secretary on the Centenary Commission of Adult Education and now occupies the Chair of the Universities Association for Lifelong Learning.

“The award is for ‘services to education and lifelong learning’ – the successes I’ve been involved in have been due to colleagues at Oxford’s Continuing Education and Kellogg College, and with the Centenary Commission on Adult Education and the Universities Association for Lifelong Learning. I’m most grateful to them all!” Said Professor Michie.

Professor Richard Haynes has been appointed MBE for Global Health.

A coordinator of the RECOVERY trial, which aimed to identify treatments for adults hospitalised with COVID-19, Haynes said: “COVID-19 has brought out the best in health services staff everywhere and I am very proud to be a small part of that. Above all, I would like to thank all of our participants who so bravely took the decision to participate in such difficult circumstances without whose contribution RECOVERY could not succeed.”

Lucy Fletcher, Senior Clinical Trial Manager, has been appointed MBE for services to Clinical Trials. Fletcher was likewise involved with the RECOVERY trial.

“It is a privilege to receive this honour for services to Clinical Trials. My recent involvement in the management of the RECOVERY trial of treatments for COVID-19 has been an extraordinary and hugely rewarding experience,” said Fletcher.

The Right Honourable The Baroness Amos CH PC, the Master of University College Oxford, has been appointed to be a Lady Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.

Valerie Amos, who moved to Great Britain from Guyana in 1963 and dedicated her career to creating equal opportunities, has previously been Chief Executive, Equal Opportunities Commission, Secretary of State for International Development, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Lords, Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, UN and became Master, University College Oxford, in 2020.

Professor Sarah Springman CBE FREng, professor of geotechnical engineering, receives a damehood for services to engineering and to international sports administration. Springman, who is soon to become principal of St Hilda’s College, is a former elite triathlete and renowned geotechnical engineer. A pioneer in soil-structure interaction and geological mass movements, Springman was elected a Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering in 2009 and of The Swiss Academy for Technological Sciences in 2015.

Image: Mike Marrah

The Costa Rican performing arts academy proving why a creative education matters

Features

Uma Gurav

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4th January 2022

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The Costa Rican performing arts academy proving why a creative education matters

In 1936, a woman named Margarita was born on the beautiful shores of Costa Rica. Affectionately called ‘Maga’ by all who knew her, she was a remarkable woman of her time. She was part of a generation of women whose access to secondary and higher education was often restricted. But, as her granddaughter Laura Montero tells me, Maga was smart, creative, generous and she had a deep enthusiasm for the pursuit of knowledge. But Maga’s family were forced to take the decision that only one of the three daughters of the family could continue with their formal education; thus Maga had to give up her role as a teacher and began to take care of her family home instead. Yet it became clear that nothing could suppress her love of learning and her passion for the development of life skills – a passion that shines through in her granddaughter. Maga taught herself all manner of things and her home was constantly flooded by visitors in awe of her wisdom who wished to share her insight. As her granddaughter tells me: “Life tried to cut her wings – but she found a way to fly on her own.”

Maga passed away in April last year due to a rare illness called progressive supranuclear palsy, leaving behind a loving family including her devoted husband and adoring granddaughter, Laura. The most important thing Maga gave to Laura was her sense of creativity and her desire to express herself so to honour her memory, Laura founded the Casa Maga Performing Arts Academy. She tells me that Maga used to take care of her while her own mother was away at work, turning their home into an educational environment that was safe and exciting. Laura says she has always believed in giving a voice to those who have been silenced by pressures in society. When I asked what drove her to found the Academy, she told me: “I wanted to build what I had, for others.”

Since the Academy was founded, it has flourished, taking in students from the age of just 6 and delivering a range of classes in disciplines like acting, singing, dance and public speaking. The younger students even started creating short films as Laura was keen to introduce the students to what life could be like behind the camera as well as in front of it. The pandemic put a marked strain on arts industries across the world – Costa Rica as a nation was also hit hard by the effects of coronavirus. When the pandemic began, Laura tells me how all their classes moved online, providing great solace to all the students of the Academy and allowing their creative education to continue. The British arts industry came under extreme strain during the pandemic, reaching crisis point last year as even venues like the Old Vic and the Royal Albert Hall warned that they were close to collapse. Costa Rican art is centred predominantly around the private sector – consequently, Laura tells me how the last few years have threatened to take a serious toll on the development of theatre, film and culture. But Laura was adamant that Casa Maga would continue to support its students no matter what happened.

This is only the beginning: Laura has an exciting new project in the pipelines for the Academy. She has a vision to create a children’s television programme that will teach children those life skills that her grandmother took such great pains to pass on to her. She is a firm believer that there are some things that children just cannot learn in the classroom and wants to educate children about the environment, neuroscience, the world of finance and the pressures of the creative industry. The arts industry in Costa Rica is still a limited one. For young aspiring actors, directors or production workers, opportunities to thrive in the industry are hard to come by.

Basílica Santo Domingo de Guzmán, in Santo Domingo de Heredia, where Casa Maga is based. Image Credit: Victor Quirós A/CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

I spent the summer giving workshops to the exceptionally talented 6-14 year old students of Casa Maga as well as working with Laura to write and produce their television show. The show will focus on the raising of environmental awareness, nurturing emotional intelligence, demystifying the economy and finally, will include a short film section which will underline the importance of performing arts while showcasing the talent of the actors and actresses at Casa Maga Academy, all against the backdrop of the beautiful and varied scenery of Costa Rica.

The name ‘Costa Rica’ literally translates as ‘Rich Coast’ and even my short, remote, time spent with the Academy made it clear that the nation’s culture is rich indeed. The Costa Rican story is one of growing resilience, creativity and an outstanding ecological awareness: Laura deeply believes that this is a story that deserves telling. One of the most striking things that Laura made sure to tell me as soon as we began working together was that Costa Rica does not have a national army, and has not had one since 1948. The decision to abolish the armed forces was symbolic of a commitment made to education by redirecting resources to the cultivation of a vibrant culture which now permeates every area of national life. The nation boasts a thriving public health sector, breathtaking ecological variety and a deep commitment to the environment, reflected in the government’s admirable goal to be the first country in the world to achieve total decarbonization. Nor is the scope of Costa Rican vision limited to developments on home soil: earlier this year, a bill was passed by Congress which signalled the creation of a national Space Agency.

But Laura is also clear that for all its beauty, the shores of Costa Rica are marred by great atrocity and tragedy. The high femicide and child violence rates in the country are shocking, and Laura tells me how it is unthinkable that a woman of any age should walk anywhere outside by herself after darkness falls. I asked Laura what it was like to be a woman who had chosen to pursue a career in the arts industry in Costa Rica. She told me about the various difficulties she has had to face, such as dealing with a consistent gender pay gap throughout her career. In her words: “I have to be brave, strong, and I have to have resilience”.

We talked at great length about how these kinds of issues impact the lives of Costa Ricans, and how she hopes that change might be made so that the lives of the children at Casa Maga might not always be so affected by such concerns. The television series, in addition to all that it can contribute to the arts in the country, also hopes to bring attention to Costa Rica on the global stage so that these issues can be recognised and tackled with greater urgency.

As Laura first explained her educational vision for the television show to me, I could not help but think of Blue Peter and Horrible Histories and Dora the Explorer and all those shows I had watched as a child which taught me so much in my formative years which genuinely contributed to how I learn as an adult. A successful television show has the power to stay with one for a long time – they can teach us so much, make us laugh, cry and want to run outside and discover new places – and this is what drew me to working alongside Laura and Casa Maga in the first place.

What inspired me most about the children of Casa Maga was their raw love of learning that I have to admit, guiltily, I often lose sight of amidst the stress of deadlines and essay crises. For the students I was working with, Oxford was a magical place about which they had heard amazing things. I held a Q&A session with them about Oxford life, and they were brimming with questions about the things that fascinated us all as youngsters, but that seem to lose their wonder once they become part of our everyday lives: what was it like to work in a library? Did I get to stay up late at university? What was my favourite part of Oxford? Why did I like rowing? How much work did I have? Did I have any time left to have fun?

Their excitement reminded me of how I felt, almost three years ago, bristling with anticipation, nerves and wonder as I wheeled my suitcases over the Wadham threshold for the first time. Towards the end of the internship, one of the 10-year-old students proudly told me how her lifelong dream was to apply to Oxford and come and study here to experience the wonder of the libraries and the late-nights for herself. For all that I taught the children of Casa Maga, they taught me something just as important, if not more so: a passion for learning is a gift to be treasured.

We must not lose sight of the value of involvement and investment in the arts, particularly in a culture which still too-frequently dismisses the sector as one of secondary importance. How often are subjects scorned as ‘soft’ subjects simply because they do not seem to facilitate a straightforward career path? What Laura understands is the way in which a creative education enhances a student and better equips them for whatever line of work they decide to pursue. She says of her work at Casa Maga: “We have planted the seed for creative leaders. I want to see that the kids and teenagers that are here now, in the future, will be creative and sensitive leaders in whatever they do.”

Most importantly, Casa Maga will continue to bear testament to the memory of the intelligence, creativity and kindness of the beloved Maga – a woman who would not give up on her passion for knowledge no matter what the world threw at her. Maga was a remarkable woman with a remarkable legacy, and as Laura tells me: “Her spirit will live through me, and through Casa Maga.”

Image Credit: Laura Montero

Night at the Sheldonian: Oxford Millennium Orchestra Play Bruch, Beethoven and Schumann

Music

Jimmy Brewer

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3rd January 2022

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Night at the Sheldonian: Oxford Millennium Orchestra Play Bruch, Beethoven and Schumann

Last term, I went to see Oxford Millennium Orchestra perform their Michaelmas term concert at the Sheldonian. Billed as the headline, with soloist Magdalena Filipczak, was Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1. This was supported by Beethoven’s Egmont overture and Schumann’s Symphony No. 3.

Out from the November night an easy orange glow invited me into the Sheldonian. I trotted up creaking stairs to the top floor, into the jaws of death – the jaws of death being an archaically unintuitive seating set up. The seats on the upper stalls are just three big steps – if you arrive late, sidling along the upper rows in front of those already seated requires deft footwork and a lot of “excuse me”s.

The night began with Beethoven’s Egmont Overture. It was a bracing musical introduction, serving its purpose as an overture, with bold themes easily latched upon by the audience. Composed for the 1788 play of the same name by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the piece is interesting merely for its connection to two German luminaries. Yet Beethoven’s reputation was not earned by chance; the Egmont overture, with muscular themes and compelling structure, simmers and sweeps and soars.

Goethe’s play describes the life of Count Egmont, a heroic sixteenth-century Dutchman who refuses to give up his liberty despite the threat of arrest from the Spanish. The orchestra conveyed this drama and heroism, playing with eager conviction – tense strings and flowing woodwind melodies leapt out under Adrian Adlam’s tight and economic conducting.

When Egmont finished, soloist Magdalena Filipczak emerged to healthy applause. The audience would soon discover that this applause was not only rightly deserved, but should have been louder. The Bruch Violin Concerto no. 1 seized the ears from its opening strains. Filipczak played with haunting clarity; the meandering violin melodies sizzled against the orchestra’s deeper texture. The instrument she played that night was of note – dated from the 1720s, crafted by famed luthier Antonia Stradivari. Violins made by Stradivari are considered to be among the finest ever made; only musicians of significant repute will ever have the resources and support to be able to play one.

In incompetent hands, a Stradivarius will sound as dull as a charity-shop violin. It was the skill and vivacity of Filipczak’s playing that brought the concerto to life. Icily capricious runs and howling high notes reflected not just of the virtuosity of a professional but the hunger and earnestness of youth. It was exhilarating to be in the audience and hear this liberating three-way conversation between player, conductor and soloist. It seemed that each member of the orchestra was responding with their very best to Filipczak’s electric lead.

The concerto begins with drama; a hushed orchestra swells and softens against the barbed but melodious line of the principal violinist. This moves without break into the second movement, whose singing melody stands out as a highlight of the piece. The third movement buzzes with a dancing, skipping opening theme, returned to throughout, each time with increased vigour and movement. It ends in loud and exuberant style.

When the violin concerto finished, the audience broke out into unrestrained applause. Around the room people glowed with the excitement that comes after a great performance. Filipczak bowed, walked off, walked back on, bowed again, and walked off. Then she walked back on again, this time poised to play something more. She announced to the audience that she would play a piece by composer Grażyna Bacewicz – Polish Capriccio for solo violin. Filipczak drew special attention to Bacewicz being female, standing out among an otherwise all-male cast of composers. It is always worth reiterating, for the sake of our own vigilance, the tragedy ubiquitous among the arts that historic representation of non-male artists remains so poor.

The Oxford Millennium Orchestra mid-performance. Image Credit: The Oxford Millennium Orchestra

The Polish Capriccio, brief as it was, deserves a special mention. Played with all the fire and wit that she gave to the concerto, Filipczak delivered this high-spirited Polish tune convincingly. The audience, perhaps tentative to begin at the prospect of a piece few had heard of, were all applauding unreservedly when it finished.

With that, Magdalena Filipczak walked off for the last time. After the interval, the audience came back to hear Schumann’s Symphony No. 3. However, it felt as though some of the energy of the orchestra had walked off along with Filipczak. The symphony, grand and rarefied though it is, was simply outshined by the preceding performance. Throughout the symphony’s long five movements, it was a struggle to hear it as anything more than a footnote to what had come before. There were occasional flashes of excitement, but the orchestra seemed lethargic. Whether this was from fatigue after a long concert, or the lack of a unifying soloist, was unclear. After the end, conductor Adrian Adlam, speaking a few words about the music, called the Schumann symphony “the great work of the night”. Wherever this greatness lay, it had not been realised in the Schumann the way it had been in the Bruch.

Nevertheless, for an orchestra made up entirely of students, which rehearses only once a week, it was an impressive concert. The evident dedication that each member of the orchestra had put into the music, on top of demanding degrees, is admirable. Adlam had a word or two to say about this; in his closing speech he exalted the students for their cross-disciplinary skill. He seemed particularly enamoured by STEM subjects – presumably the most foreign to a disciple of music – speaking reverently about those studying “physics” or “biomedicine”. It was a touching admission of humility from the conductor, and ended the evening on a tone of good faith. I left satisfied.

Image Credit: Oxford Millenium Orchestra

Review: ‘Beautiful World, Where Are You’

Books

Charlie Taylor

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2nd January 2022

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Review: ‘Beautiful World, Where Are You’

Sally Rooney’s new novel Beautiful World, Where Are You starts with a tinder date in a hotel lobby bar overlooking the Atlantic. Alice Kelleher is a twenty-nine-year-old novelist who finds herself on the west-coast of Ireland following a breakdown in New York. Felix is a local who works in an Amazon-esque warehouse. From the very beginning Rooney sets up the parameters of their relationship clearly based on class: Felix rents with friends from work, living in a semi-detached house on an estate described on google maps as a “network of white streets on a grey background”. Alice has a million euros in the bank, a fraught emotional self, and has been given the use of a large old rectory belonging to an artist friend: “It’s much too big, obviously” and “they’re not charging me any rent”.

On the other hand, it’s also a novel about Eileen, Alice’s friend from Trinity College, introduced through an email correspondence with Alice. She works at a literary magazine formatting the full stops in “W.H. Auden”, going to a café to read The Karamazov Brothers and moping about an ex-boyfriend, by looking at his social media with the bleak bio: “local sad boy. Normal brain haver. Check the SoundCloud”. By contrast, Simon, her on-and-off childhood friend-come-love interest, works in politics for an obscure left-wing group and advocates for relatively good things, he had studied Philosophy at Oxford (and for good measure is a Catholic).

From the very set-up the premise is typical of Rooney’s previous two books: the characters’ relationships are constructed through ambivalent power-dynamics; social and economic factors (class, financial background, education, religion, family history) and individual personal forces, (by and large, mistakes and miscommunication). Rooney has always been fascinated by how these things intertwine, how structural factors like politics and the economy can influence everyday life. In an interview about her own Marxist politics, she talks about these interlinking ideas within the scope of novels, about the investigation of how “class as a very broad social structure impacts our personal and intimate lives”. In one particular scene Alice walks into a local supermarket and writes in an email to Eileen that it was a “culmination of all the labour in the world, all the burning of fossil fuels and all the back-breaking work on coffee farms and sugar plantations. All for this!”. – “I thought I would throw up”. Needless to say she still buys her sandwich.

While Rooney wants to make it clear that these characters are made by a complex process of personal and structural factors, the characterisation of these effects comes across as largely typical liberal nihilism: evident contemporary issues are discussed but focus by and large as background. Brexit, climate change, culture wars and fame form a seemingly endless indulgent discourse with no real direction or purpose. Instead, there seems to be an obsession with providing binary opposites within her characters, which comes across as a litany of clichés. Felix is both bad because he watches hardcore pornography but is good in the fact that he likes and gets along well with dogs. Eileen presents her vulnerabilities through the online-stalking of her ‘sad boy’ ex-boyfriend, her tiny apartment, and meagre salary, while Simon can promise his traditional Catholicism, do-gooder job in the Irish government. Alice’s sexual voyeurism is linked to her financial position in allowing Felix to come to Rome with her expenses paid. Felix’s working-class cliché borders on the offensive, or serious ignorance at best, presenting a character who has to literally defend his intelligence: “I can read by the way… I’m not great at reading, but I can read. And I don’t think you really care anyway.” When these minor power-plays slowly unfold and catalyse at the end of the novel, involving a major confrontation between Alice and Eileen, a knocked-over chair, and a wine glass smashed on the kitchen floor, we’re left wondering what the entire point of these relationships was in the first place.

In a more welcome departure, the framing of the novel from different perspectives, broken up by long email-passages between Alice and Eileen, provides an interesting string through which the plot is thread through. If anything, these emails provide greater flexibility for Rooney herself to get her opinions, somewhat, across: Alice, a famous novelist grappling with fame, is an ample nod to her own experience. At their best, these emails provide real insight into celebrity-culture, privacy, and the publishing industry. Rooney appears deeply disturbed by the commodification of her own work, the idea that fame is seemingly random, people “very rapidly, with little or not preparation, into public life, becoming objects of widespread public discourse, debate and critique”. Fame is an obvious double-edged sword, there is no new ground to be broken here, yet in the context of the unrelating discourse on Rooney’s own novels, which saw herself remove her social media, it is interesting. Alice becomes a way in which Rooney can express her dissatisfaction with the contemporary publishing industry, while being able to anonymise her voice through the nature of fiction: “When I submitted the first book, I just wanted to make enough to finish the next one. I never advertised myself as a psychologically robust person, capable of withstanding extensive public inquiries into my personality and upbringing”. By consequence there is, at least for Alice if not Rooney, a kind of nihilism in the point of writing, “no will even remember me, thank god”.

However, these email fragments also contain some of the worst and most indulgent parts of the novel. Alice and Eileen appear almost at complete opposites to how they are otherwise portrayed through these emails, as precocious, privileged actors displaying a kind of over-intellectualised ignorance. On the whole some of the phrasing appears mundane: “I’ve been thinking lately about right-wing politics”; “the idea of ‘conservatism’ is in itself false, because nothing can be conserved, as such”. While the emails seem to be there to present both characters as sort of kitsch intellectuals, they make them seem condescendingly out of touch, if not vapid. Further statements like “at the moment I think it’s fair to say we’re living in a period of historical crisis, and this idea seems to be generally accepted by most of the population” — or that studies show “people have been spending a lot more time reading the news and learning about current affairs”, are just pointless. Instead of giving real insight into both of these characters we are left with a portrayal of them as ignorant at best, completely out of touch at worst. Throughout the novel Alice and Eileen are not consistent moral arbiters, they are not presented as being unread or necessarily stupid, but the emails portray them at their very worse: tedious, indulgent discourse-hunters who hide behind intellectualised language.

In moving away from Normal People, Sally Rooney is herself seemingly reacting to the consequence of fame as a structural process which is acting on her, as well as her characters. And in reconciling all these forces there is an inner tension, both from the very structure of the novel, in how to reconcile all these pressures of modern life, something which is a whirlwind, a pandora’s box of emotional entanglement. In some sense the novelistic choices around structure seem to reflect a growing wish from Rooney’s end to put more politics into her writing, or at the very least to offer some critiques. However the departure breaks little new ground, revolving around a bundle of overworked cliché. Consequently, this isn’t such a radical departure from Normal People, or even Conversations with Friends, it is still very much the same Rooney-esque novel, with a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to move away from her past work.

Image Credit: Chris Boland / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 via flickr

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