Wednesday 11th February 2026
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Rich and generative: In conversation with ‘The Glass Menagerie’

Jessica Phillips
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Rich and generative: In conversation with ‘The Glass Menagerie’

The Glass Menagerie is one of Tennessee Williams’ most famous plays which, until recently, had escaped my attention. I’m no stranger to Tennessee Williams: that name takes me back three years (oh god) to my sixth-form days, spent poring over A Streetcar Named Desire, and trying to understand what on earth ‘plastic-theatre’ meant, all while my teacher lusted over Marlon Brando’s 1951 portrayal of Stanley. 

Yet The Glass Menagerie is a play with its own value, and not one to be overshadowed by the rest of Williams’ repertoire. After the success of The Creditors last Michaelmas, the Keble-based Crazy Child Productions is set to bring Williams’ breakout work to the Keble O’Reilly. This play’s narrative is told by Tom (Oli Spooner) who spends his time reflecting on the past, his mother Amanda (Lyndsey Mugford), and sister Laura (Matilda Beloou). The family are struggling to make a living in St Louis, and Amanda, an example of Williams’ typical ‘faded Southern Belle’ archetype, desperately wants to find a suitor for her daughter, whose physical disability and social anxiety made her withdraw from the world. 

The memories of the play aren’t confined to the stage; for director George Robson, this is a play he has wanted to do since his sixth form days, but claims that “there just wasn’t time”. However, time certainly isn’t an issue for this particular production, which was scheduled for last term but moved back to Hilary, and out of the BT studio into the much larger space of the Keble O’Reilly. The show is being performed in the round, so the rehearsal began with rearranging the chairs. I took my place in a corner, opposite Crazy Child Productions’ two directors, Magdalena Lacey-Hughes and George Robson.

Lacey-Hughes and Robson decided on this particular circular configuration as it relates to the sense of entrapment in the play. Lacey-Hughes describes how it focuses both the audience and Tom “together on the centre of what’s happening” – in other words, Tom’s memory. The configuration poses some practical challenges: “You can’t hide anything,” Robson notes; there’s no space on stage where the actors can escape the gaze of the audience. This made the rehearsal particularly dynamic, as the directors rotated around the space to check the audience’s sightlines. Spooner contorted himself in his chair as he directed his lines to different sides of the space. The actors imbued these movements with intentionality, discussing why their characters were changing positions, to fit the considerations of the circular space with the script’s meaning. 

Despite the theme of entrapment and enclosure in this play, Robson emphasises that rehearsal is a very free space, where the actors are open to making mistakes. “You can’t do it right, until you know what it looks like to do it wrong,” he told me during our conversation, demonstrating not only his capability as a director but also his potential in a career as a life coach. Perhaps it is this attitude that gave the whole rehearsal its easy feel. The two actors, Mugford and Spooner, who were present at this rehearsal slipped in and out of character with such ease that it was sometimes hard to tell what was genuine casual chatter and what was performance. The roles of the directors and actors sometimes blended into one: Lacey-Hughes stepped into the scene to demonstrate a few dance steps before Spooner, and Mugford discussed the character of Tom with Spooner as they negotiated the scene and the way they wanted to perform it. They asked questions about the script, gained clarity on the meaning through putting Williams’ words into modern terms: “He’s not too good-looking” became: “He’s not straight-up peng”, and “He’s not right-down homely?” became “So he’s chopped?”. This playful conversation demonstrated the freedom of the rehearsal space which allowed the actors to use these unconventional techniques to become more comfortable with their characters’ interactions. 

The two actors demonstrated a deep understanding of the script’s versatility. “You can tweak the phrasing of something, and suddenly you feel like you’re seeing it completely differently,” Mugford explained. This versatility contributes to a certain ambiguity around the characters and the play as a whole – “it’s not necessarily always clear how you should be feeling about what’s happening, and how you should be feeling about the characters,” she continues. It’s for this reason that she describes the play as “murky”, both for the unreliability of the play’s narrative, and the uncertainty regarding each character’s morality. However, Mugford likens the murkiness of this particular play to pond water, rather than pollution. “It’s rich, it’s generative” she describes, and this is certainly evident in Crazy Child Productions’ adaptation of the show. The small snippet of this show which I observed retained all the classic elements of Tennessee Williams’ work as I know it, and yet imbued it with a naturalness which felt invigorating. I left the rehearsal entirely intrigued by the production, by all the things that ran unsaid beneath the characters’ conversation, and even in my conversation with the directors. This very uncertainty, yet richness of potential, has certainly caught my attention. I eagerly anticipate the final product. 

The Glass Menagerie runs at the Keble O’Reilly Theatre from the 4th-8th February. 

Anneliese Dodds on higher education, local politics, and damehood

Isaac Gavaghan
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Anneliese Dodds on higher education, local politics, and damehood

Dodds spoke to Cherwell a few days after appearing in the New Year’s Honours list. Receiving her Damehood, she said, left her feeling “really delighted and very surprised”. What stood out to her most was not the Damehood itself, but rather being recognised alongside “so many incredible people” from Oxford, something which she describes as  “very humbling”.

Appropriately for an MP representing Oxford, Dodds’ career has bridged academia and politics. Before her election as an MP in 2017, she worked as a university lecturer, researching social policy and higher education. This background clearly shapes her view of universities – she sees them not simply as engines of economic growth, but as cultural institutions. As Minister for International Development, Dodds travelled widely, and she warmly recalls memories of repeatedly encountering people whose lives had intersected with British higher education: “Just about everywhere that I went I would find somebody with a link to a UK university.”

Internationalism is central to Dodds’ politics and international students feature prominently in her defence of the current UK higher education system. Dodds observes that there has been a shift away from the Commonwealth towards countries like China, but frames this as a positive development. She pays tribute to “international students [who] support the educational experience of domestic students”. With many UK universities now “cross-subsidised” by overseas fees, she suggests this income helps keep “opportunities open to people” who might otherwise be excluded from higher education altogether.

Dodds’s view of the University of Oxford itself is more complex. She’s clear that she is “so proud” of the “world changing” discoveries that are made at the University. Yet she thinks that the benefits of these discoveries fail to reach the city that hosts them:  “Local people aren’t able to see that benefit as much as I would hope…. One of the things I’m really passionate about is trying to make sure that there is more of a connection, and that the opportunities associated with research and science are more open to local people.” 

To me, this seems unfair to the University. As well as being economically central to Oxford, there are many examples of the outreach initiatives that the University undertakes in order to benefit young people in Oxford. In 2014 the Oxford Learning Centre opened in Blackbird Leys, a part of Dodds’s Oxford East constituency. The Centre helps to educate students from age 7 to 18 and in the last decade has supported 5,000 local children. Personally, I grew up in Oxford, and I remember my own interest in academic study being kindled at primary school by the free after-school science club run by volunteer PhD students. The utter joy of making ice cream using frozen nitrogen convinced me that science was something fun and interesting, although I eventually chose to study history.

From universities, our conversation moves to local politics. I begin by asking whether the government’s high taxation of pubs would continue. Dodds said that the tax burden on pubs was “something that is being looked at”. Later the same day, the government announced its latest U-turn, reducing tax rates on pubs.

On wider ideological questions, Dodds is resistant to claims that the Starmer government had moved too far to the right. Indeed, she pushes back at my description of her as a “soft-left politician”. She says she has “never been a big fan of labels”. Instead, Dodds cites the workers’ rights legislation the Labour government has passed. She sticks closely to the Labour Party line that Starmer’s government should be judged “not just on what they say but on what they do”.

Trying to move her away from the party line, I move onto tackling climate change at a local level, an issue that has sharply divided Oxford over the past few years. Dodds is unequivocal in her criticism of recent measures, particularly the congestion charge. She argues that it had no mandate from the electorate, since it did not appear in the election leaflets of the Liberal Democrat councillors behind the scheme. For her, the most important thing is balancing the climate crisis with local needs, ensuring fairness throughout. She attacked the way in which the congestion charge was introduced, as well as how its profits are used to make the Park and Ride service free – benefiting those commuting from rural Oxfordshire at the expense of those in the city, who the congestion charge affects the most.

For Dodds, it all comes back to fairness. For her, it’s the principle that must anchor any attempt to reconcile climate policy with everyday life, but is also how she frames her broader political aim to unite the people of Oxford East. On the need to tackle climate change, Dodds insists on consensus: “we are all on the same page.”

Oxford tops two sets of University rankings

Archie Johnston
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Oxford tops two sets of University rankings

The University of Oxford topped its European and global counterparts in recently released university rankings. Oxford came top of the 2026 Quacquerelli Symonds (QS) European University rankings, released on 28th January. The University was also ranked best in the world for computer and medical sciences in the 2026 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings by Subject, published on 21st January.

The QS rankings scored Oxford a perfect score of 100 in academic and employment reputation, which are weighted heavily by the survey’s scoring system. Oxford also excelled in the firm’s assessment of the university’s “international research network”, its “faculty-student ratio”, and its “employment outcomes”.

The QS Europe results had Oxford outstrip British rival Imperial College London, which placed two places ahead of it in the QS World rankings released in June last year. Imperial placed third in the new European rankings, behind Oxford and ETH Zurich, a primarily STEM-focused university in Switzerland. 

The THE World University Rankings for “medical and health” put Oxford narrowly ahead of University of Cambridge, ETH Zurich, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which topped the THE rankings for arts and humanities, business and economics, and social sciences. Oxford was also awarded top score by THE for computer science, with the same immediate runners-up. This is the 15th year running that Oxford has been ranked top for medicine, and the 8th that it has topped the computer science tables.

QS is a for-profit higher education analysis firm which provides a variety of organisational services to higher education institutions. It was founded in 1990 to assist students looking to study abroad, and is involved in the promotion and administration of the Erasmus programme.

In response to the rankings, Oxford Vice-Chancellor Irene Tracey said: “At a moment when the UK is rightly seeking closer partnership with Europe, including renewed participation in programmes such as Erasmus, this recognition is particularly meaningful. It affirms Oxford’s long-standing role as a European university with a global outlook, committed to openness, collaboration and public service.”

The prioritisation of STEM in QS rankings has been a source for criticism. Several of the rankings’ measurements of institutional influence are based on citation databases which weigh STEM subjects above arts and humanities.

In 2011, an opinion article in the New Statesman called the QS rankings “a load of old baloney”. Writer David Blanchflower criticised the fact that 50% of the survey’s points come from an institution’s reputation among other academics and employers, whose position to make a judgement is questionable.

Other criticisms of the QS rankings have alleged that the firm’s results are Eurocentric, and that the sample size of their reputation survey, at between 2% and 8% of the available respondents, is too small to be reliable.

Between 2004 and 2005, QS and THE jointly published the THE-QS World University Rankings. THE cited a perceived favouritism in the QS rankings for sciences over humanities, as well as other methodological issues, as reasons for the split.

QS and THE were approached for comment.

How not to decolonise a museum: ‘Suturing Wounds’ at the Pitt Rivers

Emma Heagney
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How not to decolonise a museum: ‘Suturing Wounds’ at the Pitt Rivers

Today, the colonial history of the Pitt Rivers Museum is common knowledge. Whether you know of the details or just the dodgy vibes, the Pitt Rivers once represented an era of brutal European colonisation, with valuable objects stolen from communities and held in Oxford for their ‘exotic’ and ‘curious’ qualities. Despite efforts to supposedly decolonise the museum and honour the descendants of those exploited by colonialism, the museum has a long way to go. The lingering colonial rhetoric and problematic methods of display are no more evident than in the museum’s latest photographic exhibition, Suturing Wounds.

In the photos, Egyptian artist Sara Sallam sheds light on the exploitative and colonial 19th-century practice of violently excavating Byzantine-era Egyptian cemeteries to steal textiles from the deceased. She poses in front of Blythe House in London, a huge storage facility containing millions of artefacts from British museums, and wears a tunic made of facsimiles of late antique Egyptian textiles, sewn together by the artist herself. Once worn to express social status and Christian devotion, western colonists admired them for their aesthetic value alone. They ignored the dignity of the dead and instead proceeded to inflict more violence against Christians in the Middle East, which continues today in the persecution of Palestinian Christians, the direct descendants of such rich but exploited traditions. As a Byzantinist myself, I was extremely pleased to see this under-researched aspect of history explored in a tender, personal way. Sallam stitched together reproductions of textiles from the Akhmim cemetery to represent the literal suturing of the wounds created by colonisation. The additional medium of photography situates the tunic in a colonial setting and thereby renders its use an act of protest, a confrontation of colonised and coloniser through material objects. 

When I visited the exhibition, I initially could not find it. Tucked behind tall cases on the very top gallery, the view from the ground floor consisted simply of bright pink words describing the photos. Eventually, when I found it, I had one thought only: was this it? The photos were used as a sort of wallpaper to be placed on some doors, probably storing more stolen artefacts. An effect of this was that I could not actually see much of the subject of the photos. This was exacerbated by the fact that the wood beams of the doors cut through much of the image of the tunic itself. Likewise, with the image taking up an entire wall, Sallam only reached my height, a mere five feet and two inches – anyone taller than me would probably struggle to see for this reason, and there was hardly enough space between the doors and the cases opposite to stand back and take in a larger view. I found that I actually had a better time viewing these photos online rather than in person.

Perhaps the most egregious issues, however, were that the images were of low quality (I could see the pixels) and that one of the wood beams cut through the sign which showed the background to be Blythe House. The entire point of the photographic medium was rendered null and void, as the viewer was given virtually no information. Would the average viewer have known the context? No. In fact, the two friends I attended the exhibition with were clueless, understanding the vaguely anti-colonial messaging but unaware of the specific culture represented and why. There were no captions to explain the significance of the textiles, leaving the viewer in the dark. In fact, I worry that this results in the content of the artwork being misunderstood by most, reduced instead to an aesthetic object once again. It is such a shame that Sallam’s work, fascinating in itself, was displayed so carelessly, despite the artist herself being a co-curator. Unfortunately, these practices seem to align with the enduring colonial spirit that permeates the museum as a whole.

My own family was torn apart by British colonisation in Ireland, inheriting the generational problems of addiction, poverty, and identity loss. To this day, I have never met any of my estranged Irish family, and I feel a sense of emptiness knowing that I will never have a connection to an entire half of myself. This context shaped my experience at the Pitt Rivers. I can only imagine how it must feel to have been affected by the horrors of slavery and genocide, and seeing sacred objects from my culture displayed so recklessly in the museum. The museum’s approach to decolonisation can be characterised with one word: passive. Performative activism checked off the list, the museum simply places a plaster over the wounds caused by colonisation. Signs designed to separate the museum from problematic practices are completely separate from their cabinets – the viewer is not challenged at all.

Sallam’s project is a bold look into the effects of colonisation on Egyptian communities today, but ultimately falters in its display in the Pitt Rivers Museum, which cannot separate itself from its colonial history. Until its orientalist and careless presentation of artefacts is changed, I do not believe that it can meaningfully champion decolonial art. Take the relatively small display of the Evil Eye, the caption of which begins by describing the practice in the past tense, before adding an appendage which briefly mentions its continuance. Archaising language like this, treating colonised cultures as though they are remnants of the past in need of archaeological ‘discovery’, is to reduce these traditions to primitivity and erase the living communities who continue to practice them today. Entrapment of Sallam’s photos to the very architecture of the Pitt Rivers itself represents the endurance of colonial curation which characterises the museum.

This article refers to a temporary display hosted by the PRM on behalf of Photo Oxford Festival. The artist and Photo Oxford oversaw the design, production, and installation of the display which ended on 25 January 2026.

Moving cities, keeping home

Saba Ahmadzadeh Noughani
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Moving cities, keeping home

I’ve moved cities enough times to know that leaving is never just about packing boxes. After spending eighteen years in London, I found myself applying to universities in a number of different cities, including Oxford. All my London friends were shocked at the thought of anyone willingly leaving the capital, especially with the countless high-ranking universities already at our doorstep. After a year at Oxford, I shocked them again by packing my bags for Yerevan, Armenia, for the first part of my year abroad. Four months later, I am awaiting my visa for Dushanbe, Tajikistan. 

For me, the hardest part about moving has never been adapting to somewhere new, but figuring out how to leave the place I was already calling home. When I first arrived at the Lodge in Wadham College, the porter said something along the lines of, ‘Westgate is like your “Westfield” in London.’ That sentence alone made me feel at ease. I realise now that I was searching for pieces of home. I hesitated before cancelling my subscriptions and memberships to clubs, galleries and museums in London. I’d still read through all their event emails, refusing to tell myself that I wouldn’t be able to attend. My face would light up if I ever heard a distinct London accent or when anyone mentioned  they were also from London. Without realising it, I was continuously searching for London in Oxford’s smaller, quieter streets. 

London doesn’t just have a place in my heart; I’d say it is my heart. With constant changes in the landscape through gentrification, shifting communities and evolving social life, I wouldn’t say I grew up in London, but rather I grew up with London. There are words, sounds and smells that only a Londoner can understand: a pace of life and a hectic routine that only we are accustomed to.

Every weekend, I forced myself to stay in Oxford, trying to navigate my new city and build a community in a place I would call home for the next four years. Oxford seemed gentler and orderly compared to London and people were often much friendlier. When I spoke to my friends who were still back in London, they complained about the high cost of living and their chaotic daily commutes on the Tube, yet my heart still ached to step in their shoes and experience their university routine, even if just for a day.

But then something changed. After my second term, I returned home for the holidays and, for more than a split second, I truly missed my dorm room. Even though I reminisced as I passed by my old school, watching all the school children leaving to catch the bus, the tube, or to walk home together, just as I once did, and found comfort in London’s multicultural streets, I was still counting the days until I could pack up and move back to Oxford. 

I added words and phrases like college mum, plodge and subfusc to my vernacular: vocabulary which I now needed to explain to my non-Oxford friends, just as there had once been references  only fellow Londoners could understand. These new words summoned a feeling of deep nostalgia for the place I now was able to call home. I finally accepted Oxford as my second home, without feeling as though I had to leave London behind. 

So when I moved to Armenia, I had to figure out how to leave yet another city behind. At first, moving beyond UK borders didn’t exactly feel exciting or adventurous. Not speaking Armenian meant I couldn’t effectively communicate with locals, or at times even with my own landlord; I couldn’t read addresses or ingredients, which were usually in Armenian script.

I quickly learned that all fruit and vegetables were organic so expired quickly and that my usual walking pace was considered ‘rushing’ to Armenians. To my surprise, the metro only had one line, and the local Asda down our road in London was much larger than supermarkets in central Yerevan. Neighbours always greeted one another, and social etiquettes and daily rhythms of life differed from anything I had previously known. Except for the fact that, like in Oxford, it was also deemed unacceptable to walk on grass, which took me embarrassingly long to realise.

The pace of life was even slower than in Oxford, and while I appreciated the opportunity to ‘breathe’, it also felt boring at times. Instead, I sought comfort in small, familiar things, such as ordering English Breakfast Tea at coffee shops. The sound of rain instantly transported me back, and having classmates from London gave me a sense of belonging – although hearing us say ‘Come off it’ or ‘Are you having a laugh?’ was met with a great deal of confusion by my American classmate.  I experienced similar confusion when my American classmate said  ‘crosswalk’ instead of ‘zebra crossing’ and ‘truck’ and ‘trunk’ instead of ‘lorry’ and ‘boot’.

Our cities and their influence on our character live within us, expressed through the pace of our walk, our mannerisms and how we speak. Regardless of where we are in the world, our cities show up in our accents, mannerisms, and conversations.

When I look back on my initial days in Oxford and Yerevan, I realise I had not yet experienced these cities beyond their tourist attractions, and most interactions with locals were surface level conversations. Yet as I prepared to leave, I felt as though I was leaving behind a part of me –  a part that I wanted to hold on to, even if it was time for me to move on. 

If there’s anything I’ve learnt from adapting to different cities and building homes in once-unrecognisable landscapes, it is that our time spent in different cities is not separate chapters to be left behind. Instead, these experiences can be thought of as sedimentary layers. My London layer shaped my Oxford layer, and both influenced my Yerevan layer. In turn, each of them will shape whatever comes next in Dushanbe. There is no need to store cities elsewhere or file them away. Cities are identities that follow us, evolve with us, and take root within us.

Town and Gown share the spoils in boxing showdown

Natalie Tan
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Town and Gown share the spoils in boxing showdown

There’s something very satisfying about watching people try to beat the living daylights out of each other. If that sentence seems contentious, you may want to come down and see it with your own two eyes. You haven’t really lived until you’ve seen – or been – attendees milling around in suits and evening dresses, holding champagne flutes and devouring hot dogs, as two boxers beat each other bloody in the ring five feet away.

The latest edition of OUABC’s Town v Gown featured bouts of three rounds of two minutes each. With the sports hall of Iffley Road transformed into a spotlight-strewn ring and crackling with good-natured anticipation, fighters walked out to blaring anthems like Shakira’s ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ and Charli XCX’s ‘I Don’t Care’, which rapidly dispelled any pretensions of seriousness about the event.

Haobai Chen began by securing a win over Tushar Grover in the wide-open, evenly matched middleweight bout, with Constantine Deng falling to Gareth Tan, who sealed a unanimous victory in the welterweight bout.

The last all-Oxford bout saw Barnaby Carter go up against Reuben Meller: not only did Carter have the longer reach, he also had the support of what seemed like a quarter of the crowd, who rose to their feet applauding when he hopped into the ring. By the time two standing counts had been called for Meller, who was now meeting Carter’s manic, predatory focus with the dazed wince of someone who’s been hit in the face one too many times, the referee’s decision to stop the contest seemed merciful.

The first match against external opposition came when Diego Dolgetta-Garcia (Oxford) stepped into the ring to face Pho Van An (UCL) to raucous cheers and an incredibly enthusiastic rendition of ‘Bella Ciao’ from the home supporters. Though Pho and Dolgetta-Garcia seemed evenly matched in the first round, with each fighter dishing out as much as they took, Dolgetta-Garcia had Pho on the ropes by round two after a vicious flurry of blows that Pho only dodged the worst of by clinching him. The fight came to an abrupt end when the referee deemed Pho too injured to continue; Dolgetta-Garcia raised his arms in elation as the hall once again exploded into chants of “ciao, ciao, ciao”.

A series of local derbies followed, with Lukasz Gawrys (Oxford) winning decisively over Joseph Lucas (Oxford Brookes) in the 69kg bout after a ref-stops-contest decision late in the second round. Even before the next fighter, Jonelle “JJ” Domingo (Oxford), took to the ring to face his opponent Vladislav Davis (Oxford Brookes), supporters brandished a massive Philippines flag and made their support well and truly heard. The fight would prove to be one of the better ones of the night: when Domingo nailed Davis with a precise, powerful hook inside the first few seconds to a delighted roar from the crowd, it seemed over before it really began.

Davis, however, had well and truly turned the tide by the third round, picking opportune moments to step inside Domingo’s reach and land blows that were sparse but costly. To the joy of the Brookes contingent, the bell rang on a victory for Davis as the court turned dark red with pulsing bass and a reluctant round of applause.

In an unexpected departure from the programme, the final match featured last-minute replacement Aiden Faulkner (Yeovil ABC), who had agreed the night before to the match, stepping up against Tom Wise, OUABC Men’s Vice-Captain, who had just triumphed at BUCS Boxing Championships the week before.

It’s an age-old adage to save the best for last, but it paid off for OUABC. From the second that Faulkner and Wise began to circle each other, it was apparent to even a complete amateur like me that they were a level above everyone who had gone before. They darted in and out of reach at double-time speed; somehow, still, there was a frighteningly clean weight behind every swing, even the missed ones.

By the end of the second round Wise was sending Faulkner into the ropes more often than not; before the bell rang on the end of the third the audience was leaping to their feet with the satisfied roar of a crowd who had just seen their prized horse triumph in unquestionable fashion. Despite Wise’s unanimous win, it has to be said that Faulkner was by no means bad, and in fact the match would have been worse if he was. He was very good: Wise was simply better.

But it was ironically the first fight of the night that encapsulated it all: beyond the brutality, what makes a fight great is showmanship. The lightweight matchup between Pratul Ramesh (Oxford) and Kai Smith (Oxford) resembled that between a bird and a bear more than anything else. Light on his feet, Ramesh bobbed and weaved around Smith, eventually dodging his wild blows with such ease that he barely looked like he was trying. Ramesh ducked a massive hook, and as Smith staggered forward, carried by his momentum, Ramesh did a little pelvic shimmy, a come-hither, a really-now that drew a rising murmur of appreciation from the audience, that inside six amateur minutes you could still find time for showboating.

Again Smith swung; again Ramesh dodged; again he danced. Arrogance is timeless. I found myself leaning forward in my seat. That’s what Town v Gown promised, and that’s what it delivered: a damn good show.

Holocaust survivor speaks with student granddaughter for memorial day

Finlo Cowley
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Holocaust survivor speaks with student granddaughter for memorial day

Holocaust survivor Robert Slager shared his story in conversation with his granddaughter, Lady Margaret Hall student Grace Steinberg, at an event held at the Oxford Union on Monday 2nd February. The talk, organised by the Union of Jewish Students and Oxford Jewish Society to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, reflected the theme of this year’s commemorations, ‘Bridging Generations’.

Holocaust Memorial Day is observed on the 27th January each year, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp. It commemorates the six million Jewish people murdered during the Holocaust as well as the millions more killed by Nazi persecution and in later genocides in Cambodia, Darfur, Bosnia and Rwanda. This year’s theme of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, emphasises that “the responsibility of remembrance doesn’t end with the survivors – it lives on through their children, their grandchildren and through all of us”.

Slager, who was born whilst his mother was in hiding in Amsterdam in 1943, explained that his father was deported to Auschwitz in 1942 and that his mother had only escaped . deportation herself thanks to an administrative error. 

In an extraordinary sequence of events, Slager’s foster family would move across the Netherlands to protect him, facing constant dangers – at one point, they had a Nazi officer stationed in their house. Following the war, he was reunited with his mother and given the middle name ‘Bartholomew’ in honour of his foster father.

Steinberg, who is the Vice-President of Oxford Jewish Society, then delivered her reflections on the story of her opa (Dutch for ‘grandfather’). In a moving speech, she emphasised the role that chance had played in her grandfather’s survival. She then read out two letters she had written: the first to her great-grandfather David Slager, telling him about his son whom he never got to meet. The second was to the Protestant couple who hid her grandfather, thanking them for their bravery during the war.

Steinberg emphasised that Holocaust remembrance involves “not only learning from suffering but learning from courage” and that “living Jews are the most effective monuments” for commemorating the Holocaust. For Steinberg, the Bakels’ example showed the power of small “good deeds” in saving lives.

 She also recalled her shock at seeing a swastika sprayed on Oxford’s David Slager Jewish Centre, named after her great-grandfather, in 2024. The mark left by the symbol after it was washed off was, she said, a “scar” for the Jewish community in Oxford. 

When asked by the audience about hope, Slager admitted that he was “disappointed” about the recent rise in antisemitism and acknowledged that there was an “uncertainty that hangs over our heads” about what the future will bring. Hearing Slager speak was a particularly special opportunity for those present, since he does not regularly talk in public about his experiences, finding the process of revisiting the Holocaust too “depress[ing]”.  

Oxford Jewish Society told Cherwell: “It was such a pleasure to be able to welcome so many people to our event commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day. Given the few opportunities to hear from Holocaust survivors, we were delighted to be able to put on this event for the Oxford student community, and we hope that the lessons of the Holocaust were clear to all those who came.”

Grace Steinberg told Cherwell: “It was an absolute honour to share the stage with my opa tonight. This year’s HMD theme, Bridging Generations, reminds us that the responsibility of remembrance doesn’t end with the survivors, it continues with their children, grandchildren, and all of us. Therefore, I am incredibly grateful over 350 people heard his survival story, and educated themselves on the Holocaust, as it’s only this active remembrance that will keep the stories of the Holocaust alive when we are the eldest generations in this room. As I mentioned in my talk, I think the most important part of opa’s story is that it’s not only a Jewish story, a Christian family hid him. This reminds us that our survival as Jewish people has often depended on the kindness and courage of people of other faiths, and the unimaginable impact of one good deed.”

Lawyers are weird. Mods are (partly) to blame

Lilly Law
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Lawyers are weird. Mods are (partly) to blame

Have you been injured in a conversation with a law student that wasn’t your fault? Have you been unnerved by their coffee habits, worried about their hobbies, and uncertain as to whether they actually want to do their subject? Have you watched the light leave someone’s eyes as they hear the phrase ‘commercial awareness’? You may be entitled to compensation from Law Moderations. These exams, taking place in Hilary of first year, contribute to the subject’s pupils being unable to relax, cut off from other subjects, and distant from friends. The University should move Mods to Trinity, for everyone’s sake.

Disclaimer: every subject at Oxford is incredibly stressful. I’m not saying here that law is more difficult, more prestigious, or more impressive than any other. It’s not. I’m saying that making students take exams after 16 weeks of learning does some strange things. Specifically, the isolating nature of Mods creates lawyers who cannot escape their subject, but can’t enjoy it either. I’m also aware that Classicists do Mods in second year. I know nothing about the experience of sitting them, nor about their peculiarities. That’s for someone else to write.

If you don’t take a gap year, there’s just over a month between A-Level results day and starting at Oxford. You’d better have taken advantage of those brief days. The moment you sit down in the week 0 lecture, the only time the Gulbenkian will be standing-room only, you’re plunged into another ice bath: exam season. There are 16 weeks of term between matriculation and the first Moderation. Good luck thinking of anything but that ticking clock.

Immediately, your outlook is skewed. Instead of considering university an opportunity to explore different interests over time, there’s a brick wall on the horizon. Long-term plans never enter the picture when the short-term is so acutely urgent. Get the content down as quickly as possible, churn it into flashcards, write it out as essay plans, repeat. With so much content and so little time, the issues have no space to breathe.

Oxford prides itself on the philosophical elements in its law course. We call it Jurisprudence, after all, and make it a BA rather than an LLB. The beauty of studying law is in the broader picture: stepping back and seeing a tapestry of logic, philosophy, and humanity. You can’t step back when you’re scared you’ll fall. If you’re not given a chance to fall in love with the subject, if the importance of grades is reiterated at every turn, why would you see it as anything other than a means to an end? Great legal minds could be lost or stifled through bad habits they adopted from unnecessary stress.

Extracurriculars provide that long-term thinking, with a progression through the ranks of societies and a real feeling of achievement in a space untouched by jurisprudence. The workload in Michaelmas is enough to obliterate any hope of them. Tutors cover exam content until week 7 of Hilary, so anything in that term would be madness. And at that very point in the term when applications for Trinity open, you aren’t going to be thinking about joining a committee or a newspaper – you’re going to be trying to bash the Offences Against the Person Act into your head. First year dashes by, with nothing but law to show for it.

It’s a pity, because extracurriculars can provide such vital interdisciplinary thinking. I do student journalism, and am interested in other subjects like history. But watching how my peers solve problems, approach writing, approach thinking, have all made me a better lawyer. My essays have changed since my term as a News section editor. My writing is less meandering, more defined.  

First year law is a lonely one. No one goes to lectures and no other subjects are doing exams at the same time. During ‘Trinifree’, your friends have their noses to the grindstone. What’s left but law? There’s pressure to apply for first year days and vacation schemes from the moment Mods ends (if they wait that long). If you’re already used to a structure where you achieve first and ask questions later, practice is a tempting route. It just might pose a problem in an interview when you have no answer for why you want to pursue law. For me, having other options on the table gave me much richer consideration in making my choice. But not everyone has the benefit of that position.  

The worst thing about the placement of Mods isn’t that it turns law students into sleep-deprived caffeine addicts with tunnel vision, although none of that’s great. Law is relatively unique in being a subject most people can’t study before undergraduate. The first two terms of the degree are the very point when the spark of learning could be ignited, but the stress of exams threatens to stifle it forever. I’ve been told by friends that I’m the only lawyer they know who seems to like their subject. Sometimes I wonder if that’s because I started it at A-Level.

So, to any first year lawyers reading this – don’t forget why you wanted to study this subject in the first place. Don’t forget that it isn’t your only option. And hey, if you need a new hobby, Cherwell is always looking for new contributors. 

Student groups unite to tackle homelessness in Oxford

Lily Gage
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Student groups unite to tackle homelessness in Oxford

The Oxford Student Social Action Coalition (OSSAC), a merger between several student homelessness organisations, has been launched. The new organisation will co-ordinate the activities of Turl Street Homeless Action (TSHA), New College Curry Runners, and Food Rescuers. 

The aim of this partnership is to help students work together to support Oxford’s homeless community. They hope to increase visibility of Oxford’s student volunteers’ work and to flag relevant resources and services to volunteers, supporters, and those experiencing homelessness. They will also coordinate projects between the different organisations, direct resources and funding to where they can be utilised most effectively, and support the professional services helping to tackle homelessness in Oxford.

OSSAC has three main aims: to bring food and drink to homeless people in central Oxford; to provide company and listen to those facing a difficult situation; and to bridge the divide between the homeless community and students. The partnership will allow volunteers to work smoothly across OSSAC projects, both during term time and vacation periods.

Anya Gray, OSSAC’s communications and engagement officer, told Cherwell that the coalition came about after “the TSHA committee organised the first Oxfordshire Homeless Conference in October, which brought together student and non-student groups supporting the homeless community”. Euan Warner, the chair of OSSAC, told Cherwell that “it became clear that we were stronger together, and could better prioritise the needs of the end user”. Since then, committees from each organisation have been working together on the merger. 

Warner also told Cherwell that “FoodRescuers and NCCR focus on redistributing leftover food […], while TSHA focuses on homeless outreach, providing hot drinks, hygiene products, and signposting support where necessary”. FoodRescuers’ Project Leader, Darren Lee, told Cherwell: “We all worked in slightly different ways, so we’re hoping that coming together under OSSAC will help us collaborate, share ideas and streamline processes together.”

Any student can get involved with OSSAC, with no formal application or training process required. FoodRescuers work at lunchtime, and TSHA and NCCR work on alternate evenings. Lee particularly encourages sports groups to collaborate with OSSAC. He adds that “in the past, there has been a successful initiative from OURFC committing to covering a shift for TSHA each week’’ and that they want to see more initiatives like this.

OSSAC works closely with its partner organisations, The Porch, The Gatehouse, and Oxfordshire Homeless Movement – all professional charities external to the University of Oxford. The Porch provides a range of services for homeless people in Oxford, such as vocational skills training, laundry and shower facilities, and a library. The Gatehouse works in a similar way, and is a community drop in centre for homeless and vulnerably-housed adults, offering a wide range of free services and activities. 

Warner told Cherwell: “Their insight and support has been an invaluable addition to our work, helping us to improve our service provision, and ensure long term sustainability”, adding that OSSAC is “always looking to increase collaboration, and better integrate with the professional services that play such an important role in the city”. 

Warner told Cherwell that Oxford University needs to be doing more to financially support Oxford’s vital day services for homeless individuals, which he says are a “vital, and invaluable network of support for Oxford’s most vulnerable”, adding that “the University needs to put its money where its mouth is”. The University has been approached for comment.

Nonetheless, the coalition is working closely with University staff and administration to expand their reach, and looking for where Oxford’s student community can be best mobilised to enact positive change for the homeless community. 

Homelessness in Oxford is widespread and has been progressively getting worse. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities found that there was a 70% increase in the number of people sleeping rough in Oxford on a single night from 2023 to 2024. This was significantly higher than the 27% increase across the whole of England. 

Homelessness is a particularly severe issue in Oxford, in part, due to ‘studentification’, a form of gentrification where students dominate housing stock and local rent markets, and because a significant proportion of Oxford’s available housing has been purchased by colleges to be used as accommodation. This has compounded the existing cost of living and housing crisis. 

Rory Stewart’s ‘Middleland: Dispatches from the Borders’ in review

Hassan Akram
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Rory Stewart’s ‘Middleland: Dispatches from the Borders’ in review

Rory Stewart is one of the only politicians of this century who is not also a thoroughly bad writer. With The Places in Between (2004), Occupational Hazards (2006), and The Marches (2016), he had already demonstrated his serious literary gifts, which reached their apex in Politics on the Edge (2023), his greatest success. The latest arrival, Middleland (2025), is not his masterpiece, but it is as much worth reading as any of his work – erudite, perceptive, and beautifully written.  

The book is a collection of local newspaper articles whose unifying thread is the author’s former constituency in Cumbria, embroidered with a series of reflections on the ignorance of politicians, the importance of local democracy in preserving local traditions, and the disconnect between ordinary people and the political class.  

Disconnect is the recurring theme of Stewart’s work – between Iraqis and the Coalition Provisional Authority in Occupational Hazards, between ministers and administrators in Politics on the Edge, and, here, between residents of Cumbria and Whitehall policymakers. “I often felt as though I were translating between two incompatible languages”, he writes: “The language of policy (targets, metrics, frameworks, rollouts) and the language of place (this farm, that family, next winter’s milk production).” 

For example, the British government remains blithely indifferent to the persistent problems of Cumbria’s local economy. Cumbrian farms, which have an average income of £8,000 per year, struggle without government support. Officials, rather than doing anything productive, sit and make “reassuring sounds about the upland farmers’ role in creating and maintaining… ‘rural services’”. The French and Japanese governments, by contrast, recognise the intrinsic value of such farms and support them with subsidies. Why, Stewart asks, can we not do something similar? If we did, we could sustain an increasingly precious connection to a vanished rural past.

In these and similar questions, his genuine care for his former constituency shines through. His book is, if nothing else, a love letter to Cumbria. It describes the geography, its emerald-green slopes, purple moor-grass, and ribbons of industrial-era terraces. There is Cumbrian history, including accounts of the Romans and the Anglo-Scottish wars and an enthusiastic historiographical piece on the meeting of five kings at Eamont Bridge in 927AD. There are ample tributes to the people themselves, to “the eccentricity, the learning, the charm and often the bluntness of a hundred meetings on footpaths”. The fragmentary format is an advantage because we are carried on short surveys from theme to theme in a way that largely sustains the interest, although occasionally Stewart overestimates the extent of the average reader’s enrapturement at Cumbrian minutiae. 3 pages may be rich and engrossing; 30 remain quite enjoyable; 300 risk a deadly overdose. This is not a book to read in one sitting. 

Fortunately, it is not all Cumbria. Interludes in Libya, Edinburgh, and London are very welcome when they arrive. Stewart includes a scintillating piece on Robert Burns and a powerful tribute to his friend, the late journalist Marie Colvin, who was killed reporting from Syria. He is a much better writer when describing a change of scenery. A hotel in North Africa is described with a cinematic economy which would be the envy of most novelists: 

“Last summer, the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli was filled with reporters and photographers. They had propped their laptops on tiny marble tables in the lobby. Waiters brought Turkish coffees, but the reporters’ eyes flicked only from their screens to their phones, checking for messages about Gaddafi’s whereabouts, a recently discovered palace or prison, or a press conference. Only Marie Colvin seemed to look around the room.” 

There remains the question of why these pieces were reprinted in the first place. Some of the articles here are very slight, the kind which the literary executors of some eminent author might reissue a hundred years after they were written to a public hungry for the great man’s unseen jottings and scribblings, but which have no business being reprinted so soon. Stewart could have done better. He has mentioned his abortive attempts at a novel set in the 1940s and I, for one, would certainly like to see Rory Stewart the novelist. In any case, a sensitive, intelligent, widely travelled and experienced writer with his literary gifts has much better books in him than this one.  

Middleland: Dispatches from the Borders by Rory Stewart is available now.

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