Stomach cancer is a highly malignant tumor with over 1 million new cases each year and about 770,000 deaths. The 5-year survival rates depend on stage and type of tumor and are averaged around 30%, making it a really aggressive malignant tumor. That’s why it is important to detect this kind of cancer early and choose the appropriate treatment plan. Receiving treatment for stomach cancer in Germany means that patients have access to advanced technologies, innovative surgical procedures, and an experienced multidisciplinary approach.
Standard Options for Stomach Cancer Treatment in Germany
Stomach cancer treatment in Germany is based on modern international guidelines that make accent on precision, advanced technology, and the use of the latest scientific research in their everyday practice. Here are some of the main treatment options you can undergo in Germany:
Surgical intervention. It is recommended in the early stages when the tumor is localized and can be removed completely. Subtotal or total gastrectomy, depending on the tumor’s size and location. In Germany, they use minimally invasive or robotic techniques for better precision, faster recovery, and fewer complications.
Chemotherapy. This treatment can be helpful both before and after surgery. It’s used for stomach cancer treatment Germany, and is effective in shrinking tumors and stopping the metastases from growing when the tumor is sensitive to that specific drug. But it can have intense side effects like weakness, vomiting, hair loss, and overall health decrease.
Radiotherapy. It’s rarely used, mostly in cases when the tumor cannot be fully removed. It can lower symptoms like bleeding or pain.
Stomach cancer alternative treatments in Germany
As a patient, it is in your best interest to access advanced, highly specialized care like immunotherapy with dendritic cells and interventional radiological procedures. These treatments are designed to improve survival rates and reduce side effects. It is a new hope for patients with complex conditions and at advanced stages.
Dendritic Cell Vaccination for Gastric Cancer
Dendritic vaccines are made with a specialized cell type called dendritic cells. They have been shown to stimulate T-cells to target malignancies, thereby resulting in a highly localized cell attack, reducing systemic side effects. This therapy is a great option for patients with advanced or recurrent gastric cancer, providing an effective way to slow disease progression, target metastases, and improve overall life expectancy.
HIPEC (Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy) for Stomach Cancer
HIPEC is a surgical procedure that starts with careful removal of all visible tumor sites in the abdominal cavity (cytoreduction). It is then followed by administering a heated chemotherapy solutioninto the abdomen. Heat helps to improve chemotherapy drug absorption by the tumor and increases its effectiveness against cancer cells. This allows to reduce overall toxicity to the rest of the body. For suitable patients, HIPEC provides a real opportunity for long-term remission and is often the only chance that can significantly improve survival.
PIPAC (Pressurized Intraperitoneal Aerosol Chemotherapy) for Stomach Cancer
Treatment of stomach cancer in the fourth stage in Germany usually involves PIPAC, a minimally invasive surgical procedure that sprays chemotherapy as an aerosol during laparoscopy, targeting microscopic tumors missed by standard therapies. PIPAC offers improved drug diffusion and tissue penetration and is paired with minimal toxicity.
Comparison between standard and innovativetherapies for cancer of the stomach
Invasiveness
Side effects
Recovery
Level of personalization
Standard Treatment Methods
Often invasive
More systemic and severe
Long rehabilitation
Moderate (based on stage and imaging)
Innovative Treatment Methods
Mostly minimally invasive or localized
Generally, fewer systemic effects
Usually quiq come back to daily activities
High (based on genetic profiling and tumor markers)
Booking Health – your access to advanced stomach cancer therapies
Booking Health is a reputable company that provides access to leading medical consultants who develop personalized, advanced treatment plans at international clinics, including ones in Germany. Patients are offered therapies like advanced immunotherapies, including dendritic cell vaccination, and innovative chemotherapy options, like HIPEC, PIPAC, and TACE.
The company provides:
Involvement of a leading expert in the field
Tailored treatment plan to your specific situation
Travel arrangements and help with all documentation
With Booking Health, patients worldwide can access new cancer of the stomach treatment in Germany, achieving excellent tumor control and maintaining a high quality of life.
In 1811, a student at University College published a pamphlet including an essay titled ‘The Necessity of Atheism’ that he later distributed to the Heads of Oxford Colleges. The student, after disputes with the Master of University College at the time, was “sent down” on the grounds of “contumacy” (disobeying authority). This student was Percy Shelley.
Famous more for his poetry than political views (and for his wife Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein), Shelley’s time at Oxford was short, defined by his anti-religious stance. The pamphlet argues that belief in God rests neither on direct experience, sound reason, nor reliable testimony, and so there is no rational basis for belief at all. It is no surprise then, that the exclusively protestant Oxford University took issue with this particular use of free speech.
It is not the content of Shelley’s essay that we must draw lessons from, but the structure. The essay is an essential element of university teaching and, for those of us studying humanities and social sciences at Oxford, it seems to be the foundation of our learning. The average student in these subjects at Oxford will write one to two essays a week, 2000 words long. But the essays we write, and the process of reasoning we follow, are arguably far-removed from the process of the essay produced by Shelley. They are more technically perfect, but also more sterile. Essays here are fixed; we all follow the same structures, word counts, and department-mandated reading lists. Great for displaying understanding of a subject, in theory.
But consider the average writing process of the Oxford student: First, an attempt to plough through a seemingly unending reading list. You will begin each week with a desperate desire to get through it, that slowly diminishes as the week goes on. Following this, developing a thesis to defend, struggling to find the balance between subject jargon and the literary standard of writing you try to maintain. Next, begin to write, and aim for a perfection that is entirely unreachable. It is because of this that you desperately may turn to A.I. (made oh-so-much easier with the university’s rollout of free ChatGPT), or essays handed down from college parents and friends. Finally, hand in and brace yourself for critique in an imminent tutorial.
And so, it is the perfectionism that brought us to this place that becomes our downfall, as you scramble to produce something that looks coherent, rejecting the idea that the essay should be a personal form of learning.
If students aren’t learning from the essays they spend 40+ hours on weekly, often the only form of assignment in one’s degree here, it is worth assessing whether the Oxford essay truly has any merit.
The word essay comes from the french verb essayer. Michel de Montaigne is said to have coined the term, and in his seminal work Essais demonstrates this unique writing practice. Montaigne writes essays on numerous topics, not as authoritative explanations, but in an ‘attempt’ to deconstruct and understand the topics. Covering ground from government andpolitics to religion and nature, all the essays have a sense of self fashioning and self discovery. The manuscripts are filled with the barely legible annotations of Montaigne, crossed out over and over. Montaigne himself said that he wanted a medium to assess the contents of his mind, leading to the outcome that the essay was to be a living, breathing document – collation of the human mind, with its tenacious facets. The essays have a distinct lack of structure, and Montaigne’s stream of consciousness means they read more like diary entries. They are refreshingly personal.
Contrast this with my weekly essay, which is structured purely around my understanding of others’ understanding of the topic. No merit is given to students whose ‘attempts’ feature themselves so clearly. Rather it is knowledge of the literature (and control of those never ending reading lists) that is most rewarded. It is also clear how contrary the perfectionism of the Oxford student writer is to the original form. Montaigne’s whole point of writing was to lay himself out in all his fallible glory, as he proclaimed in his writings: “My defects will here be read to life.”
The essay has never been so impersonal. It is this impersonality that means we cannot use these pieces of writing to achieve the aims once set out with them. Shelley’s essay is made strong through the combination of a deeply personal viewpoint and the critical analysis that this entails. ‘The Necessity of Atheism’ (and essays in their truest form) are clear ‘attempts’ to explore an idea or notion from his head onto the page. It is the product of the laborious activity of self-analysis, questioning, and critiquing, and an attempt to convey this final, highly personal product to readers.
If one is to consider that Shelley was writing some 200 years ago in this same institution that we are in, what may he think of the essay now? More perfect, yes, in knowledge of the topic, but always following some guide. The structure of the essay seems set in stone, but also, the ideas that we draw on too have become set in stone. A response to the rigid system of essay-writing in Oxford, no doubt.
I can’t help but wonder if it is the nature of academia that ‘voice’, and therefore ‘self’ is only something awarded to those senior enough. You must earn your right to speak here, in this place of inquiry and knowledge-seeking. This idea shouldn’t be further from the truth when you consider the political impact of the essay – something so revolutionary.
It was the lack of rules and boundaries of the essay that gave it such power to become something so great. With an accessibility that grew exponentially with literacy rates, the essay became a medium of immortalising any and all forms of discourse that recorded and reflected human and societal development. Literary discourses, philosophical discourses, scientific, personal, and religious discourses. The essay allows you to trace the origins of one’s thought and the development of their ideas. The essay retained this ability for most of its existence. Provocative, introspective, more akin to diary entries on random topics than anything that we would credit as essay worthy now. This is exactly what made them revolutionary. The essay allows you to delve into the furthest corners of your mind, and to come up against the limits of your critical capacities until you are forced to evaluate, and re-evaluate. In the process of writing an essay, a writer is forced to take a position, and to assess this position constantly, until they reach a level of surety that makes ideas worth conveying to the masses.
It was in the 20th century that essayists showed this the best. Against the backdrop of international societal uprooting – decolonisation, women’s rights movements, and civil rights movements – the essay gave an intellectual voice to those from whom the West had never listened to before. And it is here, in the 20th century, amidst all of these struggles, that the essay as a tool of dissent becomes most apparent. Edward Said coupled political discourse on occupation and the Palestinian cause with his personal feeling of alienation, and gave the basis of contemporary immigration discourse. bell hooks’ deeply personal essays on her life gave scholarly birth to intersectionality. Baldwin’s Notes on a Native Son is blistering when he says “I had discovered the weight of white people in the world”. The plainly descriptive sentences he uses not only affirm his lived experience, but are able to solidify them while staying far away from the structures we use today. Entire branches of Western progression of society towards this space of plurality of thought that we occupy can be traced by the remnants of people’s innermost reflections, and the essay was the best medium for them to do that.
I suppose we have become disenfranchised. The prescribed nature of the Oxford essay shows little aside from the stagnation of Oxford as a birthplace for ideas. The weekly essay should be a place for exploration, and tutorials a chance to think aloud and arrive at new conclusions. In practice, both function as a performance. You will learn quickly that it is better to sound confident even when you are unsure, to speak fluently rather than tentatively, to cite rather than to speculate. Over time, the aim is no longer to discover what one thinks, but to demonstrate that one has mastered what has already been thought.
Hierarchy plays a crucial role here. Voice, in Oxford, is something to be earned. Students are encouraged to efface the first person, to speak through the language of others, to defer to the canon before daring to intervene. There is a logic to this: scholarship demands rigour, humility, precision. But the effect is the loss of selfhood, the fingerprint of authorship, the very thing that once gave the essay its force. Oxford it is not bestowed upon you, but rather postponed. Does it come when you get your scholar’s gown? When you get the first class honours? The right to say I arrives later, if at all. Until then, you must speak cautiously, or not speak at all.
This is a far cry from the conditions under which the essay first gained its political power. Shelley did not write ‘The Necessity of Atheism’ as a rehearsal for authority. Montaigne wrote primarily to uncover his own fallibility. Baldwin, Orwell, Said, and hooks all wrote to give name to a novel experience that deserved recognition. In each case, the essay was a tool for a greater purpose.
Today, at Oxford, the essay is stagnant. The structure remains, the guiding principles unchanged. What has been lost is the sense that writing might still be capable of unsettling the place in which it is produced. Perhaps that is the final irony. At an institution that asks its students to write essays every week, we are closer than ever to a form that once celebrated personality, and groundbreaking ideas – and further than ever from imagining that our own writing might do the same.
Stepping out onto the field carrying the weight of a historic rivalry is one thing; winning the battle is another. Yet that is exactly what Oxford’s Blues did last Saturday.
As the 141st Varsity match commenced, the stakes held more than just quantitative significance, but pride, tradition, and most importantly, bragging rights. A meeting of sunshine and rain, of young and old, of past and present, culminated in a staunch victory for both the Women’s and Men’s teams.
Oxford’s Women’s team defended a four-year streak of titles, winning by a dominant margin of 52-8. Captain Chloe-Marie Hawley elicited audible awe from the crowd as she led the Dark Blues to victory with a kick of razor-sharp precision. Despite their rocky start, Oxford’s women recovered diligently to command the field, displaying a mixture of possession and determination in the first fifteen minutes which culminated in the game’s first try. Hawley, foreshadowing an afternoon of calculated conversions, brought the score up to 7-0. As the crowd proclaimed: we had not yet seen Cambridge score a try.
DPhils, undergrads or internationals: whoever was on the pitch, regardless of their stage in the academic ranks, age or background, was this day united in one goal. Backed by history, alumni, and friends and family from far and wide, Oxford knew they had one job – shoe the tabs – and shoe the tabs they did.
A score of 19-0 at half-time had Cambridge’s prospects looking bleaker than the grey skies enclosing Stone X stadium. Cambridge was to find no silver lining in the second half – only the boisterous glee of navy-lined blazers. Sophie Shams scored Oxford’s fourth try, followed by a trusty conversion from Hawley to make the score 26-0. In response, a rapid solo-run from Cambridge’s Esther Makourin gained Cambridge their first try of the game. The scoreboard read 26-5. Nevertheless, as the sun peeked through the clouds, it was clear the Dark Blues would succeed in foiling the tabs’ bright hopes. Oxford wasted not a moment to react; the second half was simply a consolidation of defeat. Spurred on by a Dark Blue war cry, the beating drums could only remind Cambridge that time was running out. A final score of 37-25 would seal Oxford’s victory for yet another year.
The crowd was on their feet, beer cascading, as the whole team pelted towards the centre, supporting even their injured players towards the celebrations. Having also clinched Player of the Match, Hawley rejoiced as her teammates hoisted her into the air, their glossy trophy reflecting the now-streaming sunlight as well as the jubilant crowd.
Victory may have appeared easy for the Women’s Team, but as the horns blasted, the Men’s 3pm kick-off at StoneX would prove just how much perseverance is demanded of these players throughout their 80 minutes on the pitch.
The Men’s Varsity Match was an edge-of-the seat affair. Oxford’s early lead of 5-0 was established by Will Roddy, powering towards the corner in a fast-paced start. Cambridge won a penalty soon after to equalise, courtesy of an aggressive Oxford scrum. Even scores would be a recurrent theme of the match: Cambridge’s Danny Collins reinforced a try from James Wyse to establish a Cambridge lead of 7-5, before a penalty taken by Oxford’s George Bland levelled the field to 10-10.
No one was left wondering whether these walls could talk: the stadium stands were brimming with navy and turquoise blue. Alumni and supporters alike had a lot to say from the sidelines, with one heckling his own side from the stands. His uninhibited accusation of uselessness proved a feat of tough love, however, prompting a solo-dash from Oxford’s number 11, Wolfe Morn, in a narrowly-missed try.
Soon enough, Oxford retook the lead. A try just before half time from Harry Pratt pushed the score back up to 15-10. Half-time respite did not hinder Roddy’s efforts; the forward proved his indispensability with a hat-trick soon after the second horn had blown, galvanising Oxford into a lead of 20-10. A sudden shift in weather brought no change in fortune for the tabs. As the clouds parted, however, Harry Bridgewater pulled through, converting Josh Hallett’s run to the line. The score read 27-15.
Hungry for more, Roddy claimed his fourth try of the afternoon. Bridgewater provided the conversion once again, stepping up to the plate for a score of 37-18. Cambridge, credit where it’s due, refused to quit even in the throes of the game’s last quarter, with their persistent efforts edging them up the scoreboard. But Oxford’s defence stood firm, holding them up at the halfway line, and 37-25 is exactly where the numbers remained as Oxford notched a sweep of the Varsity Matches. Penning his name in the history books, Roddy was crowned Player of the Match for a formidable individual performance.
Tears of victory attest to the sport’s poetic brutality: the battering and bruising of the game is not divorced from its deep sentimentality. The heavens split, casting a spring afternoon’s surprising sunlight over the rainbow seats of StoneX stadium. Pent-up pre-Varsity nerves purged themselves amidst the celebrations as players confronted their own place in history: some lamented the loss of team members in years to come, while others mourned their final dalliance for the Dark Blues. An uncertain future is, however, what keeps us coming back, year after year, to watch this historic rivalry unfold once more.
Corpus Christi College recently unveiled the first portrait of a woman to hang in its hall since the College’s foundation in 1517. The portrait, which depicts the College’s President, Professor Helen Moore, is also Corpus Christi’s first portrait painted by a woman.
Professor Moore became the college’s first female President in 2018, shortly after its 500th anniversary. Corpus Christi began admitting women as graduate students in 1974, and started admitting women undergraduates in 1979. Moore became a Fellow in English at Corpus Christi in 1996.
Professor Moore told Cherwell: “Being painted by an artist of Miriam Escofet’s standing was a great privilege and an experience I will never forget. Corpus was eager to enhance the visual diversity of the Hall as our most public space, and the portrait was designed with its final setting in mind.”
Miriam Escofet is a Spanish painter and graduate of Brighton School of Art. Her previous work has been selected for the BP Portrait Award exhibitions in 2009, 2010 and 2012 as well as the Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ annual exhibition. In 2020, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office commissioned Escofet to paint a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.
Escofet told Cherwell: “It feels like a huge honour and very special to be [sic] the first woman artist to paint the first female portrait to hang in the Hall since the College was founded. Not only the first female portrait, but a portrait of the first woman President of the College. There is a lovely symmetry to that.
“I truly believe in the power of art to shape our imaginations and sense of reality, so I hope that this portrait, in its own very modest way, will act as an ambassador for the achievements of women and be inspiring in some way.”
Discussing the process of painting Professor Moore, Escofet told Cherwell: “It is always a compliment and an honour to be chosen to paint someone who is so eminent in their field; they invariably show a curiosity and respect for the creative process, which is very conducive to a good outcome. The time spent with someone during sittings gives me a vital insight into their personality, which is always a key component of a portrait.”
This term, stumbling home from Indie Fridays or on a pilgrimage to Tops Pizza, I kept noticing this decidedly cool bar a little way down the Cowley Road. With fairy-lights strung across its wooden terrace and ‘Bigfoot’ scrawled in playful letters across the glass, it seemed slightly out of place in central Oxford. If anything, this kind of idiosyncratic concept and DIY glamour belongs firmly in Hackney. But I’m a Londoner at heart and, as if I hadn’t already been tempted enough, discovering their £5 Margarita Wednesdays sealed the deal.
Even on a dreary evening in February, the place is buzzing, but we manage to squeeze ourselves around the last empty table outside. The crowd is young and surprisingly fashionable for Oxford – there are no college puffers or quarter-zips in sight. Inside, the Hackney theme continues: mid-century modern furniture, plants hanging from the ceiling, and beanies as a seemingly compulsory uniform. Oh, and plenty of Bigfoot memorabilia. But the place is saved from suffocating in its own coolness by its laid-back atmosphere, the friendly waiters and scruffy charm.
The menu itself is simple but mouthwatering: four different types of tacos, five varieties of margaritas, and a few eclectic beers on tap. They have a whole menu of chasers for these, but I’m here for the margaritas and won’t let myself get distracted.
When it arrives, the watermelon margarita is just as pink as I’d hoped it would be. It tastes like summer and, more dangerously, not at all alcoholic. The standard one is a slightly classier affair, one that strikes the perfect balance between bracing and refreshing. These people know how to make a margarita.
In the name of journalistic integrity, we decide to order all of the tacos. For me, the standout of the night is the carnitas – the rich flavour of the braised pork perfectly balanced by the lighter notes of pickled red onion and pineapple. I’m less convinced by the chicken taco, the flavour of which is dominated by the chipotle mayo, but it is not unenjoyable.
I have (I hate to admit) a childish aversion to mushrooms, so I leave the oyster mushroom taco to the others, all of whom promptly inform me that it is their favourite. Apparently, the umami of the miso glazing and gentle spice of the jalapeno sauce is enough to make you forget you are eating an actual fungus.
The final taco is decidedly less familiar, but this is serious research we’re undertaking, so it’s cactus time. I’m really not sure what to expect but am more than pleasantly surprised to discover that cactus has the texture of pepper. If it has a distinctive flavour, it’s masked behind the cheese, jalapenos, and salsa, which are already a match made in heaven.
The tacos are definitely on the smaller side, and by the time you’ve eaten an entire meal’s worth, the cost does begin to mount up. But if you want to unwind, drink some filthily good margaritas and feel like you’ve escaped Oxford for a few hours, then Bigfoot might be the place for you.
An altercation broke out between rival protesters at Carfax Tower on Tuesday evening over military escalation in Iran. A protest against US-Israel attacks on Iran was organised jointly by the Oxford branches of Stop the War (OSTW) and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (OCND), and was supported by Oxford Students Palestine Solidarity (OSPS), a group representing students at schools and universities across Oxford.
Anti-war activists set up a small stall by 5.30pm, soon joined by other protesters. Speaking to Cherwell, a protester said that he had turned out because he was “outraged by this latest adventurism by Trump”.
Organisers from OSTW chanted slogans including: “From the belly of the beast, hands off the Middle East.” Posters at the stall read: “Stop the war on Iran”, and “oppose US and Israeli imperialism”.
A small group of counter-protesters also soon arrived, carrying the ‘lion and sun’ Iranian flag, a symbol of support for the Iranian monarchy, which was ousted in 1979 by the Iranian revolution. A counter-protester told Cherwell: “For decades, Iranians tried to get rid of this regime, with many momentum [sic.]… we tried many ways, and we couldn’t. Except war, what would be our solution?”
She expressed support for the US-Israel offensive, saying: “Myself, I do not like to see my city, my lovely Tehran, my country, being bombed. Who loves war, actually? But if we do not have any solution… What would be our solution, tell me? If you have a peaceful solution, I would definitely appreciate that, but we tried so hard, many different ways.”
One counter-protester held a sign reading: “Where were you when they massacred us weeks ago”, referring to the Iranian authorities’ killing of protesters in January. Protests in Iran began on 28th December last year after a steep collapse of the country’s currency. The American-based Iranian human rights group Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI) has confirmed the deaths of over 6,500 protesters.
Around 6pm, an altercation broke out between the two groups. A man standing with the counter-protest approached anti-war protesters and began shouting.
Bombings in Iran began on Saturday morning with a joint US and Israeli attack on several sites in the capital city, Tehran. The bombing on Saturday killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The reported civilian death toll in Iran stands at 742. A strike on a primary school in southern Iran reportedly killed 165 people.
Iranian forces responded by launching strikes of their own against targets across the Middle East. Missiles and drones struck Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Cyprus. Six US soldiers were killed in a strike on a military facility on Sunday. At least ten people have been killed by Iranian strikes in Israel.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said that British armed forces in the region will not join US-Israeli offensive action in Iran but will cooperate with “defensive” strikes on Iranian missile storage depots and launchers.
In a speech to MPs on Monday, Starmer said he did not believe that the US-Israeli airstrikes were legal and that the UK had learned from its participation in the Iraq War the importance of a “viable thought-through plan”. In his strongest rebuke of US President Donald Trump yet, Starmer said he did not believe in “regime change from the skies”.
OSTW organiser Teige Matthews-Palmer told Cherwell: “Oxford Stop the War Coalition has joined CND in calling a protest against the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran, and any UK involvement in it… We live in the long shadow of the US-UK invasion of Iraq, which, far from liberating Iraqis killed up to 1 million people and left prolonged chaos and suffering, while a few profit enormously from trading arms and reshaping the flows of oil and profits in the Middle East.
“Students occupy the places where ideas, values and hopes are contested, and students have a better world to win – one that is in direct conflict with the greed and violence of our political leaders.”
During the protest, Matthews-Palmer referred to US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “disgusting despots”.
An OSPS spokesperson told Cherwell: “If we’re looking for connections as oppressed people across the world from Palestine to Sudan to Congo to Kashmir and to Iran, we should fight any imperialist power that has a boot on our necks… I think Oxford students should come out to show solidarity and to demand an end to this disgusting war, and keep protesting and fighting imperialism in any of its forms.
“Everyone should pray for the innocent people across the Middle East who are being bombed by these Western powers.”
Among the most cherished genres in American cinema today might uncharitably be described as ‘dad films’. These are blockbusters dripping with testosterone, usually involving some major set-piece, at the end of which our heroes, whether the government or the police, carry the day against the odds. Think of Die Hard, when Bruce Willis’s street-smart off-duty police officer defeated a gang of terrorists and left egg on the face of the overbearing FBI. The Hunt for Red October was a similar story. Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) is a CIA analyst specially enlisted to find a defecting Soviet submarine captain (Sean Connery). In the end the crisis passes, and nuclear war is narrowly averted with the help of the strongest Glaswegian accent the Kremlin ever had.
With enough funding and hype behind them, these films can enter the national consciousness even if their very nature suggests they shouldn’t. Point Break, for example, is a deeply silly film: Keanu Reeves goes undercover to infiltrate a gang of surfers, who rob banks while wearing rubber masks of former US Presidents. On paper, the long, lingering shots of Reeves and Patrick Swayze surfing with very little on, not to mention the fact that it was directed by Kathryn Bigelow – a woman (gasp) – ought to have scuttled this film as a vehicle for middle-aged men. By rights, Point Break is the sort of film that bombs on release and ends up a camp classic decades later. But no – it made $83 million and ended up with a notably inferior remake, the blockbuster’s equivalent of an Oscar.
So, why do films like this not seem to have the relevance that they used to? After all, they were popular, and some of them were even good. But in the 21st century, stories like this just aren’t convincing anymore. In today’s world, the threat that people want to see vanquished isn’t limited to international terrorism, or the Soviet Union, or even straightforward armed robbery. The American population – the target audience for these films – have quite enough to worry about.
The comforting narrative that such films promote, where American power is used in the service of the innocent, seems not to resonate so much given the current state of affairs. Take for example the growing ‘militarisation’ of law enforcement to deal with perceived domestic disorder. Last year, 32 people died at the hands of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement – the highest number in over two decades. This year, as it takes on more government funding than any other law enforcement body, eight people died in January alone. None of them were armed. In this America, it’s far harder to buy the usual morality tales where the Good Cops fight against the system and everyone goes home happy.
This is arguably exemplified by Kathryn Bigelow’s latest effort, A House of Dynamite. The film centres on a fictional American government and its response to an incoming nuclear attack – but it falls flat in bewildering ways. For one thing, it consists of the same events repeated from three different perspectives, which are so similar that you may as well just watch the opening 45 minutes on repeat. Nor does the baffling conclusion help: everyone panics, Jared Harris’s Secretary of Defense throws himself off a roof, and then… roll credits. No resolution. No decision. A two-hour talking shop, an inexplicable suicide, and by the end of it all we still don’t know what the protagonists have actually settled on doing. You’d think that the imminent nuclear apocalypse would have sharpened their minds a bit.
The problem is the film’s uncertainty about what it actually wants to say. The view it promotes of America’s role in the world – a basically liberal, benevolent force for good – would have been misguided even when people bought into it under Bush and Obama. Two decades of war and its human cost have made that increasingly hard to defend. These days, however, not even the government can be bothered to keep up the façade. It’s little wonder, then, that we get a similar lack of conviction from the studios that make our major films.
In the face of changing technology, how do artists perceive artificial intelligence, and what role does it play in their work? Responding to AI, an exhibition curated by Aniq Shamsi and Alice King, confronted this question directly. I had the great pleasure of attending a private viewing of the exhibition in the Christ Church Chapter House, and of meeting the artists at the forefront of the discussion.
Whether AI-generated images can be considered ‘art’ is highly contentious, even among non-artists. Arguments against ‘AI art’ include the lack of originality and the negation of effort. But others see these tools as a platform for innovation, stimulating ideas and testing different options. The entanglement of art and AI is only increasing, with models like ArtEmis even claiming to be able to predict a viewer’s emotional response to art, using large datasets of visual inputs and textual descriptions. Entering the centuries-old Chapter House, I was gripped by the contrast between such modern subject matter and the truly historic setting.
I was initially surprised by how many of the artists I spoke to were in favour of artificial intelligence, or used it in their creative process. One such artist, Alan Kestner, used AI to layer the vignettes in his piece, which would have been extremely time consuming to do in the traditional way. The description of his work, Dark Eyed Sailor (2024), includes a positive reaction to AI: “It opens up new possibilities to extend an artist’s repertoire.”
However, not everyone agrees. Sonja Francisco, a DPhil Chemistry student at Wolfson College and one of the exhibition’s featured artists,expressed concern about the effects AI may have on the environment. This was reflected in her artwork, Remember to Water the Pink Tulips in My Bedroom (2026). It consists of one mixed media piece and two separate tulip vases, one of which wilts with the label ‘generate image: pink tulips’, while the other blossoms. She poignantly focuses on the huge amounts of water used by data centres, creating tap droughts in local communities and affecting their everyday lives, down to the flowers in their homes.
A prominent theme of the exhibition was that of the artist’s creative process, and its inability to be recreated by AI. Munise Akhtar’s foray into Persian miniature painting focused on the physical effort artists pour into their work, tied to the emotions which motivate them to do so. After the death of her father, the symbolism of angels resonated with her, and she describes the creation of her piece as “allowing grief and focus to coexist within the same space”. She hand-burnished paper with stone, prepared pigments herself, and transformed raw gold leaf into paint. For her, AI cannot replace these traditional methods, nor can it remove the grief characterising her work.
Ruth Swain takes an alternative approach, with a series of oil paintings blurring the line between reality and image. Her Tom and Jerry (2025) piece captures the current state of AI-generated art, often producing images which are ever so slightly off or misproportioned. The viewer is presented with an unnatural, almost birdseye angle of a cat reacting to a photocopy of a mouse emerging from a machine. The painting intentionally mimics the appearance of AI and challenges the viewer to question the extent to which AI-generated images are reflective of reality. Swain confronts the theme of the exhibition directly, focusing on the viewer’s perspective rather than the meditative processes behind the art.
While the exhibition was student-run and featured the art of several postgraduates, it was nonetheless star-studded. M. Freddy, a Parsons School of Design graduate and featured speaker at MIT and the United Nations, explored the idea of art as a relationship through the concept of an envelope. Viewers were encouraged to open the letter, read its contents slowly, and reflect on how the fingerprints and subtle creases on the paper could not be recreated by AI. Likewise, Farrah Azam, an award-winning painter who has been commissioned by King Charles and Camilla, presented a beautiful work of gold leaf on a navy blue background depicting the London skyline, influenced by her Kashmiri background. Like others in the exhibition, Azam drew upon her upbringing and culture to ground her art distinctly in humanity. Aniq Shamsi, one of the curators of the exhibition and the Christ Church GCR Arts Officer, traced his family tree through the ancient cuneiform script (Inheritance, 2025), drawing upon such traditions to remind us that art and its power have endured several millennia before AI, and will continue to do so alongside it.
Shamsi and King’s Responding to AI exhibition was vibrant, heartfelt, and raw, stripping art back to its foundations and reconsidering what it means in a world of changing technology. The high quality of the exhibition and its organisation were impressive and spoke to the curatorial vision of Shamsi and King. Whether AI comes to have a true place in art is yet to be seen, but showcases like these forecast the controversy it creates, and remind us of the traditions that brought us to this point.
We all know that Oxford can feel like a bubble. Every day brings new challenges and new deadlines, to the extent that a week can pass in an instant and there is just no time to peek outside of the blinkered existence of tutorials and the occasional pub trip. But this tunnel vision can become restrictive, and even self-perpetuating. The hourly sunny notifications I receive from the BBC on the state of the world have become more and more easy to force to the back of my mind as I hurry from the Schwarzman to the Taylorian and back under a perpetually grey but evidently not-on-fire sky. It’s very easy, and almost necessary, to be an ostrich and stick your head in the sand, if it means I am able to desperately string ideas together to finish my third essay in a week.
The rise in nihilism (or ‘Doomerism’) in Gen Z is nothing new. In nihilism, everything is temporary by definition. If the world is going to burn in a few years, then we might as well enjoy ourselves instead of worrying about the next Prime Minister or saving for a house, right? If you have to work, it can feel more rational to spend the money you earn on something you’ll actually enjoy now, rather than saving it for a rainy day – especially when it feels like it’s been raining since 2008. Whether it manifests in politics, the economy, or the environment, this turn towards nihilistic thinking in general indicates a growing detachment from long-term planning, rooted in the belief that caring too much about the future may no longer be worthwhile.
It doesn’t help that Gen Z is so often told it must save the world from itself. During Freshers’ Week, we were informed that we would contribute to the totality of the world’s knowledge, as if this fate were already mapped out for us: Don’t worry, privileged student, you’ve been accepted into a Hub Of Learning and can now be an upstanding, caring citizen by default. I remember telling my mother (Professor of Responsible Leadership, Improving Diversity, and Generally Making the World a Better Place) what I wanted to study, only to be asked what was useful about it.
The uncomfortable answer is that it isn’t. When the planet already feels like it’s in ruins, emerging with a Masters in some niche corner of French literary history does seem like a somewhat absurd endeavour. The guilt of not contributing towards a better future with each passing moment can lead to inertia: not feeling able or willing to do small things because I can’t single handedly save the world. This is even more prevalent in Oxford’s culture, where it can feel like nothing is of value unless perfect, especially if I’m already battling twelve essays a term.
In this light, an impulse towards nihilistic thinking makes sense. Except I’m not enjoying the present moment so much as wallowing in perpetual existential crises about how it’s possible for the older generations to have put us in this position, knowing the answer, knowing we’re just as bad, and resenting them for it anyway.
But if I’ve convinced myself of the futility of any action, am I let off the hook? Is my existential dismissal therefore just an easy way out, contributing to this paralysis? It is, after all, much easier to relax by doomscrolling and online shopping when you’re not worried about the environmental impact.
Nonetheless, reminders of how badly we need change are constant, even as I brush them away to deliver a well-formed argument about the far-right at a formal, clinging to a semblance of sanity. That is, until my friend in Oregon asks me, joking-not-joking, if she could marry me for an Irish passport. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore another headline about short-sighted political decisions as I’m distracted by a notification that fossil fuels weren’t mentioned in the last COP30 summit during my essay crisis in the RadCam, all the while feeling morally superior for using Ecosia instead of Google. There’s only so far performative sustainability can go in relieving climate guilt.
But the only way to escape fearing the crushing inadequacy of anything you could potentially do is to start doing it. And as much as I would love to be able to give up on everything outside my control, as many wellness podcasts would advise me, my sense of privileged moral guilt is too strong for me to not have a conscience, so ignoring everything is, unfortunately, impossible. This is what worries people looking at Gen Z nihilism from the outside: if nothing matters, what is the motivation to do good in society?
The answer lies in the present moment. Nihilism as an all-encompassing worldview can start to feel oppressive, but by taking myself away from the endless feed of bad news, I’ve started to notice what can be done, rather than what can’t. Even with Oxford’s busy schedule, meaning can be found in something as simple as finding joy shopping in Oxunboxed, the student-run refill shop, or joining your college’s Climate Society. By paying attention to the small things, we can discover what does matter. If life in general is meaningless, we are, at least, free to try to make the present moment as good as we can, and to inspire others to do the same.
So, I’ll make my money count. I’ll go to a protest. I’ll vote for a Green Party councillor. This year I’ve decided that it’s about time I start acting like the integral part of this country’s future that the University tells me I am. Because if every member of Gen Z who cares in silence starts shouting about it, we might actually get somewhere.
When I was studying for exams in Trinity 2024, I broke my glasses. I needed an entire new frame and lenses, and my current prescription was about to expire, so I realised I could save money by getting a new eye exam first. I was unprepared for the result, though: I had a detached retina and needed surgery urgently or I could go blind in my right eye at any minute. Since NHS waiting lists were too long, I had to return to the U.S. to get treatment, which caused me to miss my exams. As Oxford could not offer me summer re-sits, I had to take them in Trinity 2025. This forced me to postpone an excellent PhD offer.
My plan was to tutor for a year while continually reviewing the material so I would be prepared to ace my exams when I returned to Oxford. This was a good plan… until the night of 7th January, when wildfires ravaged Los Angeles. While I survived the Eaton Fire, my house was one of thousands that burned down. Needless to say, my life was thrown into turmoil, and it was months before I was truly able to get back into a studying routine. I managed to eke out a Pass in June and even get a Merit on two exams, but it was rough.
Moral of the story: we need summer re-sits.
Currently, Oxford offers summer resits for Prelims students – but no such provision exists for the following years. The reasons for this might seem to make sense; it maintains high expectations for students and disincentivises failure. Plus, it reduces the workload of administering exams. The system already grants departmental Boards of Examiners flexibility to consider a student’s extenuating circumstances. Namely, in fringe cases, if a student does well on most exams but fails one because they were ill that day, then the examiners might decide to disregard the exam they failed.
However, when extenuating circumstances cause a student to miss too many exams or perform too poorly, the examiners’ hands are tied – they might decide to remove the cap on the students’ re-sits for the next year, but that still forces the student to wait a year to progress. For example, when my detached retina caused me to miss all my exams, there was simply nothing to go off of. A year later, the stress of having one chance to take six exams despite how overwhelmed I felt was more than I could handle, since I was scared that if I failed too many I’d have to postpone my PhD offer by another year or even lose it entirely. The anxiety of the situation would have been greatly reduced if I’d known that I could re-sit the exams later that summer if needed.
To prevent students from finding themselves in these situations, Oxford should guarantee summer re-sits for anyone unable to progress due to their exams being affected by serious extenuating circumstances. Furthermore, different students might have different timing needs – for example, a student entering a PhD/DPhil programme might need the re-sit sooner, such as early or mid-August, while a student dealing with a longer-term crisis might need the exams later. To handle this, Oxford should give individual departments flexibility to decide on timing in consultation with affected students. I understand Oxford might wish to disincentivise failure and minimise its workload by not offering summer re-sits to everyone who fails, but offering them to those prevented from passing by external hardships is simply the just thing to do.
For Prelims courses, both Trinity exams and re-sit exams are set and checked at the beginning of the academic year. This could be done for Part A through C courses as well. Furthermore, if Oxford decides to make re-sit exams only available for students with extenuating circumstances, then if a certain re-sit exam isn’t needed, they could just not release it and use it next year, which would reduce faculty and staff workload. If serious extenuating circumstances really are so rare, then the burden of marking re-sit scripts will also be minimal. On the other hand, if they’re not so rare, then that only strengthens the case for offering them, as this policy would be negatively impacting a large number of students. Oxford’s lack of summer re-sits puts it in a minority among universities in the UK – that must change.
I don’t hold this against the department and I am grateful for the support of my advisors and lecturers. However, while my experiences are hopefully among the worst, other students have also been affected by this. I knew someone who lost their PhD program offer after also missing exams in 2024 due to illness. Furthermore, as Cambridge Student Union president Sarah Anderson points out, a lack of re-sits particularly affects disabled students at risk of having their exam performance derailed by a poorly timed flare-up.
The current system is both unfair and unnecessary, it’s time to change it for the better. Oxford is already deliberating on this issue at the University level and engaging in dialogue with individual departments. Let’s hope they will do the right thing.
Note: This article was incorrectly attributed to David Weisenberg in the Week 5 edition of Cherwell.
