Thursday 14th May 2026
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Oxford, and the ongoing appeal of the literary canon

Jessie Jukes
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Oxford, and the ongoing appeal of the literary canon

I remember my tutor asking us if we thought our literature options were broad enough at the end of an Italian tutorial last term. This question really stuck with me: not because I have a clear answer (I still don’t – could a reading list ever actually be broad enough?), but because, surely, whether I thought so or not, Oxford would continue to teach the same novels that it has been teaching for hundreds of years. 

As a Modern Languages student at Oxford – a primarily literature-focused course – I am no stranger to reading lists built around canonical authors. In theory, we are given freedom within a reading list; we choose, to some extent, the works that we want to study (though of course these include Dante and Petrarch). It would be, as I answered my tutor’s question, easy to describe our literature options as broad. After all, I have managed to study female authors without having to choose a specific ‘women writers’ topic. And yet these choices are already framed by the same set of already-established works. The range of choices may appear to be wide, but its boundaries are clear. 

In reality, while they seem to be fairly inclusive, our reading lists are composed entirely of works that form part of the literary canon – works deemed ‘essential’ and of the highest quality, historically chosen by a narrow and influential elite. These are the books that our tutors studied, as did the scholars teaching them, with their authority only accumulating over time. This status seems to justify their quality: they are good because they are famous, and famous because they are good. With this assumption, though, comes the question of whether we have inherited the habit of valuing these canonical works, rather than that of analysing and questioning them ourselves. 

There is a certain pressure to enjoy the classics at Oxford, especially given our university’s emphasis on tradition, and yet I have found myself writing essays on novels that I didn’t actually like. Enjoying the texts feels like a marker of intellect, seriousness, and taste, while failure to do so is accompanied by a sense of guilt and a suspicion that I’m just not clever enough to “get it”. 

I wonder whether our admiration of these books and the appeal of the canon itself is genuine or just learned. Appreciation of the canon can become performative, something that is expressed rather than felt. I myself have avoided expressing opinions on novels I’ve studied here (in all honesty, I am not a fan of Sand’s Indiana, nor of Ginzburg’s Lessico famigliare): there is a certain awkwardness that arises in a tutorial when someone says that they didn’t like a set text, one which I would much rather avoid. 

Oxford’s relationship with tradition only exacerbates the idea that the canon has endured because of its status: studying here comes with a continual awareness that we are not only reading a selection of texts, but the same novels that have been studied here for decades. There’s a sense of continuity, a link to the past – we are partaking in an intellectual conversation that began years ago. The canon, through our reading lists, is continually pushed onto us, and it can be difficult to form our own opinions on these novels away from the appreciation that is expected from us. When we read a classic, we are aware of its status even before we begin to develop our own opinions; they come with an implicit weight and an expectation of depth, of importance. Our response is shaped before we start to read, which we then do according to this expectation.

So does the canon only endure because we’ve learned not to question it, or is it actually because of the merit of the texts themselves? The canon isn’t simply imposed and followed – its works are (or at least most of the time) there for a reason, and I won’t pretend that I don’t love studying the majority of the works that comprise my degree. The same novels have often remained so influential and so widely read not only because of tradition, but because they continue to offer something to their readers. As a Languages student, reading texts in the original and finally understanding one of Petrarch’s sonnets or a canto of the Divina Commedia provides an intellectual satisfaction that is hard to replicate elsewhere. Though it can sometimes be difficult to separate authority from quality, in most cases, canonical and classic works are genuinely well-written. We have standards for everything else, so why wouldn’t we for books? And I think that’s why the canon is so hard to reject: it’s not just elitism and snobbiness, but its works have genuine appeal. 

It’s easy to think that the canon endures only because of tradition, and because we are taught that it should, but perhaps it continues to hold so much weight because it continues to persuade us. Even as we are encouraged to question it – as I myself was in my recent tutorial – we find ourselves not only guided to but drawn to it. Maybe it has continued for so long just on status alone, but to say this takes away from the genuine appeal that a lot of its works have.

Since I have been considering this tension, I’ve become less interested in whether the canon deserves its status and more in how I respond to its texts. We can approach the canon with both scepticism and appreciation, and doubt about the canon’s prestige can coexist with a genuine enjoyment of its books.

Why Niche Dating Apps Are Becoming Popular Among Young LGBTQ+ Adults

External Contributor
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Why Niche Dating Apps Are Becoming Popular Among Young LGBTQ+ Adults

Dating apps are no longer just tools for finding a partner. For many young people, they are spaces to test identity and see how others respond. This shift is clear among Gen Z, who often treat dating as part of self-discovery. 

Data from Tinder reports that 54% of users first came out on a dating app. These patterns suggest a deeper change. Niche platforms now meet needs linked to safety, identity, and belonging, not just romance.

Micro-Communities Over Mass Matching

Large dating apps often group many identities into broad labels. This can lead to identity dilution. Users may feel reduced to a few tags. As a result, their full identity is not seen or understood. Many start to look for smaller spaces where nuance matters more. This shift is clear as interest grows, with many users searching for bisexual dating sites to find more accurate matches. People using these platforms often want more than access to profiles. 

They look for spaces where bisexual identity is not questioned or treated as a phase. On many large apps, bisexual users report being filtered out or misunderstood by both straight and gay users. Niche platforms respond by setting clearer identity categories and allowing users to state preferences without pressure. This reduces misinterpretation and repeated explanations.

Niche apps also build matching systems that reflect these needs. They sort users based on layered identity traits, not just gender. This helps people feel seen in a more accurate way.

Identity Exploration Happens Faster in Controlled Spaces

Recent data from online dating news points to rapid change. There has been a 30% increase in listed gender identities. Non-binary users have risen by 104%. These figures suggest that more people are testing and naming their identity through apps.

Niche platforms support this process in a more controlled setting. Social pressure is lower, as users expect openness from others. There are fewer heteronormative assumptions built into profiles and matching systems. This reduces friction during early stages of self-definition.

Many users treat these apps as identity rehearsal spaces. They test labels, pronouns, and boundaries before sharing them offline. This allows for quicker self-understanding, with less risk of negative response.

Reframing the Problems with Online Dating

Many discussions about the problems focus on ghosting or shallow chats. Yet a deeper issue is identity compression. Users are reduced to short bios and a few images. This creates a form of market-style comparison, where people are judged quickly and often unfairly. Critics link this to swipe culture and the wider commodification of dating.

Niche apps respond by limiting scale and slowing interaction. They use more detailed profiles and specific matching rules. This shifts focus from quick choice to clearer identity signals. As a result, users face less pressure to fit into narrow categories.

Platform Specialisation vs. Generalisation

Specialisation improves relevance. Users receive matches that reflect more precise identity markers. This reduces noise and unwanted interactions. It also supports clearer communication from the start.

FeatureMainstream AppsNiche LGBTQ+ Apps
Matching logicBroad filtersIdentity-specific filters
User intentMixedMore defined
Safety toolsStandard moderationCommunity-driven safety
Identity expressionLimited depthExpanded options

As a result, connections are based on shared context, not just general attraction.

Why Women-Focused Queer Apps Are Growing

Interest in lesbian dating apps and gay dating apps for women is rising for clear reasons. One key factor is the reduced presence of male gaze dynamics. Users report fewer unsolicited messages and less pressure to present themselves in a certain way. This changes how profiles are written and read.

Communication styles also differ. Messages tend to be more intentional, with clearer context and tone. Many platforms set norms that favour consent and mutual interest before contact. Community moderation plays a strong role here. Users often report issues and shape acceptable behaviour together. These patterns create more predictable interactions and stronger trust between users.

Conclusion

The focus is no longer on scale, but on accuracy and trust. Smaller platforms offer clearer signals and more control over interaction. This supports both self-definition and safer communication. As expectations change, users are likely to keep moving towards spaces that reflect their identity with greater precision.

Plans for new Oxford graduate college approved

Angelina Wu
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Plans for new Oxford graduate college approved

Oxford City Council has approved plans for a new postgraduate medical college in Headington. The plans also include a mental health hospital and a modern facility for brain sciences research, forming a new Warneford Park development centred on mental health and brain research.  

The proposal, led by the Oxford University Hospitals Trust in collaboration with the University of Oxford, was approved on 21st April. Permission, however, is not officially issued until details of the conditions are agreed with the council. Once official, phased delivery of the new campus will take place over the next ten years, with healthcare, research, and teaching provision to continue throughout construction. 

The new college will be known as Radcliffe College, the first University of Oxford college to be located in Headington, and will admit postgraduate medical students. Plans for the development of the college include restoring the Grade II-listed Warneford Hospital building, which will form the centre of the college. 

Radcliffe College will be the first new University of Oxford college founded since Reuben College was established, marking a relatively rare expansion in the University’s collegiate system. 

The site is expected to provide newly-built accommodation for around 250 students, including graduates, DPhil, and postdoctoral researchers in medicine, life sciences, medical engineering, and other related subjects. Researchers and clinicians who currently have no college affiliation are also expected to find teaching roles and membership at the new college. 

The plans have drawn criticism from local residents and councillors, particularly over proposals to increase parking provision on the site by more than 50%. Some have described the changes as “egregious” and “catastrophic”, raising concerns about traffic, environmental damage to Warneford Meadow, and the impact on children travelling to nearby schools.

The new mental health hospital would replace the current 200-year-old Warneford Hospital, which has been deemed no longer fit to provide modern clinical facilities. 

The 200th anniversary of mental health care at the Warnerford Hospital will be commemorated with an exhibition scheduled to take place at the Museum of Oxford, over the summer, on the Hospital’s history. As part of the program of events for the anniversary, there will also be a new play performed at the Old Fire Station theatre which will focus on those who lived at the institution.

The centre is set to cost £750 million and will focus on mental health and brain sciences, forming a major medical research and innovation facility. Combining Oxford’s two Biomedical Research Centres, the research on brain sciences is projected to create an annual growth opportunity for the UK of over £1 billion.

Oxford University has been approached for a comment.

Union President-Elect found guilty of electoral fraud by Tribunal

Cherwell News
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Union President-Elect found guilty of electoral fraud by Tribunal

Catherine Xu, the Oxford Union’s President-Elect for Michaelmas 2026, has been permanently barred from holding office at the Society after an Election Tribunal found that she orchestrated a scheme to impersonate legitimate voters at the Hilary Term 2026 election.

The Tribunal, which sat on 25th and 26th April, found that Xu retrieved a stack of Oxford Union membership cards from her locker at Exeter College on polling day and distributed them to individuals not entitled to vote, instructing them to cast ballots in other members’ names. Yolanda Liu, a successful candidate for the Secretary’s Committee, was also found to have participated in the scheme, receiving approximately six cards from Xu and distributing at least one on polling day. The Tribunal noted that Liu’s witness statement contributed to Xu being added as a defendant in its proceedings,

According to a report seen by Cherwell, the Tribunal’s findings relied on a combination of witness evidence and communications between Xu and Liu. WeChat messages sent by Xu on polling day, in which she asked how the process of “finding people” was going and instructed Liu to be “especially careful”, were found to have “no plausible innocent explanation”. Additionally, a voice note sent by Xu four days after the election, asking Liu if she still had “the cards”, was described as “particularly damning”. Xu’s own witnesses gave contradictory accounts of her movements on polling day.

Xu was found guilty on six of seven charges, including using the Society’s membership records to influence the election, procuring the impersonation of members at the poll, and conspiracy with Liu. The Tribunal described her conduct as “wholly incompatible with the standards of behaviour that would be acceptable for a President of the Society”. 

She was found not guilty of intimidating a Secretary’s Committee candidate who had intercepted one of the individuals attempting to vote fraudulently, but the Tribunal said her conduct towards them “does Ms Xu no credit”.

Xu’s legal team did not file a witness statement despite having one prepared; she herself chose not to give evidence-in-chief. 

Following the outcome of the tribunal, Xu has been disqualified from the Hilary Term 2026 election, and from nominating in any current or future election in the Union. She has further been “permanently barred from holding any Office, Appointed role, or official position in the Society”, “permanently barred from sitting on any Committee of the Society, with the exception of Consultative Committee”, and “suspended as a Member until the end of 9th Week Trinity Term 2026”.

Liu’s membership has likewise been suspended, and she has also been disqualified from the Hilary Term 2026 election.

Liu told Cherwell she “strongly” disputes the Tribunal’s findings and intends to appeal. She argued that the decision rests on “basic misreadings of the evidence and errors of law”, and rejected the Tribunal’s characterisation of her as a “junior partner in the scheme”. Liu maintains that she refused to participate in electoral malpractice. She added that the central finding against her relied on “contested identification evidence” that did not meet the required standard of proof, and that she was “confident” the decision would be overturned on appeal.

The Tribunal has ordered that the election for President-Elect should be annulled, and that there be a re-Poll, to be held on Monday, 11th May. Previously nominated candidates, with the exception of Xu – namely Hamza Hussain, Gareth Lim, and Liza Barkova – are to be included automatically on the ballot. Additionally, members eligible to nominate for President-Elect in the Hilary Term election will also be eligible to nominate in next week’s re-Poll, with no requirement for any qualifying speeches. The Tribunal will remain empanelled in order to oversee the re-Poll.

When approached for comment, the Oxford Union told Cherwell: “A Disciplinary Proceeding has taken place, following which the Election Tribunal has ordered a re-poll. Standing Committee note the findings therein and will discuss them in due course. It would be inappropriate to comment further as the proceedings may become subject to appeal.”

Xu told Cherwell that she “strongly rejects” the Tribunal’s findings and denied that any conspiracy existed. She expressed concern that the decision relied on evidence that she believes to be “fabricated or materially unreliable”, and described the penalties imposed as “extraordinarily severe and disproportionate”. Xu added that the case “must receive strict appeal review, with full procedural fairness and transparency”.

‘If he wanted to he would’: The problem with TikTok dating advice

Jessie Jukes
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‘If he wanted to he would’: The problem with TikTok dating advice

“If he wanted to he would”. Look under the comments of any TikTok video about dating and you’ll see it repeated over and over again; it’s a promise of clarity, an explanation, a definitive answer to any and all problems that could arise in a relationship. But relationships aren’t that simple. With the rise of TikTok, and the generic, algorithm-driven dating advice that comes with it, we are continually encouraged to seek a one-size-fits-all answer to our problems. As more of us turn to an app rather than our partners or friends for advice, we risk reducing complex dynamics into 30-second videos that assume the worst, and ask for the impossible. TikTok has no shortage of “dating experts”, and their advice offers a bleak and overwhelmingly negative outlook on our relationships.

Today, I opened TikTok to see a video entitled “At the end of the day, dump him”, in which the creator listed a number of ‘flaws’ deemed worthy of a breakup. Among them, the simple act of questioning if your boyfriend has cheated on you: “at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether or not he was actually cheating on you, the fact is you’re questioning [it]”. Now, in some cases, this might be a valid point  – yes, of course your boyfriend shouldn’t be making you feel like he has cheated on you. But I can’t help but wonder about the effects that this sort of content has on relationships where this isn’t the case. Or relationships where one party is naturally prone to doubts, and is convinced by someone they’ve never met to dump a boyfriend who is “trying his best”, because – as this TikTok put it – “his best ain’t it”. Every relationship is different, and when we simplify all problems down to one issue with the exact same solution, we strip away the nuance that real-life situations often require.

These TikToks, along with offering an overwhelmingly negative outlook, encourage unrealistic standards for our dating lives. Entering this side of TikTok, you are met with a barrage of content centred around communication.We’re not meant to be reachable 24/7, but by telling us to expect this, these “dating experts” are only setting us up for failure. Creators often make assertions about how long it should take to receive a reply to a text message (their answers all differ), but also about how often you should see one another (on which they also can’t agree). Their advice is the same for developing relationships; I have seen countless Tiktoks claiming that if someone is interested in you, they will make the effort to seek you out. But the reality is that this kind of constant open communication isn’t natural. If your partner is working, busy, or even just in need of an hour to themselves, not texting back  does not mean that they don’t care about you, and TikTok should not tell us that it does. 

This kind of advice doesn’t just set unrealistic expectations, but actively discourages real communication. Instead of having a conversation with our partners, we are encouraged to analyse, dissect, interpret, and ultimately to assume the worst. Even where there were no issues in the relationship, this ensures that they can be easily created. Tiktok constructs a paranoia, whereby taking time to reply to a message suddenly represents a lack of interest, spending too much time with friends becomes a sign that they don’t care. We begin to hold our partners to unrealistic standards, quietly “testing” them to see if they will fail, rather than being honest with them about what we need. But relationships aren’t built on mind-reading. A simple conversation would suffice to fix most of the issues that these TikToks claim to resolve. But that wouldn’t generate enough views. And therein lies the problem. 

The people making these videos know exactly what will work to gain more clicks, more likes, more followers. They know that the more dramatic they are, the more likely their viewers are to continue watching, and this in turn ensures that the TikTok algorithm suggests similarly outlandish videos. And so the cycle continues; we see a video telling us that something our partner did is breakup-worthy (like when they took too long to reply to a text the other day), and we watch it until the end. This ensures that we are shown similar content. We then begin to overthink (how long will it take them to reply to this text?), and draw the worst possible conclusions when we don’t get the desired outcome. All the while the comments section continues to whisper “if he wanted to he would”. And so we continue to doubt our relationship, watching more videos for an explanation – and the one provided is ultimately generic and hollow. 

At this point, the problem isn’t necessarily the relationship at all. It’s the way that we’re being told to interpret it. These videos, through capitalising on an insecurity, manage to create problems even where there were none, so that their creators can then offer a solution. These TikTok “dating experts” may offer us a quick fix to our problems, but relationships don’t need generic answers or universal solutions – they need communication. So, if we want a relationship, maybe we should look away from our screens and towards the person that we want to build it with.

Honorary Degree recipients announced for 2026

Ilya Rosenbaum
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Honorary Degree recipients announced for 2026

The University of Oxford has announced its 2026 honorary degree recipients, with seven individuals to be conferred with degrees at the Encaenia ceremony on 24th June. 

The honourees come from a wide variety of careers. Those awarded include former world number one tennis player Billie Jean King; economist and Nobel Laureate Professor Daniel Acemoglu; and former chief executive of GSK, Dame Emma Walmsley DBE. They are joined by dancer and choreographer Carlos Acosta CBE; biochemist Professor Katalan Karikó  and Nobel Laureate Professor Shuji Nakamura; and Emmy nominated filmmaker and historian Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The University has been granting honorary degrees since the 1400s, whilst the Encaenia ceremony can be dated back to the 16th century, assuming its current form around 1760. 

Recipient Billy Jean King won 39 Grand Slam singles, doubles and mixed doubles titles, including winning a record 20 Wimbledon championships. She is also known for campaigning to equalise prize money in professional competitions across both womens’ and mens’ professional championships. Carlos Acosta was awarded a CBE in 2014 and retired from Classical Ballet in 2016, but continued to choreograph and perform.

Professor Acemoglu was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2024 alongside two others for “studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity”.  Fellow recipient Professor Nakamura was also awarded a Nobel Prize, for Physics in 2014, for emitting energy-saving efficient blue light-emitting diodes, whilst Professor Karikó won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries enabling nucleoside-modified mRNA vaccines.

Dame Walmsley worked at GSK for 15 years and served as Chief Executive Officer of GSK for 9 years, retiring in December 2025. She is joined on the list of honourees by Henry Louis Gates Jr, known for his work as a literary critic, professor and history, as well as a literary critic. Gates was nominated for an Emmy Award for “Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking”  in 2022 for his work as Executive Producer for the documentary Frederik Douglas: In Five Speeches.

Honorary degree recipients are recognised for their distinction in their field or service to society. Previous honorees include former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, and Monty Python comedian Sir Michael Palin. Decisions on recipients of honorary degrees are made by a selection committee. Encaenia 2026 comes after Lord Hague awarded eight honorary degrees in February this year in a Special Honorary Degree Ceremony to celebrate the beginning of Lord Hague’s term as Chancellor at the University. 

The ceremony involves the heads of colleges, university dignitaries and holders of Oxford doctoral degrees in Divinity, Civil Law, Medicine, Letters, Science, and Music. The honourees assemble and walk in procession to the Sheldonian Theatre. There, they are introduced by the Public Orator with a speech in Latin, and finally granted their new degrees by the Chancellor, Lord William Hague. Students at the University may attend the ceremony, with tickets released on  5th May. 

Oxford research changes scientists’ understanding of the development of complex life

Stanley Arlidge
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Oxford research changes scientists’ understanding of the development of complex life

A collaborative study by researchers from the University of Oxford’s Museum of Natural History and Oxford’s Department of Earth Science, alongside experts from Yunnan University in China, has shown that complex animal life developed earlier than previously thought. 

According to a University of Oxford press release, the new discoveries include fossils containing the distant relatives of starfish and sea cucumbers. Relatives of deuterostomes, a group of which humans are a part, were found in the Ediacaran period for the first time.  Some fossils even contained species completely unknown to science. One of these new species, according to a statement by co-author Dr Frankie Dunn, “looks a lot like the sand worm in Dune”. Dr Luke Parry, another co-author on the study, said in a statement these discoveries reveal “a transitional community: the weird world of the Ediacaran giving way to the Cambrian”. 

The work, published in the journal Science earlier this month, is based on new discoveries at a fossil assemblage known as the Jiangchuan Biota in Eastern Yunnan, China. It shows that some complex life forms whose development was previously traced to the Cambrian explosion – a period of rapid biodiversity growth 535 million years ago – were in fact present in the late Ediacaran period (554 – 539 million years ago). 

Gaorong Li, the study’s lead author, told Cherwell that these finds help “bridge what once seemed to be a sharp gap between the Ediacaran and the Cambrian. It shows that…some of the anatomical and ecological foundations of the Cambrian Animal life were already in place beforehand.” 

This team drew its conclusions from discoveries made by Li in his earlier work on the Jiangchuan Biota. In 2022, he “noticed some puzzling specimens” of algae which differed from those previously known about in the area. By 2023, he and his colleagues realised that the site “preserved not just algae but also genuine animal body fossils”. The preserved animal fossils were the focus of this latest research.  

Li began his work on the Jiangchuan Biota in Yunnan before making the move to Oxford. Reflecting on the partnership between the two universities, Li told Cherwell: “The collaboration was crucial because it brought together complementary expertise.” Yunnan possessed the “field experience” from “years of work on the Jiangchuan Biota”, while Oxford had the “expertise in worldwide Ediacaran and early animal fossils”. 

University announces new Centre for Korean Studies at Schwarzman Centre opening

Isaac Gavaghan
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University announces new Centre for Korean Studies at Schwarzman Centre opening

The University of Oxford announced plans to establish the Oxford Centre for Korean Studies, at the official opening of the Schwarzman Centre over the weekend. 

Approved last month and set to open in October, the centre – which will have an estimated budget of  £3.76 million – forms part of a gradual increase in Korean language and history academic provision at the University over the last two decades. 

In 2006, the University also created an Associate Professorship in Korean History, followed in 2007 by a Professorship in Korean Language and Literature. The new centre is being led by the two current holders of University of Oxford professorships in Korean history and language, Professor James Lewis and Professor Jieun Kiaer, respectively, as well as Dr Young-hae Chi, a Korean language lecturer.

For undergraduates, Korean can be taken as an additional language if they are on a course with Japanese or Chinese as the primary language, whilst for graduates, a Master’s of Korean Studies program is available. Since Michaelmas Term 2024, Korean classes have also been offered by the University’s Language Centre.

Korean media outlets have depicted the centre as a response to the “Korean wave” in global popular culture, referencing the growth in popularity of South Korean cultural exports, including films, K-pop, and K-dramas. The Centre for Korean Studies also reflects a broader trend in increased study of East Asia at Oxford, with the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies opened at St. Anthony’s College in 1981 and the opening of the University’s China Centre in 2008.

Professor Jieun Kiaer, of Hertford College, described the centre’s future English-language scholarship into Korean culture as important for the long-term continuation of Korean studies. 

The opening of the Centre included a free day of events and performances, including performances by the Scottish Ensemble and Chamber Choir Scola Cantorum, alongside the display of artwork created using artificial intelligence and theatre productions. Speaking ahead of the opening, John Fulljames, director of the Schwarzman Centre’s cultural programme, described the Centre as a “new public home for the humanities” and “a place where we can all come together to make sense of what it means to be human in today’s world”.

Oxford Competition Dance dazzles in first place

Niamh Tooher
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Oxford Competition Dance dazzles in first place

Going into Loughborough, OUCD’s Varsity loss on 21st February still stung fresh. Losing to Cambridge had been a difficult result for the team, particularly after our win the previous year. Despite an unusually warm and welcoming atmosphere from Cambridge (it’s always friendly, but often on Varsity day tinged with a subtle frost), the team left feeling deflated. 

With a national competition ahead of us, however, there was little time to dwell on our sorrows. Falling between Varsity and Loughborough, our annual showcase allowed us time to refine our pieces and, most importantly, rediscover our love for performance, growing closer than ever as a team.

Two weeks can make a world of difference. With the Loughborough University Dance Competition taking place from 7th to 8th March, this short window of time required the team to learn quickly from our loss, coming back stronger than ever.

Loughborough is the closest thing competition dance has to BUCS: with 29 universities, over 1,400 dancers, and a full weekend of competition across multiple styles, coming out with a win is the victory of all victories. Less about a single rivalry, the day determines national standing.

This year, for the second time in three years, OUCD reigned victorious. A well-earned first place in this national competition almost healed the wounds we had nursed after our Varsity defeat only two weeks before. Adding to our success, OUCD were awarded Overall Best University, alongside two other headline titles: Best Dancer, won by Josh Redfern, and Best Choreography for Advanced Contemporary, choreographed by Christie Sardjono. To come away with all three awards is something the competition has never seen before.

Beyond that, the results were consistently strong across the board. OUCD placed second in the Commercial category (choreographed by Grace Hillier), and third in both Contemporary (choreographed by Christie Sardjono) and Wildcard (choreographed by Alex Somers). A consistently strong performance across a diversity of styles is one of OUCD’s key strengths.

This breadth is typical of OUCD. As a team, we train across a range of styles, including ballet, jazz, contemporary, commercial, and hip hop. Not everyone does everything, but the overlap between dancers means each piece is built from a slightly different combination of strengths.

The choreography award for Advanced Contemporary reflected a painstaking process that began months earlier. Pieces are developed gradually, through rehearsals that involve a lot of reworking, refining, and, if we’re lucky, Christie exclaiming: “Holy sh*t, that looks really good!” Like any piece of artwork, by the time we present them, they’ve usually changed quite significantly from where they began.

Dance occupies a slightly ambiguous position within Oxford sport. We train at Iffley, deal with injuries, and go through Sports Federation processes like any other club. At the same time, competition is partly subjective: performance, storytelling, artistry, and movement quality matter just as much as technique. That can make results harder to predict, but also makes outcomes like this particularly significant.

For President Ruby Suss-Francksen and the team, the result was a strong way to round off the competition season. Coming so soon after Varsity, it also offered a different perspective on how the year has gone overall, complementing other recent milestones – most notably securing our first ever Extraordinary Full Blue for Lucy Williams after her ‘Best Dancer’ award at the same competition last year, and increasing our provision of half blue awards. While Varsity remains an important marker, Loughborough is a broader one. To finish first there, and to do so ahead of Cambridge, among others, was a reminder of what the team is capable of on a national stage.

With the competition season now over, OUCD will turn to Trinity Term performances, showcasing our national standard choreography at Brasenose Ball and Magdalen Ball. That said, Loughborough stands out not only as a peak in OUCD’s competitive year but in its entire competitive history.

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

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

CW: Rape, sexual violence, sexual harassment.

With each headline, the world becomes increasingly desensitised to sexual violence. 62 million men go unnoticed, swept up by the information overload of the online sphere; the reality becomes ineffable, obfuscated by over-saturation. Memes about Epstein, jokes about Clavicular, and discourse on the manosphere have seeped into our digital vernacular, such as to become ubiquitous, and, consequently, normalised. Nor, in the University of Oxford, is abuse of power, on the level of both students and staff, an alien concept. The result of this over-abundance is not to destigmatise a sensitive topic, but to train us out of outrage and into critical stultification. For the co-presidents of It Happens Here, Aparna Shankar and Maddie Gillett, and the two policy officers, Isobel Cammish and Abby Smith, literacy about consent and sexual violence is needed now more than ever.

It Happens Here, established in 2013, is an anti-sexual violence campaign led by Oxford students, which advocates for policy change at the University, as well as running events and offering support services for students. They were instrumental in the 2021 launch of the Safe Lodge Scheme, providing a point of refuge for students in distress. Likewise, their campaigning played a major role in effecting the University’s ban on intimate relationships between academics and their students in 2023. 

The very structure of the campaign’s team – including a BAME rep, a Class rep, a Disability rep, and an LGBTQ+ rep – is shaped by their recognition that an individual’s experience of sexual violence is influenced by the confluence of all aspects of their identity; reprising an ossified approach in each unique case risks forfeiting nuance and sensitivity. By embedding their values into their team’s set-up, the society has committed itself to an intersectional approach. 

Aparna, who began working on It Happens Here as BAME rep, is keen to emphasise that “people of colour face intersectional barriers when it comes to reporting sexual violence”. Not only do people, and particularly women, of colour experience higher levels of sexual violence, but, furthermore, issues of self-blame “can be compounded by racial differences”.

Nor is race the only factor which can aggravate such cases. For Maddie, who started out as LGBTQ+ rep, the work of It Happens Here would be incomplete without nuanced consideration of how queerness can influence how a person experiences sexual violence. “You can’t talk about sexual violence without talking about the practice of safe sex”, she notes. This becomes a problem when, as is all too often the case, “safe sex is taught from a very heterosexual lens”, generating additional hurdles in the process of coming to terms with, or even recognising, instances of sexual violation. 

It Happens Here, along with numerous other student societies, including Class Act and OULGBTQ+ society, was disaffiliated from the SU a few years ago, as part of a broader transformation of SU structure. The change had profound ramifications for the campaign: having lost their funding, “for a while we just weren’t really up and running”. Without this stable source of income, Aparna explains, “we rely a lot on college JCRs which can be unreliable. And so when we’re putting on events, it’s a bit more difficult.

“We are managing it, and that’s why it helps to have such a large network, because it’s not just committee members who can apply, anyone could apply to help us get funding from their college.”

The challenges induced by the dearth of funding as a fallout from the SU disaffiliation are only compounded by concomitant struggles to ensure engagement. It Happens Here is, Maddie admits, “not a very well-known society”, and losing the network that came with the support of a centralised administrative body meant that “we went a bit underground, because it’s a big structural change to navigate.”

Yet the problem has its roots in something beyond the practical. It is, perhaps, an inevitable corollary of the nature of the campaign itself. Sexual violence is necessarily an uncomfortable topic, but just as commonly a misunderstood one as well. The new presidents are intent on addressing “the many intricate and complex ways that sexual violence goes unreported and not talked about in society”

As a result of the myriad misconceptions that surround the issue, the campaign suffers from a lack of consistent engagement. “I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and go, oh, I haven’t, you know, I haven’t been a victim of sexual violence, so can I still come to the events? And absolutely you can.” Aparna explains. “It’s a collective effort. So, I want people to feel comfortable coming to our events, even if they’re not a survivor of sexual violence.”

Yet the problem with engagement is not limited to those who have no experience with sexual harassment. Even survivors often face difficulties, whether external or internal, when seeking help from the community. “There’s another barrier to sexual violence. It’s not an obvious thing that happens to people, as in sometimes it takes people a long time to realise if they have been sexually assaulted or raped, or if they’ve survived some sort of sexual violence.” 

It’s difficult to keep the thread of the narrative taut within the chaos of university life, of events large and small, of conflicting emotions. After all, everything blurs when held too near. The realisation can take months for some – for others, it takes even longer.

“I always think of it as, you know, if someone walks past you on the street and just slaps you in the face, you know, you’ve been slapped in the face, you know?” Yet sexual violence is rarely so clear-cut, particularly since, as Aparna notes, “you’re made to feel like what happened to you doesn’t matter.” The tendency to complicate the issue with introspection is dangerously prevalent, in large part attributable to “that inherent self-blame reaction towards it”, and the “challenges of invalidating yourself”.

Often, this is exacerbated by semantic difficulties, as Aparna explains: “I think that even the term sexual violence can be unhelpful sometimes, because people tend to have an idea of what they think sexual violence looks like, I don’t know, a stranger in an alley who uses a weapon, for example.” The harsh picture that the term conjures up belies the reality. It is an inherently violent experience to have one’s boundaries crossed, regardless of whether there was physical injury involved, regardless of who the perpetrator might have been. A hazy conception of what falls within a certain definition “can stop people from accessing these forms of support. They might see something like the Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service and think, oh, that’s not for me, because my experience wasn’t inherently violent, there’s probably someone else who might need it more than me.”

Reporting sexual violence is inevitably a harrowing process. Pain requires proof, consent becomes a negotiation, and the burden falls on the survivor to explain a story they never asked to tell. Yet for every psychological barrier to seeking help overcome, an institutional complication arises. Safeguarding provision at the University, as well as the process of dealing with a case of sexual violence, all too often becomes mired in bureaucratic reticulation, an oppressive complexity that is, on the whole, exacerbated by Oxford’s collegiate system. When responsibility for student welfare is divided between individual colleges and the central University, a transparent procedure to follow when seeking help is elusive. 

“The college system means there’s a lot of inconsistency in policy,” Maddie points out. “Whereas in some universities there’s a centralised policy on spiking, for example, each college is different here.” 

When students are immersed in the microcosm of a particular college, they are less likely to be familiar with wider university resources. “I don’t think many people know about the Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service. I don’t think people know about centralised welfare, things other than uni counselling.”

The tendency towards insularity inherent within the collegiate system, as Isobel notes, carries the potential to help or harm: a close-knit community can provide a crucial support network in a time of crisis, or, conversely, entrap a survivor in oppressive proximity to the circumstances, or even to the perpetrator, of what they’ve experienced. Oxford’s landscape narrows with the ever-hovering possibility of confrontation, or familiar places become corroded by association. 

Yet this is only part of the picture. For Oxford’s postgraduates, who make up just over 50% of the student body, the structure of the University generates additional problems. “At least in my experience, postgrad students feel really disconnected from central university bodies,” Abby explains. In her fresher’s week, the topic of sexual violence “wasn’t even covered.”

“There’s an assumption that because we’re all older, there are just things that you don’t have to lecture people about and you just assume that they know, which I think can be really harmful… everyone’s coming from a different background, a different system, a different structure, you can’t assume that we are all on the same understanding.”

Beyond the college system, antiquarianism, inevitably, characterises much of the University’s make-up. Apart from inculcating an intimidating atmosphere of grandiose severity, which, rooted as it is in patriarchal tradition, can act as a deterrent in reporting cases of sexual violence, Oxford’s long-standing prestige and distinctive practices give rise to additional problems.

“Oxford’s structure is more likely to allow members of staff to keep their positions, like we’ve heard a lot about this in the news,” Maddie points out. “And it’s very hard to get fired as a fellow. And you’re someone who’s interacting often one-on-one with your students, whereas you wouldn’t be at another uni. So I think the employment structure of Oxford is something that is problematic.” The status of Oxford’s colleges as individual legal entities often works to fragment accountability. Many academics have employment contracts with both their college and their faculty, adding a further layer of complication to the handling of allegations. 

Isobel notes the atypical dynamics engendered by the relationships between students and tutors at Oxford: “You have drinks with your tutors, your tutors will buy you alcohol, you’ll have dinner with them, you’ll maybe be in these like one-on-one situations with them a lot more, which is a bit weird.”

A spokesperson for the University told Cherwell: “Sexual misconduct, violence and harassment have no place at Oxford. We strive to ensure that Oxford is always a safe space for all students and staff and take concerns seriously, applying clear, robust procedures. Support for those affected is a priority, and we take precautionary and/or disciplinary action where justified.”

A survey published in 2023 by the ongoing project OUR SPACE found that half of Oxford students report having experienced sexual harassment. Within the University support system, the 2024-25 academic year saw an increase in student referrals to the Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service. It is easy to resort to despondency in the face of such a seemingly unassailable challenge. When the personal is reduced to the numerical, tangible impact becomes difficult to discern. But Aparna notes that the metric of their success has different aspects: “I think a lot of it can be quite individual sometimes, in terms of individual people reaching out to kind of tell you, hey, this, this helped, you know?

“It’s hard to see the long-term impact of what you’re doing when you’re doing it. But it’s reminders like these of people, because if there are a few people who are being vocal about it, chances are the vast majority of the rest of them think it, but don’t say it.” To live as a survivor of sexual violence, especially when faced with an impression of institutional inaction, is “an isolating thing, but to have a campaign in Oxford and people that care about this very deeply, so that they give up their own time. It’s a validating connection.”

As the presidents begin the new term, they are not overwhelmed into inaction, but focused on the tangible next steps they can take. “Right now, we want to get our name out. We want people to know that we exist. If you’re a survivor of sexual violence, it’s an isolating feeling, because you don’t feel like the world is on your side. It feels like you’re the only person that’s going through this. So to have a network available to you, to have other people that are willing to go to events and make time to support you – it’s a feeling that’s unmatched for a survivor.”

“A lot of it’s so slow going in policy work, and we’d rather have a campaign that is very useful and well thought-out,” Isobel adds, “but I do really love the idea that it’ll be having an impact on each generation of students. It’s a slow-moving process, and we’d rather do it right.”

Protecting students against all forms of sexual violence, and providing support for those who have survived it, is a duty that falls not only on the University as an institution, but on the individuals who make up its body, both staff and students. “This is an ongoing issue that requires everyone to pitch in”, Aparna emphasises. “It’s everyone’s problem. It affects everyone in your life.”

“I always like the phrase, it happens here, and it’s our responsibility to stop it. Because it is the responsibility of each and every one of us.”

It Happens Here: https://www.ithappenshere.co.uk 

It Happens Here is not a support service, but a student-led campaign.

University Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service (SHVSS): https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/welfare/supportservice 

University Independent Sexual Violence Advisor (ISVA): https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/welfare/supportservice/university-independent-sexual-violence-advisor-isva 

Harassment Advisor Network: https://edu.admin.ox.ac.uk/harassment-advisor-network-0 

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