Sunday, May 25, 2025
Blog Page 582

‘Was it written by aliens, or is it about vampires?’: A Q&A with Daniel Wakelin

Jacob Ridley
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‘Was it written by aliens, or is it about vampires?’: A Q&A with Daniel Wakelin

The theme for CulCher this week is ‘sensuality’, and with that in mind, we at Books have chosen to look into the material text – the palpable, tactile wing of the reading experience, provided by the book as a physical object. Daniel Wakelin knows a thing or two about that. He is the Jeremy Griffiths Professor of Medieval English Palaeography at St Hilda’s College, and Executive Secretary of the Early English Text Society. His publications include Humanism, Reading, and English Literature, 1430-1530 [OUP, 2007]; Scribal Correction and Literary Craft [CUP, 2014]; and Designing English [Bodleian, 2018].

What recent works of fiction would you recommend to our readers?

The last novel I read was Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox [Atlantic, 2018], a fictional memoir of an eighteenth-century transgender thief.

What about non-fiction?

I’ve just finished Arthur Lochmann’s La Vie Solide [Payot, 2019], a lovely account of why you’ll learn more about philosophy by working as a roofer than by studying PPE…

Favourite medieval manuscript?

Only one?! Ok, if pushed: the ‘Ellesmere Chaucer’, one of the earliest copies of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales – exquisitely made and illustrated. When I was allowed to consult it, after days of haggling, the unflappable librarian wheeled it in (it takes a trolley) and said: “You can now get started on your research. But first let’s sit and look at the pictures.” She was still enchanted by it after decades caring for it.

Oh go on then, have another one.

OK, it’s less famous but weirder and more wonderful, and like much that’s weird and wonderful it’s in Oxford. It’s a multifolding almanac of astrology, farming advice and a church calendar, illustrated with strange symbols and pictures, and constructed like no other book I’ve handled. I like to show this book – if it is a book – in classes in the Bodleian, because people gasp.

In literature, when did ‘the medieval’ end?

In FHS at 1550! But in lived experience, it depends which country and genre you’re considering. Let me annoy my colleagues and suggest the early 1600s.

One of your specialist areas is palaeography; what does that involve, and what are its implications for literary study? 

Palaeography involves learning to read ancient handwriting, in order to study the texts preserved in manuscript. But it also involves understanding handwriting – its date, place, style, materials, processes – as itself evidence for human creativity and agency – the histories of art, craftsmanship, professional training, ideology, political power, bureaucracy, national identity, religion, gender.

Are there any English manuscripts which remain illegible to you? Or can everything now be read and understood?

I hope none in English! But there is one huge puzzle: the barmy Voynich manuscript [Beinecke MS 408], written in some sort of cipher that nobody can decode. Google it and fall down an interweb rabbit hole to a looking-glass world of crytographers, cranks and conspiracy-theorists. Is it in Hebrew, proto-Romance or a language that strangely escaped record anywhere else? Was it written by aliens, or is it about vampires? Is it a forgery?

Favourite marginal annotation? Are marginalia a genre?

Marginalia often follow conventions like a literary or artistic genre. Some were useful to people because they were so conventional, clear. But some are not. One favourite in the Bodleian is a note on a Latin scientific book of the late 1400s: “Kys my ars sir Rafe”. What did this person have against Sir Ralph?

In medieval manuscripts, what correlation is there between the quality of the materials used and the ‘importance’ of the text?

Usually none! We often focus – on #medievaltwitter and in exhibitions and popular books – on what have been called “remarkable manuscripts” (like the Chaucer manuscript I mentioned). But often important texts appear in humble form, and humble forms often tell us more about the humble people who made and used them. We tried to tell those everyday stories in a Bodleian exhibition Designing English. (This is a shameless plug for my glossy exhibition catalogue.)

Any glaring examples of ‘unremarkable’ manuscripts housing important texts?

One important text is unprepossessing visually: the translation of St Gregory attributed to King Alfred. The Bodleian’s copy [MS Hatton 20], probably made at Alfred’s command, is not overly decorated and is by scribes who are not entirely assured. But it has something of the status of a historical relic for the history of the English language: probably the earliest book made in English to survive. Many people painstakingly translate bits for English Prelims.

Before the invention of print, what were some of the milestones in English book culture?

There are shifts in every generation, but in England quite a few occur or get started in the later 1100s: the styles of handwriting and decoration changed, and these jobs began to move outside the monasteries more often. Then from the late 1300s there is more writing by a wider range of people, and increasingly in English too. Printing in English – first done in Belgium in 1473/74 – entered a culture where literacy had already expanded greatly through handwritten media.

Any exciting upcoming events you’d recommend looking out for?

The British Library has a new exhibition about the history of writing, across cultures and periods: Making Your Mark (until August 27th). As soon as term ends, I’ll be popping up to that.

If you could provide funding for an underexplored area of the field crying out for new research, what would it be?

The other languages used in multilingual medieval England – French, Latin and Hebrew and the neighbouring languages such as Welsh. A beneficial side-effect would be improving our language skills now – vital!

You were recently involved in staging excerpts from a mystery-play cycle. Where are these plays written down, and what performance guidelines are there in the manuscripts?

Some manuscripts were used to check that performances went to plan; some were proud records of local traditions. We also have in the Bodleian a rare survival of an actor’s rough rehearsal text from Norfolk in the 1400s. They’re all sketchy on-stage directions, but brilliant theatre historians such as Meg Twycross and Alexandra Johnson have discovered lots of records of costumes, costs and so on. The gaps are liberating for staging them now: it’s not like staging something by Samuel Beckett where your hands are tied. We saw that in the Oxford mystery plays on 27 April: my group used animated gifs; some groups employed gritty realism (the Crucifixion was truly harrowing); others had updated costumes – vampish devils and a sinner in a Trump mask condemned to damnation.

Why weren’t these plays printed at the time?

They were very local community events, so printing might not have seemed necessary. Their religious content also fell from favour after restrictions on Catholicism from the 1530s on. But from the 1510s people printed the secular Tudor interludes, which are like political debates done as drama: whether you should marry a rich man or a good one, or how to exploit the resources of newly encountered North America.

The Oxford website says you’re working on photography; where’s the link between this and your medieval interests? 

Among my other interests are contemporary art and photography. I became interested how photography changes how we look at medieval manuscripts: the photographer’s tendency to focus on the exceptional; the camera’s ability to zoom in more closely than the people who made these books. This is obvious to critics of modern photography, and medievalists need to think about digital photography carefully. That said, among the first photographs made by Henry Fox Talbot [d. 1877] were pictures of fifteenth-century books. Some appeared in the exhibition Salt and Silver at Tate Britain a few years ago.

Students protest at Oxford Sustainability Awards

Havard Yttredal
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Students protest at Oxford Sustainability Awards

Five members of the Oxford Climate Justice Campaign (OCJC) staged a protest at the University of Oxford’s Sustainability Showcase last night, standing for the duration of the ceremony with signs that questioned the University’s continued investments in fossil fuels.

The students rose from their seats to display a sign that read “Still investing in fossil fuels??” as Vice-Chancellor Louise Richardson opened the event at the Sheldonian Theatre.

In her remarks, the Vice-Chancellor acknowledged the protest, saying: “We have representatives from a large number of entities across the University… even some people who are protesting our investments in fossil fuels.”

The protest was broadcast live on Facebook. Source: OCJC

The Sustainability Showcase is an annual awards ceremony in which the University celebrates sustainability initiatives across colleges and the university at large. Efforts concerning investments and finance were not listed among the categories of awards.

The protesters said that their intention is not to detract from the achievements actually being made. Pascale Gourdeau, a DPhil student and spokeswoman for OCJC, said: “Students, staff and faculty at the University of Oxford have done tremendous work to lessen the carbon footprint of its own premises, and these are efforts that should absolutely be maintained and rewarded.

“However, sustainability has a broader sense: it also concerns the systemic, normalized, and institutionalized forces which are rapidly contributing to the deterioration of life, with the most vulnerable among us affected the most.”

The University’s endowment is managed by Oxford University Endowment Management (OUem) in a fund that stood at £3.4 billion as of December 2018. This fund includes investments by twenty-five colleges and six charitable trusts associated with the University. About £74.8 million of it was invested in the energy sector.

Gourdeau told Cherwell: “If you believe the science and you believe the local communities — many of them indigenous — who have been resisting extractive projects for decades, you believe that burning fossil fuels is unsustainable for the planet and its peoples.

“Profiting from the burning of carbon should be viewed as more urgently unsustainable than anything else.”

According to the pro-divestment organisation People & Planet, 76 UK Universities have already committed to full divestment from fossil fuels. Last month, the governing body of the University of Cambridge commissioned an inquiry into the matter. The report will “set out fully the advantages and disadvantages, including the social and political ones, of a policy of divestment from fossil fuels”.

In 2015, Oxford University Council voted to disallow the buying of direct shares in coal and tar sands industries. However, campaigners say that this did not meet their demands of disinvestment of all direct and indirect shares in coal, oil and gas.

Two years later, OUem’s offshore investments were revealed in the Paradise Papers, which documented  indirectly invested in fossil fuel companies such as Royal Dutch Shell through offshore funds.

Staff-student relationships: Brasenose community warned of risks

Rachel Cordery
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Staff-student relationships: Brasenose community warned of risks

The community of Brasenose College has been warned about the dangers of intimate relationships between staff and students.

The College has sent out an email advising staff not to enter into personal relationships with any student for whom they have responsibility.

Principal John Bowers informed the College of an update to the preamble of the Academic Staff Student Relationship Policy. While the policy itself remains unchanged, the new preamble explains the principles behind the policy.

Within the policy, the College identifies the professional relationship between members of staff and students as being central to the student’s education development and wellbeing.

Conversely, a close personal or intimate relationship with a student “often involves difficulties rooted in the inequalities of power as well as problems in maintaining the boundaries of professional and personal life.”

The policy, which applies to academic staff and students of Brasenose, also requires that any personal relationship must be declared at once to the Senior Tutor.

The principal highlighted that “however brief” the relationship, “there are significant risks in any close personal or intimate relationships between individuals who occupy inherently unequal positions.”

Oxford to receive £150 million donation from former chair of Trump strategy forum

Amelia Horn
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Oxford to receive £150 million donation from former chair of Trump strategy forum

US billionaire Stephen Schwarzman has pledged a donation of £150 million to fund humanities research and to tackle ”looming social issues” linked to artificial intelligence.

He is the founder and chief executive of Blackstone financial group and has a personal wealth of $12 billion.

Schwarzman previously served as chair of President Trump’s strategic and policy forum before dissolution barely six months after its inception. He describes himself as having a “good relationship” with Trump, saying that he has got on well with the last three presidents in office.

The gift will be used to create the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. The aim of this is to bring together disciplines including English, philosophy, music and history in a single hub with performing spaces and a library, which will collaborate with a new Institute for Ethics in AI.

Schwarzman was approached by Vice-Chancellor Louise Richardson about the project 18 months ago on the site of the former Radcliffe Infirmary. She is reported to have expressed surprise when the American businessman proposed more ambitious plans than those initially discussed, creating what she referred to as a “unique humanities hub.”

Richardson said: “It’s really important to me that this gift is a real endorsement and a vote of confidence in the humanities. Stem [science, technology, engineering and maths] has been getting all the attention lately – there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s great to be reminded how critical the humanities are too.”

She defended the amount Schwarzman has pledged, saying: “We operate in a global marketplace. While in UK terms we’re quite a wealthy institution, when you compare us to the US – Harvard’s endowment of $40bn (£32bn), Yale, Stanford, Princeton and so on – their endowments are many times the size of ours and these are the people we are competing with for staff, for students, for research funding, so we really have to up our game in philanthropy for us to compete successfully.”

Oxford’s existing central endowment currently stands at around £3 billion.

Schwarzman has made large donations before, including $100 million to the New York Public Library, and larger sums to found scholarship scheme at China’s Tsinghua University modelled on the Rhodes scholarship. He has also donated $350 million to AI research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Schwarzman explained his interest in the problems surrouding AI technology: “I could see as a result of my trips to China, where I would be meeting all these people starting AI companies, that AI is an explosive force that is going to change the world we live in in the next 10 to 15 years in a very profound way, some for good and some not so good.

“So there was a real need to control the introduction of those technologies to the benefit of society, and what I realised is that Oxford had certain unique characteristics through its work on the humanities and philosophy that would complement what the ‘hard’ scientists were doing around the world.”

Schwarzman attended Yale alongside George W. Bush, both of whom were part of the elite Skull and Bones society. Michael Gross, author of a book about the building the tycoon lives in, describes him as “the epitome of American capitalism.”

Should we reduce tuition fees?

Marcin Pisanski and Thomas Laver
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Should we reduce tuition fees?

Yes – Marcin Pisanski

A typical student matriculating at a university in England in 2019 will accrue over £27,000 in student debt by the end of her 3-years undergraduate degree. While this amount is incomecontingent, and no repayments are owed below certain salary threshold – currently £25,725 – the debt contributes to increased anxiety levels for youth in their early twenties and constitutes an undue burden on those from most underprivileged backgrounds and graduates who did not secure high-paying jobs following their education.

Cutting annual tuition fees to £7,500, as proposed in the Augar review commissioned by Theresa May, would reduce some of those problems and is a move in the right direction. There are obvious societal benefits to having an educated population and no one should be penalised for exercising their right to quality education. Lower fees and reintroduction of maintenance grants will combat some of the inequalities plaguing higher education and allow for more meritocracy in the earliest stages of adult life.

The UK can learn from the example set by many other European countries where education is much cheaper and where everyone benefits as a result: students from the opportunity to develop themselves without the additional stress of few decades of debt repayment and the nation from increased social mobility and better educated workforce.

Current £9,250 does not cover all of the economic costs of a year at university in any event, as the universities themselves make evidently clear by charging non-EU students three or four times that amount. There is thus no convincing reason why the government may not take more of that burden on itself if it does already pay the majority of the costs incurred by universities.

The reduction must then go hand-in-hand with increased grants and other funding to universities so that they will not have to compromise on their teaching standards, educational resources and access provisions. There is no good in charging students less if the universities would end up worse off in the process and see the world-leading position of English institutions threatened in the long term.

Special care must also be taken to ensure that the reforms do not end up regressive in their nature. Proposed extension of loan repayment terms from 30 to 40 years would undermine the whole change and make people in their 60s pay for training that clearly did not benefit them enough to have been worth the effort.

This could mean that low earners would end up paying more in the process while high earners would benefit from reduced fees. As such, lower tuition fees should not be seen as an end in and of itself but rather as a part of comprehensive system of reforms that should ultimately make university degrees more accessible. A reform including reduced debt, maintenance grants, explicit expected parental contributions, and preservation of current fee liability period could be a good first step towards that goal.

Let’s hope the government will take on this challenge and will not let the issue be buried along with the Prime Minister who commissioned the report.

No – Thomas Laver

While the government’s offer to charge £1,750 a year less for university might seem initially appealing, the proposal as a whole largely fails, and needs serious reworking in order to improve our higher education provision. The cutting of feed is a fundamentally misguided and regressive idea that implemented in this manner will only give the rich ever more a financial advantage in accessing higher education.

The key issue is changes to repayment boundaries, lowering the income threshold for repayment while extending the period before student loan debt is forgiven. This means that more graduates on lower incomes will pay to service their student loan, while the longer period for repayment means anyone with a student loan will be repaying this for longer. Longer time until debt forgiveness will continue to affect those on lower incomes as interest remains at extortionate rates, likely almost completely wiping the benefit of £5,250 less for a degree through the horrors of compound interest, and forcing repayments to continue for the entirety of the 40 years. Here we are moving towards a system in which those on the vast majority of incomes are paying more to service their student loan debt than before, hurting the less prosperous in society.

All this means is that the only benefits of this scheme will accrue to those rich enough to pay upfront for their degree, paying far less to avoid the full working lifetime of repayments everyone else continues to face. What is needed is not slightly lower fees coupled with longer repayment schedules, as this makes our system even worse: what is required is a graduate tax, levied equitably upon all graduates in a manner that prevents the rich from escaping the continuing financial burden levied upon everyone else. To do otherwise would be to ignore the real outcomes by focusing excessively – and idiotically – on the initial fee. But students are not the only ones hurt here.

While the extension of repayments makes this proposal relatively economically sound for the government, universities will be receiving far less money per student. Such pressures on already financially stretched institutions can only worsen the quality of higher education provision, with the need to on-board unrealistically high numbers of extra students resulting in crowded classrooms, shoddily expanded facilities, and negligible real teaching hours. The government is suggesting financial measures to boost their funding, but aren’t committing to anything that will suggest their overall funding won’t drop.

Since 2011, there has been an excessive focus placed upon the £9,000 (then £9,250) level for tuition fees, and it is manifesting today in a regressive proposal designed to be politically amenable but economically regressive. A graduate tax is a fairer, more equitable solution to the Kobayashi Maru of reconciling student fees to university funding, and we must not accept this Trojan Horse ‘gift’ of lower initial fees.

Challenges to Union election results threaten McGrath’s presidency

Angus Brown
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Challenges to Union election results threaten McGrath’s presidency

Two challenges to the results of Thursday’s Oxford Union elections may see President-Elect Brendan McGrath unable to take up the Union Presidency in Michaelmas, whilst the election of Lee Chin Wee to the position of Secretary may also be challenged.

The two allegations of electoral malpractice were announced by the Union’s Returning Officer this evening, and detail claims of electoral malpractice by Ayman D’Souza, Lee Chin Wee, and Brendan McGrath.

The first allegation, lodged by ‘Unlock the Union’ campaign manager Sam Burns, deals with a claim that Ayman D’Souza made an “unsubstantiated factual claim” in the run-up to the election. Cherwell understands that this refers to D’Souza’s accusation that a piece of incorrectly filled out paperwork which prevented him from running for Librarian had been forged.

The second allegation, by former Union Press Officer Daniil Ukhorskiy constitutes an accusation that Lee Chin Wee deliberately hindered the Returning Officer in the conduct of his duties, and that McGrath aided Lee in doing this.

In an electoral tribunal, the latter allegation could see McGrath removed from office as President-Elect, whilst the election for Secretary could be re-polled.

The first allegation could further see a tribunal rule that the conduct of Sara Dube’s ‘RISE’ campaign had compromised the integrity of Thursday’s elections. This could lead to a rerun of the entire election.

Daniil Ukhorskiy told Cherwell: “I can confirm I made an allegation of electoral malpractice under rule 33(a)(i)(16): deliberately hindering or attempting to hinder the Returning Officer in the discharge of their duties as well as 33(a)(i)(24): aiding and abetting such an offence.

“The tribunal panel will meet sometime this weekend, given the fact that this is an ongoing allegation I do not wish to comment further on the substance of the the allegation.”

Similarly Samuel Burns said “The Union’s electoral rules explicitly forbid the making of unscrutinised factual statements for electoral gain.

“Mr D’Souza’s troubling allegations of a conspiracy to derail his nomination through forgery, casting insulting aspersions on his opponents and the integrity of the electoral system, fall under this category.

“There is a procedure for dealing with the sorts of behaviour he claimed occurred, and that is not making utterly unsubstantiated comments in a public forum. While Mr D’Souza was of course not elected treasurer, I firmly believe that the rules must be upheld and a strong precedent set for future elections.

“An election in which one side is allowed to throw such allegations around with no evidence or substantiation, beyond spurious claims about condiment stains, does not have a level playing field.”

The Oxford Union, RISE, and Brendan McGrath have been contacted for comment. The Returning Officer declined to comment.

New College JCR debates gender-neutral bathrooms

Charlotte Moberly
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New College JCR debates gender-neutral bathrooms

New College JCR is expected to continue debating whether to ask college to refurbish all gendered bathrooms into single, gender-neutral toilets. An earlier motion, which the MCR unanimously voted to support, was narrowly voted down in the JCR last week after lengthy discussion.

Last week’s motion, which had been put forward by Rose Laurie and Oliver Smith, raised the point that “gendered toilets are considered exclusionary for non-binary and gender non-conforming people, and also create considerable anxiety and the risk of harm for trans people”.

On a motion concerning the facilities of the whole college the assent of both the JCR and the MCR would have been required for any changes to be made. The motion passed unanimously in the MCR last Sunday with 23 votes after a period of discussion. However the motion had a mixed reception in the JCR, with some JCR members feeling the motion did not go far enough, and others very concerned about the way the motion could impact other groups.

The motion was rejected by 52 votes to 47, with 36 abstentions. An amended motion was proposed but this also failed to pass.

JCR and MCR LGBTQ+ reps are now considering how to address this, with the expectation being that an amended motion will be brought to the JCR.

JCR members in particular raised concerns as to what would happen with interim changes in signs, as the motion had requested that there should be immediate sign changes to some of the main bathrooms on the college site, with the MCR building men’s toilet and Long Room men’s toilet signs being replaced with signs saying “All-Gender toilets”.

The sign changes would be a temporary measure before the college refurbished the bathrooms into single,

The authors of the motion raised the point that Oxford’s Equality and Diversity Unit makes eight recommendations to improve trans rights on its website, one of which is to provide gender-neutral bathrooms where possible. They state: “The University recommends that the provision of some gender-neutral facilities is considered in every new build and refurbishment. Ideally these should include single cubicle gender neutral toilets, with integrated washing facilities and floor to ceiling doors.”

The motion argued that: “Making all New College bathrooms gender neutral will send the signal that trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming students, staff, and visitors are welcome at New College and that we as a community respect their basic needs, their human dignity, and their valuable contributions to our communities.

“Attending to the needs of one marginalised group within New College should not come at the cost of another marginalised group.

“Until adequate gender-neutral facilities can be constructed, some (self-identifying) women-only toilets should remain.

“Having had conversations with college, we believe that asking for the refurbishment of all gendered New College bathrooms before the beginning of the 2024/25 academic year does not pose undue demands on college budget, and will allow for these changes to be integrated into short-term and middle-term maintenance works the college plans to undertake.”

The motion had to be amended significantly to ensure that women-only bathrooms could still be available to visitors. Originally, these were to be in the Sacher building, which is only accessible to students who have Bod Cards, and concerns were raised by members of the JCR about how this could affect visitors to the college.

In the JCR meeting it was pointed out that it was important to ensure that “groups which are particularly likely to require a women’s only place for religious or cultural reasons, considering groups like the Muslim Schools which visit on access programmes such as Step Up, have access to the Long Room toilets and not the Sacher toilets.”

Another issue raised was that “it is not desirable to give more people access to a building where people live simply to use a bathroom that could easily be located elsewhere. While there are already some problems with this elsewhere in college, it is not desirable to amplify the problem.

“There are also less options for third and fourth year accommodation, so if students wish to live in a space without general Bodcard access, it would be much harder to do so.”

Rose Laurie, JCR LGBTQ+ rep, said: “I’m very pleased that the MCR has got a motion passed as this is an important step forward. It is clear New College JCR rejects motion to make all bathrooms gender-neutral from the way that the JCR voted that there are still many disagreements and we need to work to find a compromise on the labelling of the college bathrooms, but in the meantime we hope to get college to commit to refurbishing all bathrooms by 2024/2025.”

Moritz Reithmayr, MCR LGBTQ+ rep, said: “As the MCR LGBTQ+ Reps, Giulia and I are delighted about how convincingly our motion passed. We hope that this will prove an important milestone toward making New College more inclusive and transforming all New College bathrooms into individual gender-neutral toilets with integrated washing facilities.

“As the next step, we are hoping to gain JCR support before we enter into further talks with New College administration. We have seen more and more colleges become more trans-inclusive in their bathroom design over the recent years, and we hope that New College will institute similar progressive changes.”

In Michaelmas, the New College JCR voted in favour of changing the signing for the Long Room and Sacher Building toilets to make them gender-neutral. The MCR never voted on this motion, but concerns were raised informally in an MCR discussion, including about how the motion might affect women, and so ultimately no change was made at this time.

Currently, twelve Oxford colleges have primarily or entirely gender-neutral toilets. These include Hertford, Balliol, St Benet’s Hall, St John’s, St Hugh’s, St Catherine’s, St Hilda’s and Somerville.

UEFA Nations League: fun or flop?

Greg Pankhurst
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UEFA Nations League: fun or flop?

Last Sunday, when Portugal won their second ever international trophy, defeating the Netherlands 1-0 to win the UEFA Nations League, questions were raised on the subject of the validity of the competition.

Never before has there been a competitive trophy in European International football besides the European Championships and the World Cup, yet one question remained about the inaugural Nations League: is this a new and refreshing competition that is here to stay? Or will it be short-lived, given its occurrence inbetween major international tournaments and lack of international significance?

I happen to believe that this year’s inaugural Nations League was a resounding success. While many players will have been fatigued given their lack of a break following the 2018 World Cup, the 2018-19 domestic season and now the Nations League, it allows players another opportunity to achieve international glory with their country and gives International friendlies more of a purpose, given that the winners of each group enter into playoff rounds for a spot in Euro 2020.

After the culmination of the domestic season, as would so often be the case, teams would be forced to jet halfway across the world to play unimportant friendlies for the national team, which offer nothing but the opportunity for the team to play together. The Nations League, on the other hand, makes International fixtures competitive at every level due to the tiered system, and allows for promotion and relegation, meaning that there is an incentive for every team taking part. For example, teams such as Georgia and Kosovo won their respective groups in League D, and hence will progress to League C in the next Nations League, and have also secured a play-off fixture for a place at Euro 2020, which would be extremely difficult for such teams to secure through the traditional route.

Following the culmination of the Nations League, the players will still receive a large summer break until pre-season begins in July – with both the Nations League semi-finals and final being played in the same week, it barely reduces the players’ summer holidays, suggesting that fatigue will not be an issue for the following season, as has been suggested.

In the same vein, while it has been suggested that the Nations League will struggle to attract large crowds, this year’s inaugural tournament has proved that not to be the case. The Portugal vs Netherlands final entertained 42,415 fans, just under 8,000 shy of the Estádio do Dragão’s entire capacity, with over 20,000 English fans alone embarking on the trip to Porto to watch their team play in the UEFA Nations League.

It provides an alternative to the habitual international friendlies and presently the often uninspiring European qualifiers, and with a piece of silverware awaiting the winner, it certainly is a tournament that engages national teams. The Nations League also allows the opportunity for countries to claim silverware which are not usually in contention; Switzerland, for example, have never before reached an International semi-final, and came within a whisker of reaching the final, had it not been for Ronaldo’s late flurry of goals last Thursday evening.

On the issue of tiredness, England and Tottenham left-back Danny Rose stated ‘It’s not draining coming to play for your country […] whenever you’re selected for England it’s a great occasion.’ The opportunity to represent one’s country on the highest stage is a lifelong ambition for many professional footballers, and the UEFA Nations League provides them with yet another chance to compete for silverware. For the viewer, the Nations League offers so much potential. The inaugural Nations League allowed fans to engage once more with their national teams and to reduce the gap between the European Championships and the World Cup: for us, it signified more competitive football on our TV screens following the end of the domestic season.

No matter what you think of the Nations League, it appears here to stay – while Portugal have won the first, it will not be the last.

Another opportunity for both players and fans to engage with their national team and challenge for silverware should not be taken lightly, as the UEFA Nations League provides a new, refreshing and competitive avenue for International football, distracting fans from the wait for next summer’s European Championships.

The 2019 UEFA Nations League has been incredibly successful; it has brought thousands of fans to Portugal in support of their national team, made the international break more interesting and competitive, and rewarded Portugal with only their second-ever international trophy.

Why has basketball not taken off in the UK?

Oliver Donaldson
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Why has basketball not taken off in the UK?

This year’s NBA Finals Game 5 saw the Golden State Warriors clinch a dramatic 106-105 away win on Tuesday evening against the Toronto Raptors to keep the best-of-seven series alive. With everything on the line, this was a game that had it all: dramatic injuries, momentum swings and a last-gasp comeback to keep the Warriors in the series at 3-2 down going into game six.

This was an undeniably thrilling spectacle which had as much drama as that which we value, say, in this year’s Champions League semi-finals, yet there are far too few British sports fans who take an interest in this type of spectacle. There is the sense that there are too many basketball sceptics in Britain, whose fingers-in-ears attitude is similar to that of American sports fans who declare that “soccer” will never take off in the US.

Given that basketball, of all American sports, is the one that British sports fans are most sympathetic to, it is difficult not wonder whether any American sports – let alone basketball – will ever fully catch on in the UK. Perhaps it is the case that in each society there is a limited amount of space for popular sports. Once a particular sporting culture has established itself and the country’s sports fans’ conscience is occupied by particular sports, there is a diminished capacity for interest in additional sports. So why do the US and the UK have divergent national sporting consciences.

This links historically back to American Independence and the efforts made by the country to distinguish itself as a unique democratic and capitalistic society. Since sport plays such a central role in society, the urge to adopt national sports different to those of Britain and Europe has ultimately led to the predominance of gridiron football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey in the US.

Alongside these inherent differences in sport between countries, there are further fundamental incongruities in sporting norms between the US and the UK: a draw is a relatively common result in British team sports, whereas US team sports (of which basketball is a perfect example) often send games into overtime to determine a conclusive winner and loser; European clocks often count up in sports matches and US clocks count down; American team sports matches are more stop-start (often divided into four quarters with frequent breaks) but high-scoring, while British team sports matches are often more on-going (with just two halves) but low-scoring; unlike sports in Britain, there is no system of promotion and relegation in American professional sports, instead the leagues are closed.

These differences between the popular sports of both countries, although minor, are so fundamental that they point to the crucial incompatibility of both countries’ sport consciences. There is a predilection for more constant excitement and gratification in American sports such as basketball, while there is a predisposition for anticipation, tension and momentary excitement in British sports.

Finally, there are key organisational differences between American and British sports. Sports are and have been organised, developed and practised in different contexts in both countries: that of schools, colleges and universities in the United States, and that of voluntary clubs and associations in Britain.

This has a significant effect on the organisation of professional leagues in both countries: in America the organisational system for the major leagues such as the NBA is surprisingly socialist in nature, with the salary cap, draft process and revenue sharing providing a relatively level playing-field for all franchises. In Britain, leagues are more capitalist in nature, with far more lenient rules and limits to salaries, transfer fees, club income and other financial matters.

The incongruities touched upon above are just a few general examples of the US and UK’s differing approaches to sport – predominantly team sports which dominate the respective markets. Looking back to the thrilling NBA finals game five between the Golden State Warriors and the Toronto Raptors with these fundamental differences in mind, it is tempting to think that basketball – alongside other American sports – will always struggle to fully ingratiate itself to the UK public and media.

However, you only have to look at some of the world-renowned celebrities who are currently invested in the outcome of this year’s NBA finals to realise that the sport can also attract a global interest and eventually become popular in the UK. Canadian rapper Drake is a Toronto Raptors superfan and has attracted a lot of attention in this year’s NBA Finals for his vocal support of his local team and his courtside antics. Beyoncé, Jay-Z and Metallica amongst other celebrities were present at the NBA Finals Game 3 in Oakland’s Oracle Arena the Wednesday before last, reconfirming the link between basketball and music superstars.

Many NBA players have also established links with famous football stars and clubs, and vice-versa, a move which is likely to bring about more of a mutual understanding and respect between different countries and these different sports. NBA legend and four-time MVP Lebron James, for example, owns a 2% share in Liverpool Football Club; he paid roughly six million pounds for his original stake in 2011 and, particularly because of the club’s recent successes, this is valued at upwards of £30 million at present. In the reverse direction, famous footballers such as Neymar and Paul Pogba are avid NBA fans.

So, if anything is going to bring the sporting make-up of the US and the UK together, the advent of the internet, globalization and the cult of the celebrity is the most likely.

The journey from script to stage

Chloe Hemsley
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The journey from script to stage

Oxford’s drama scene brims with originality, as ever more productions are being born from the minds of its students. Yet, the journey from script to stage is an oft neglected facet of student theatre. Whilst we frequently assess the quality of the performance itself, the ephemerality of the play-going experience leaves little room to dwell on events behind the scenes.

As audience members, we sometimes forego the richer story of the play’s journey to the stage, and of the people charged with bringing it there. Speaking to debuting writer Katy Holland and director Nicholas Phipps this week, I aimed to gain a first-hand insight into their personal experiences of staging an original student production. Holland, whose only prior writing experience was producing short stories for a school newspaper, is now making her way onto the Oxford drama scene, as the creative mind behind this year’s Christ Church garden play, The Oresteia.

The inspiration for this adaption of Aeschylus’ classic Greek tragedy came from an unlikely source: the television series, The Sopranos. Holland recounts spending the vacation watching countless hours of the American drama, which she says shares key themes, such as intergenerational conflict and revenge, with the classical play. The most impressive part of Holland’s method is the way in which she weaves elements of the show into her adaption. For example, the Furies, originally three actors, are merged into the character of ‘Uncle June’ (played by Omar Abdelnasser), a nod to ‘Junior Soprano.’ As the representative of an older generation in the television show, June reflects the Furies’ embodiment of the old world order. As such, Holland elucidates the ways in which modern depictions of dysfunctional families and generational conflict can allow us to access classical tragedy. Not only does her conflation of television drama and historical theatre make Aeschylus’ work more accessible, but it is reminiscent of how even seemingly disparate things can be connected by the imaginative mind.

Another inspiration for Holland’s work, which similarly finds elements of itself woven into the garden play, was a production of The Oresteia she saw at London’s Almeida theatre. Holland pays homage to this modernised production, which influenced her decision to study classics, in echoing its use of The Beach Boys’ song ‘God Only Knows’ in her own production. It was clear from speaking to Holland that this play is an incredibly personal scrapbooking of her theatrical experiences. Despite this, she says it was important to her to keep alive the spirit of its original, and to keep in mind what its original writer Aeschylus wanted to say.

Speaking about choosing the Christ Church garden play as her platform, Holland describes it as an inclusive event in which anyone from the college can get involved. The Oresteia’s journey to becoming this year’s garden play began with a discussion between Holland and the play’s director Nicholas Phipps. After determining the potential for Holland’s work to occupy the Trinity term stage, she wrote the first draft. Originally, Holland intended to only adapt the first play (Agamemnon) from the original trilogy, but after that came up a little short, she decided to add on the further two (The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides), completing them in the first week of term.

When it came to handing over her play to Phipps, Holland knew her play was in safe hands. She describes him as a ‘brilliant’ director whom she approached because of his experience (his previous involvement in drama cuppers earned him a nomination for Best Director). Whilst Holland admits that she did have a specific vision in mind for the end product of her play, she maintained a strong collaborative relationship with Phipps. The experience was ultimately an informative one, with Holland able to learn from Phipps and the actors about the practicalities of staging a play. In fact, she says it has inspired her to try directing for herself.

When asked what she has learnt from this experience, Holland gives a response which is in many ways applicable to not just the theatre, but speaks to the resilience needed for any creative pursuit: “Your first draft won’t be good,” she says, “but that’s okay.” She concludes: writing takes lots of time, and staring at a blank page is scary, but it’s always good to write something. It’s an important message for any aspiring writers out there. The journey of writing anything begins with staring at a blank page, but it has the potential to culminate in something great.

Having previously been assistant director for the New Writing Festival production Plagued, Phipps took on the role of directing The Oresteia. Looking for a potential garden play to stage, he had the idea of the adaption suggested to him by Holland and they agreed to work together on the project. His method of directing displays the careful thought and organisation required when working with such a large group of actors. Describing his approach to the play as if it was “a puzzle that needed to be solved”, Phipps’ process revolved around breaking down the play into small blocks and rehearsing these with separate groups of the cast. In doing so, he says, he had to consider both what happens in the scene and how he could make it work onstage. He also had to be aware of how he would reconstruct the “puzzle” in later rehearsals, making sure its varying elements remained cohesive.

When asked what were the biggest challenges he faced, Phipps outlines the practical elements of working with such a large cast and a comparatively small crew. Not only was it difficult to have all the actors come together at specified times, but the lack of an assistant director meant that Phipps and Holland were often left to complete extra tasks, such as sourcing props, on top of their main duties. Ironically, it is easy to forget that those behind student theatre are still students, with busy academic lives. Their dedication to staging these productions is incredibly admirable, and is demonstrated in the professionalism of the performance itself.

Of the particular considerations surrounding garden plays, Phipps says that audiences come to them with a perspective different to that of any other type of theatre. These events attract people who wouldn’t normally go to plays, says Phipps, and everyone is expecting to have a good time. Whilst he admits this attitude takes some of the pressure off the performance itself, as the audience expect less polish, the outdoor setting offers its own challenges. Rehearsing outside is rarely straightforward and the performances themselves are at the mercy of the weather, as unfortunately was the case with the penultimate performance last Friday, which was cancelled due to the rain.

As for what he learnt from his experience, Phipps highlights the ability to accept changes to an original concept and to respect the needs of the audience. What started out as an intense drama about the Mafia, he says, became in the end a fairly comedic play. As for the future, Phipps would like to be further involved in student productions but is happy to wait for the right opportunity to come along.

The Oresteia was staged in Christ Church Cathedral Gardens from Thurs 6th until Sat 8th June (6th Week).

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