Friday 8th May 2026
Blog Page 836

Oxford remembers Stephen Hawking

Daniel Hall
-
0
Oxford remembers Stephen Hawking

Oxford is today paying tribute to the world-renowned physicist and former student, Professor Stephen Hawking.

The 76 year-old died peacefully at his home in Cambridge in the early hours of
Wednesday morning, his family said.

Hawking arrived at Oxford aged 17, where he studied natural sciences at University College. After completing his undergraduate degree in 1962, he went on to gain a Masters and a PhD at Cambridge.

Prof Hawking became one of the world’s leading scientists, whose most notable work led to
significant scientific developments in the understanding of black holes and relativity. He also wrote several popular science books, including the bestselling A Brief History of Time, which has sold over 10 million copies since first being published in 1988.

Hawking achieved all this despite being diagnosed with motor neurone disease while a student, eventually meaning he had to use a wheelchair and communicate using a computerised voice.

University College are flying their flag at half-mast today, in memory of their former student. In a statement posted on their website, the College said: “It is with great sadness that College notes the passing of Professor Stephen Hawking – Univ OM (1959, Physics) and Honorary Fellow … our thoughts are with his loved ones at this time.”

Univ’s JCR President, Maninder Singh Sachdeva told Cherwell: “We are deeply saddened by the loss of Prof Stephen Hawking, and as members of Univ, I think we all feel a great sense of pride to think that Hawking started his academic career here.”

Sachdeva also noted how the legacy of Prof Hawking remains important to Univ students today. He said: “[Univ students] have been and will continue to be inspired by the work, determination and passion he displayed during his lifetime. I do not think that Hawking will ever be gone in our eyes, whether we study his scientific discoveries in our degrees, use his words as motivation in our lives, or relive his journey, we have all been touched by his life in one way or another.”

The University have also paid tributes to Prof Hawking. In a tweet, they said: “We’re very proud to call Stephen Hawking an alumnus of Oxford, and enormously saddened by his passing. Our thoughts are with his family. He reminded us all to “be curious”, for there is “always something you can do and succeed at”.”

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and professor of Computer Science at Oxford, said: “We have lost a colossal mind and a wonderful spirit. Rest in peace, Stephen Hawking.”

A condolences book will be opened at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where Prof Hawking worked.

Cabinets of Curiosities

Cherwell Fashion
-
0
Cabinets of Curiosities

Where it might seem like a newfound fad with the advent of depop and mass thrift fairs, vintage clothing has a long genesis in fashion. A sartorial fascination with the past has run cyclically throughout the past century; the fifties saw a fluorescence in the popularity of 1920s racoonskin coats in America, the sixties saw the masses descend on the past in hoards to gank victorian and edwardian lacey and velveteen dresses. The seventies harkened back to the 1930s with their fascination with florals and chiffons, and despite a brief blip in the 1980s where futurism took hold (shoulder pads are the future), the 90s and ever succeeding decade has borrowed heavily from those preceding it.

This week, Cherwell Fashion takes to a unique venue to explore vintage fashion in practice. Where better to investigate the curation of the old than a place specially dedicated to it? The Natural History Museum (and adjoining Pitt Rivers Museum) provide a perfect locale for such a venture.

The pursuit of thrifting and the wearing of vintage clothing was seen in the 1960s as a refutation of mass market consumerism, a refection of en-masse capatalism, a way of keeping one’s self away from succumbing to becoming a cog in the proverbial machine. There are still echoes of these thoughts in the ways in which we in our modern culture employ vintage clothes in our stylistic pursuits. Buying vintage and secondhand is certainly a means by which we can curb our energy expenditure – it can be positioned as a sort of unconscious boycott of sweatshop production and all the labour exploitation that that entails.

However, in a climate where vintage clothing can be procured and bought so readily and so easily, one has to wonder if these aforementioned values still ring true. Vintage Clothing comes with the caveat that despite their ready accessibility, they are something of a prestige piece. They can be expensive, and the curation of a style that comes off as more bohemian and capital E ‘edgy’ than hand me down and ‘whoa, that dude is sure wearing some shoulder pads’ is a matter of having a lot of time and cash on your hands. Moreover, it can be argued that there is something somewhat slightly in poor taste from a privilege standpoint, to pillage charity shops and thrift stores, notable for their lower prices as a choice, especially when having ‘hand me downs’ and second hand clothes are sometimes the point of ridicule for people from lower income backgrounds. From this perspective, vintage clothing as a style and privilege seem to be heavily interlinked, and that is something that must be examined carefully.

Nonetheless, vintage clothing allows us to remove the restriction from our personal styles. With vintage clothing we are not bounded by the time limits of our own generation, and allows us leverage to experiment and create looks that are, to quote an obsever to our shoot, ‘funky and flavourful.’ Ironically enough, the incorporation of vintage clothes removes the wearer from time and takes them to a place of individuality.

 

The Lady Downstairs

Chloe Dootson-Graube
-
0
The Lady Downstairs

Allow me to take you back to a simpler time. It was the summer of 2017; I am lying on my friend’s bed, dolled up to at least the eights, if not to the nines, as I was told this was what a night out in Manchester (Bolton) necessitated. My friend, who shall remain nameless, emerges from the shower with a coy look on her face. ‘Lads,’ she said. ‘I had an accident.’ Pray tell, pray tell, we asked. She began to recount a story of miscommunication; a story of farce, of accident, and of hot wax. Her beautician had not been paying attention to her instructions and had become a tad overzealous with a large supply of hot wax. ‘Now,’ she said, raising an eyebrow, ‘I am a bald eagle.’

This was an incident that has since become inscribed upon my person and my mind. Body hair, the subject of this ambiguous tale, has become something of a commodity. We live in a post-vajazzle, post-landing strip, post-glitter pubes, post-Vivienne Westwood ‘Eve’ suit world. This is not a surprise considering the mass-market, capitalist, ‘dolla dolla dolla’ climate in which we live.

It must be conceded that the body hair, in particular the proverbial bush, has long been a venue of expression, for woman in particular. The ‘to shave, or not to shave’ debate has vacillated back and forth between answers in the positive or negative since the beginning of written history; women in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece favoured the Hollywood, whereas women in Medieval Europe preferred to wear body hair au naturelle. The Late Medieval period proved to be a particularly fruitful period for depictions of Mary Magdalene and her famed ‘feather tights;’ as a result of her penitence in the desert, she is often represented as having grown hair from her toes to her neck. Prostitutes occupy an interestingly functionalist niche, in the sense that they would shave to avoid unwanted visitors (lice, that is to say, are bad for business.) The modern pre-occupation with a hairless cooch and pits can be traced back to the transformations in 1920s fashion that demanded the nether regions be bare. Gilette launched its first razor aimed solely at women in 1915. This phenomenon was only intensified by porn revolution of the 1960s and ‘70s; whether this has spiralled out of control or not is a matter of personal opinion. The vajazzle exists with only God to judge it.

If, then, there is a historical precedence for the modification (or indeed, lack of modification) to body hair, why is it such a controversial topic? One might argue that it is these processes of restriction that make it so. Yet, the picture is exponentially more complicated in our modern world of self-expression, fluid gender-identities and sexualities. Hair has been inherently commodified; a cursory google search will yield thousands of results regarding the Right Way to shave for cis-women, trans-women, trans-men, cis-men, gay men, lesbians, straight women, bi-woman – the whole spectrum. However, it is worth noting that there is something of a discrepancy in the search results for men and pretty much everyone else. The male (more specifically, the cis-male) results were characterised by articles with titles such as the ‘Lazy Man’s Guide to Body Hair Grooming,’ (Esquire) or various Top Ten Tips articles for Easy Manscaping. The other results, on the other hand, tended to focus on queries of adhering to social norms and debates surrounding the morality of shaving. This is not to say that men do not face stigma for hair, or a lack thereof. Would a man bearing a brawny chest full of follicles be accepted onto the sleek, oiled up cast of Geordie Shore? I think not, but there is significant difference in tone in the way that cis-male hair is treated. It is, in short, normalised as opposed to restricted.

With this in mind, I took to the streets. I undertook interviews (asked my friends) with a diverse (diverse-ish, Oxford has access issues) range of people, across a census of ten individuals from different economic and racial backgrounds and gender identities. While the overarching trends appeared to be in favour of people ‘doing whatever,’ the male results tended to reinforce a preference for the shaving of body hair in women, and a lack of ‘manscaping.’ White participants also tended to be more laissez-fair, whereas the people of colour surveyed noted a significant pressure to shave. However, there was a notable unison in the negative reception of various types of ‘body hair art.’ Repulsion was a reccuring word. Perhaps the Vajazzle has more to answer to than just God.

Despite this, from these results it became inherently clear to me that body hair is viewed as something that is intrinsically modifiable, even if there are notable social pressures to do so. While it is certainly commodified, there are expectations underlying the commodification. Therefore, it would be pertinent to move the debate away from discussion of the various kitschy things people are doing to their body hair. Body hair in general, and the bush in particular, is a viable cultural medium, and must be treated as such.

García Marquez makes magical realism realistic

Barney Pite
-
1
García Marquez makes magical realism realistic

Gabriel García Márquez’s News of a Kidnapping is a book about a series of kidnappings made by Pablo Escobar in the early 1990s. Not as well-known or widely read as Love in the Time of Cholera or A Hundred Years of Solitude, News of a Kidnapping evokes a Colombia of drug gangs and violence, chaos, war, and terror. The basic historical context is this: the American Government is seeking to force Colombia to extradite a handful of Colombian drug barons, including Escobar. Escobar kidnaps several high profile figures in an attempt to strong-arm the government into ensuring his safety, and García Márquez tells their story.

What García Márquez is known for is his dense, lyrical, ‘magical realist’ style, which incorporates the structures of fables, fairy tales and allegory whilst telling fundamentally realistic stories. In A Hundred Years of Solitude, for example, a whole town suddenly finds itself unable to sleep. While literally impossible, this image says something powerful about the way communities operate, and this represents the style of microcosm; the conventions of fairy tales are used to convey a broader message.

Magical Realism is also a deeply Latin American style – Borges came from Argentina and Allende from Chile – and García Márquez can be fairly seen as one of the style’s progenitors. But News of a Kidnapping is different. It would be hard to guess from One Hundred Years of Solitude that García Márquez was a reporter for El Espectador for much of his early career – but News of a Kidnapping has a journalist’s eye for what’s true and what isn’t.

García Márquez is definitionally Colombian; all of his novels, without exception, are set in countries which either are or could be Colombia and A Hundred Years of Solitude particularly is a novel steeped in Colombian landscape and traditions. But News of a Kidnapping depicts Colombia at its tragic, ruined worst, and García Márquez doesn’t flinch from the visceral details of the chaos which consumed his home country. Even today, when we think of Colombia, we think of drug cartels and violence, anarchy and Escobar. As an ex-journalist, García Márquez values the historical truth about what happened in his country, and so he doesn’t shy away from describing the brutality and chaos it experienced. It’s powerful, and sad – two of the hostages taken die, one executed in cold blood by Escobar, and it’s one of the saddest scenes I’ve ever read.

TV shows like Narcos can glamorise the drug trade, but the world García Márquez depicts is uncertain and tragic, brutal and cruel, mostly because it’s real. News of a Kidnapping is a real-life thriller, and it’s different from most of García Márquez’s other work. It depicts with realistic clarity García Márquez’s own Colombia with all it’s manic brutality and chaos. It’s a testament to a terrifying time.

Life Divided: Living In or Living Out?

Daanial Issaq Chaudhry and Fin Kavanagh
-
0
Life Divided: Living In or Living Out?

Living In: Daanial Issaq Chaudhry

‘Those who are not out by 10am will be charged for an extra night.’ An email with a similar tone to this may have graced your inbox just before the vac. It might have left you wondering whether Oxford is worth the hassle of moving out every eight weeks, or rather desperately wishing that you could live out.

But, remember this: if your light flickers, if your window rattles, or if the toilet is even slightly stained by the previous user’s skid mark, you can send a formal email to maintenance, requesting that someone sort out these heinous problems immediately. Send the same email to a landlord, and they will laugh at you from sunrise to sundown. Somehow, I don’t think they’re that scared of an exposé in Cherwell…

If you decide you want to work at three in the morning (or if, like me, you have no choice but to work at 3am, having spent the night in Bridge), trekking from Cowley to your college library is an unnecessary hassle. If you live in college, you can strategically place your laptop in the library prior to your night out. You can then return early the next morning, with a helping of Hassan’s (or Solomon’s), safe in the knowledge that books on democratic peace theory, or whatever shit you’re reading about that week, are just a short stumble away.

Food is not just necessary after a night out. While college food can be at best edible, and at worse less flavoursome than tissue paper, you can be certain about its consistency. Come rain or shine, college kitchens are there, and they are willing to provide predictably dry and underseasoned meat, and equally, if not drier, potatoes to accompany said meat. They’ll even cook you a meal if you’re vegetarian (heaven forbid). The same cannot be said for your housemates. They’ll ridicule your attempts at vegetarianism, they’ll steal your food, and they won’t wash your dishes after they use them. But fear not. When they do this, your college’s hall will be there – shame it’s a 20-minute cycle away.

Scouts are also an underappreciated part of living in college, and I think I might have rusticated were it not for my scout, Mara. Not only does she clean my bins, and hoover my room, but Mara doesn’t pass judgement on the pile of unwashed plates in my room, or the new life forms that are gradually appearing on them. Whereas annoying housemates would comment on them, Mara politely mentions that I should probably wash them up. And when I’ve slept through all my alarms, Mara’s gentle knock to collect my bins (and to check if I’m alive) ensures that I never miss a tute.

The walls may be paper thin, and my neighbour’s sex may be annoyingly loud, but at least I have some home comforts. In a home away from home, the ease of having three-square meals a day provided for me, and the convenience of having my friends (and their notes) nearby, means that I can deal with the loud sex.

Living Out: Fin Kavanagh

People often say that the collegiate system is a continuation of school or sixth form. It’s a close-knit, though often cliquey community, where you are forced to eat, shit, and shag together – rarely without the boat being rocked a few times each term. Living out provides a partial escape from this. Instead of living in a human pressure cooker, often filled with conflicting personalities, you know that when you’re living out, you can escape at any time. There’ll also be no one judging you for still being in your pyjamas at midday. Better still, no one knocks on your door asking for last minute notes and there’s no trying to drown out the sounds of your neighbours’ sex through paper-thin prefab walls.

The reality is that living in college mollycoddles us – it’s okay to enjoy it, so long as we are aware of it.  Living out teaches you in a way that no book can. There’s nothing on WebLearn about how to apply for council tax exemption or manage utility payments (trust me, I’ve checked). There are no JSTOR articles reminding you that recycling goes out on a Thursday and general waste on a Friday. Living out takes away some of the niceties of college accommodation and prepares us for independent, adult living – an education Oxford doesn’t offer.

The time spent adjusting to this new-level domesticity is made up for with the opportunities living out offers. When I lived in college, I felt like I never really unpacked. At the back of my mind I always knew that soon everything in my room would have to be boxed up and crammed into the back of a Ford Focus. Living out lets you put your personal stamp on your little bit of living space, and what’s more, you can appreciate it for longer than eight weeks at a time.

Your room is not the only thing you can enjoy for longer. Oxford itself is a very different place outside of term time. Removing 10% of the city’s population certainly thins the place out over the vac – though admittedly Cornmarket does still feel like a warzone. Elsewhere though, Tesco is quieter, it’s easier to get a seat in Nando’s and after Michaelmas ends the Christmas market is actually open (it’s not just a cycling inconvenience). True, there are no Fuzzyducks or Bridge Thursdays, but this gives you a chance to expand your clubbing repertoire beyond the same two student nights. Purple Turtle and Plush have given me some of my best nights out long after term finishes.

You can’t escape the fact that living out is invariably more expensive. A 12-month lease, utility bills and estate agent fees leave the experience at several thousand pounds more than college accommodation. For many students in their 2nd and 3rd year however, living out is not a choice. Yet, in my opinion, the experiences, independence and chance for escape are well worth the extra cost. You are still very far from being a local, though you can at least say you know Oxford a little bit better than most.

Exeter undergrads threatened with ‘serious consequences’ after bop mayhem

Oscar Baker
-
2
Exeter undergrads threatened with ‘serious consequences’ after bop mayhem

Exeter College undergraduates have been told there will be “serious consequences” following their behaviour at Friday night’s bop.

Sub-rector Barnaby Taylor said in an email to all undergraduates, seen by Cherwell, that attendees’ conduct was “wholly unacceptable”.

Cherwell understands that for the second year in a row, a fire alarm on a back quad staircase in Exeter’s main Turl Street site was set off soon after the bop concluded, just after midnight.

One of the college’s junior deans then entered the chapel – the college’s fire assembly point – brandishing a can of deodorant, presumed to have been left by the relevant fire alarm.

At the time of release of the bop’s theme – ‘anything but clothes’ – the Exeter College Entz Facebook page told students: “Use bin bags, toilet paper, news paper, boxes, bags and even that shite essay you don’t have the heart to give to your tutor. But please no nakedness though.”

But by the time they had reached the chapel, most of the attendees were only partially dressed, and chants of Frankie Valli’s ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ and Robbie Williams’ ‘Angels’ were in full swing.

#Oxlove18619to all the girls with their boobs out at the Exeter bop (and fire alarm afters in the chapel), you are all ANGELS.

Posted by Oxlove on Saturday, March 10, 2018


The junior dean and the college bar’s manager proceeded to shout furiously at students, condemning their conduct.

Footage seen by Cherwell shows one of the junior deans addressing students in the chapel. In the video, the dean says: “The other issue I have is not with the person who set the fire alarm off: it’s with all of you.”

Predictably, the response was not overwhelmingly positive: the rest of the video shows furious booing and shouting from students.

The news comes just days after St Peter’s College JCR was fined £594, after drunken students damaged the JCR’s ceiling.

In his email, Taylor told undergraduates: “Those who were at the JCR bop on Friday night will not need me to tell them that the behaviour of many attendees was wholly unacceptable.

“I was saddened to learn of Exeter students acting with such disregard for the good order of our community,” he said, “and with such disrespect towards those members of College staff whose job it is to help you and to keep you safe.

“Naturally these events will have serious consequences, both for the students responsible and for the future of JCR social events at Exeter. Any students who have since come to regret their behaviour are invited to contact me in order to discuss it.”

#Oxlove18554Exeter Final BopFuck me what an evening. So much love. So much skin.

Posted by Oxlove on Friday, March 9, 2018


It is not the first time that Taylor, who is in his first year as sub-rector, has faced difficulties regarding undergraduates’ behaviour.

In February, Cherwell reported on an email he sent to undergraduates after a bottle of vodka had been discovered in the college library.

“Drinking alcohol in the library is not allowed. I am astonished that I should have to point this out,” he wrote.

Neither Taylor nor the college’s junior deans responded to Cherwell’s requests for comment.

Following Friday’s bop, one second-year student told Cherwell: “Despite there being some slight causes for concern over safety and security, the manner in which the junior deans handled the situation was awful.

“How on earth can you be so short-sighted to believe you could argue and order about a group of drunken students with such a condescending tone?

“They took it all far too personally when in reality no-one was causing any damage and no one was in danger. They should have told us all to fuck off rather than give a personal diatribe about their disgust in our behaviour.”

#Oxlove18602Exeter entz for throwing an absolutely unreal finalist bop. By far the best ex has ever hadExon love xoxo

Posted by Oxlove on Saturday, March 10, 2018


A fresher at St. John’s College, who attended the event, told Cherwell: “That bop, unlike many, including most of those at my college, was truly fun.

“The room was packed the whole night, people had put serious effort into their costumes, and there was a real sense that people were getting on.

“Almost every college prospectus goes on about being tight-knit and sociable, but that night, Exeter proved that it actually was.”

Exeter’s Entz officers declined to comment.

Exeter has developed something of a rowdy reputation for itself over the past year.

Last June, a Cherwell investigation revealed that its students go clubbing more often – 1.7 times per week – than students at any other college.

The month before, undergraduates were warned by a junior dean not to post about drug use online, after alluding to ketamine use on public Facebook groups.

Uni to introduce undergrad paper in feminist philosophy

Libby Cherry
-
1
Uni to introduce undergrad paper in feminist philosophy

Oxford University’s Philosophy Faculty is to introduce an undergraduate paper on feminist philosophy.

Two new professors in the subject have recently been appointed by the faculty to help teach the new part of the course.

Chair of the Philosophy Faculty Board and Fellow at Keble College, Dr Edward Harcourt told Cherwell: “Some of the most interesting new work in philosophy in recent years – in epistemology, in social and political philosophy, in metaphysics, ethics, moral psychology, in the philosophy of language, in aesthetics, and in other areas besides – has been done by philosophers who are also feminists.”

In reference to the new paper, he added: “We want to do this partly just because it’s interesting, and partly to raise the profile and status of feminist philosophy at Oxford and send the message to our female students that philosophy is for you. We expect the paper to be very popular – and of course you won’t have to be female in order to do it! – and you can’t introduce a new undergraduate paper with just one staff member.”

Harcourt stressed that feminist philosophy had been studied at Oxford before and had composed part of the interdisciplinary Women’s Studies Masters programme.

The first university post in feminist philosophy was appointed last year to Professor Mari Mikkola of Somerville College. Following on from these two new appointments, the Faculty also intends to hire at least one more feminist philosopher by the end of next year.

Professor Mikkola told Cherwell: “Feminist philosophy is a rather new sub-discipline in philosophy, but has gone from being a niche topic to being in the mainstream over the past 20 years. It is certainly no longer neglected in English-speaking Anglo-American philosophy as a whole, though it has not been prominent in Oxford and has only recently been promoted here.

“It seems to me that students have been rather unaware of feminist contributions to philosophy. I suspect that this will change hugely once feminist philosophy becomes more prominent in Oxford and once feminist topics are more widely available and better integrated in the undergraduate curriculum.

“Many Oxford philosophy students are likely to go into work that drafts policy and shapes politics. Understanding better what socially engaged philosophy, like anti-racist and feminist philosophy, are about will hopefully enable people to change the world in a way that fosters social justice.

“Theory-internally, I hope that philosophers will come to understand how political sensitivities can helpfully shape our philosophical theorising. There is a traditional tendency to think of philosophy as being value-free, objective inquiry about the way the world is. I think that this view of philosophy is mistaken and that all philosophising starts from some or other perspective undergirded by normative commitments. This does not make philosophy subjective or anything goes discipline, where “everything is relative”. Rather, I think that viewing the world through certain lenses can give us a clearer idea about what the facts of the matter are.”

She added: “There is clearly a student demand for feminist philosophy. Before the new paper is up and running, I am doing a specialist subject on feminist philosophy in MT18, which has filled up and was hugely oversubscribed within hours of being advertised to our undergraduate students.”

Fellow in Philosophy at Mansfield College and contributor to the Women’s Studies Master’s Programme, Professor Katherine Morris said: “Some would argue that rather than having a specific paper on ‘feminist philosophy’, all thematic papers ought to include feminist perspectives, so ‘feminist philosophy’ no longer looks like a strange and specialist subject. I have some sympathy for that argument, but maybe having a Feminist Philosophy paper is a first step towards that.”

Speaking to Cherwell, Professor Morris also explained how the Faculty has attempted to “diversify” the reading-lists for their other undergraduate papers. The Faculty have revised reading lists for each topic by ensuring that 40% of the recommended articles are written by women and by changing the form of author listing so that first names are given rather than initials.

A representative of the UK national Society for Women in Philosophy, Jennifer Saul, told Cherwell: “There are many reasons that feminist philosophy has been neglected. One is, of course, that things have to do with women are traditionally neglected.  But there are also quite a lot of other reasons, such as the (false) belief that philosophy is about timeless truths has led many to think that engaged work like feminist or anti-racist philosophy aren’t really philosophy. There are even somewhat mundane reasons certain institutions have been slower: In a system like Oxford’s, you can’t just add modules in staff members’ research areas whenever you like.

“The reason, I think, that feminist philosophy is so popular, is that it’s so important: philosophy that engages with real world issue is philosophy that matters to people’s lives.

“The idea that philosophy shouldn’t be like this is utterly misguided. I’m very pleased to see a rise in engaged philosophy around the world, and the increasing investment in feminist philosophy is a key part of this.”

The Oxford University Philosophy Society told Cherwell: “We’re very pleased that the paper is being introduced; it’s absolutely right that undergraduates should be able to explore the extensive and sophisticated work that’s been done in the field over many years.

“Our understanding is that the ten places in the class that will run next year were all filled within little more than 24 hours of it being advertised, so the subject definitely seems set to be popular!”

Strikes to continue after academics reject new pension deal

Greg Ritchie
-
2
Strikes to continue after academics reject new pension deal

The Oxford branch of the Universities and College Union (UCU) has said “we are not going anywhere until our contracts are honoured”, as academics around the country rally against a deal struck by Union leaders.

A provisional agreement was made yesterday between the head negotiators of UCU and UUK (Universities UK), which, if ratified by UCU branch officials today, would have meant the strikes were suspended from tomorrow.

However, this has now been rejected by UCU, with the union calling for “urgent talks with the universities’ representatives to try and find a way to get this dispute resolved”.

It follows widespread backlash against the provisional agreement, with protests occurring outside the UCU headquarters in north London, where senior members were due to discuss the deal early this morning.

Many more striking staff as well as UCU branches expressed their discontent on social media, urging for the deal to be rejected with the hashtag #NoCapitulation.

Over 8000 people have now signed an open letter rejecting the proposed deal, including over 150 Oxford staff members and students.

The Oxford UCU branch has also added its voice to the revolt, describing the agreement as a “pathetic offer”, before urging negotiators to go “back to the table”.

Many Oxford students were vocal in their solidarity with staff’s rejection of the deal, and the potential for the strike to continue indefinitely.

A third year history and economics student at Wadham, Lucas Bertholdi-Saad, told Cherwell: “My dad’s a lecturer, and a lot of my friends are postgrads. This deal isn’t what they’ve been striking for, and until we get there we should support them every step of the way. We’ve got to stay standing in solidarity.”

Labour City Councillor and academic staff member, Dan Iley-Williamson, told Cherwell: “I fully support the decision of rank-and-file UCU members to reject the proposals put to them.

“It was a derisory offer – capitulating on central demands of the workers.

“Moving forward, we need to continue the incredible staff-student solidarity we have seen in recent weeks, to show UUK that there’s a united demand for fair pensions for university staff.”

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: “Branches made it clear today that they wanted to reject the proposal. UCU’s greatest strength is that we are run by and for our members and it is right that members always have the final say.

“The strike action for this week remains on and we will now make detailed preparations for strikes over the assessment and exam period. We want urgent talks with the universities’ representatives to try and find a way to get this dispute resolved.”

President of the Oxford UCU branch, Garrick Taylor, told Cherwell: “The overwhelming feedback from members (over 250 emails) was that we should reject the deal.

“This was fed into a national meeting of branch officers, and UCU’s Higher Education committee have now voted to withdraw from the ‘agreement’. The strike remains on.”

Last week, the union said that universities would be hit with a second wave of 14 strike days targeted at exams and assessment if the dispute was not resolved.

Oxford SU have been contacted for comment.

This article was updated at 0145, to include Cllr Dan Iley-Williamson’s comment.

Gyaldem Sugar Review – ‘the night shined but failed to sparkle’

Maxim Mower
-
0
Gyaldem Sugar Review – ‘the night shined but failed to sparkle’

Last Tuesday, the occasion that all Oxford hip-hop and R&B fans had been anticipating, finally arrived. It was the night of the Gyaldem Sugar event at Cellar, and the hype surrounding it had been understandably huge. R&B tends to spend most of the term lurking in the shadows, second to its more popular and funky 70s and 80s competitors. Hip-hop nights come few and far between.

The ACS night promised to be one of the standout nights of Hilary Term. My equally R&B-minded friend and I turned up to the steps of Cellar around quarter to midnight, the excitement and energy of the crowd fizzling through us, and the heavy bass rumbling impatiently along the walkway.

As a venue, Cellar is oft maligned for being too claustrophobic, but despite this being one of the club’s busiest nights, the floor didn’t feel suffocating or overly crowded, as other clubs can be at their flagship events. Its low ceilings and bricked walls create an urban, underground vibe. The ambience was good, the music was thumping, the signs were promising. We didn’t recognise the first few songs, but the rest of the crowd seemed to be happy enough, with sporadic cheers blossoming into the misty air as the beats switched and a new voice boomed through the speakers.

After weaving through some Tyga – causing many to draw vacant expressions but which aficionados enjoyed – and meandering through some other tracks none of us seemed to know, the sparks we’d been seeking suddenly flew into the air. The first lines of ‘Mask Off’, Future’s 2017 mega-hit, blasted out, and the entire dancefloor erupted. After a fairly slow start, this was it, surely. This was the mouth-watering treat the DJs had been waiting to unleash on the R&B hungry crowd.

But after barely a minute of ‘Mask Off’, the DJ changed to another, much more obscure Future song, before brusquely moving on to a song none of us could identify. Okay, maybe ‘Mask Off’ was supposed to be merely a tantalising appetiser, giving us a taste of what was to come. The disappointing thing was it turned out to be the main course. After getting the adrenaline flowing again during some Travis Scott anthems, the playlist returned to relatively unknown tracks.

While we accepted that there were always going to be some songs we couldn’t recognise, the pace with which the DJ changed songs was frustrating. The ones we did know were limited to one round of chorus, before being switched out to a different track. This frustration reached its peak when the introduction to Drake’s ‘One Dance’ was teased, before another random song – not even by Drake – suddenly replaced it.

This night was supposed to be a tribute to female artists’ contribution to R&B and Hip Hop. Given how male-dominated the genre unfortunately still is, I was quite excited to be given a taster of these artists. But it seemed that even the unrecognisable songs were mostly performed by men.

So, despite a positive, friendly atmosphere, a decent venue, and good company, the music undoubtedly left a sour taste in the mouth. As we walked home with our kebab-van chicken and chips, we looked wistfully at a gaggle of clubbers stumbling out of Fever’s Great British Drake Off event.

Walk Like Natives review – ‘A flash-mob blending into the crowd’

Nicole Jacobus
-
0
Walk Like Natives review – ‘A flash-mob blending into the crowd’

Standing on the concourse of London’s busiest train stations, as late-night commuters sprint to their platforms, may seem like a normal scene. However, it’s not every day this place plays host to a flash mob, assembling to a backing track that only you can hear.

However, as a repeat attender of Wiretapper’s unique brand of audio-based immersive theatre, it wasn’t the first time this had happened to me. Wiretapper is a project by Shunt, known for their intense and confusing interactive shows such as The Boy Who Climbed Out of His Face, which finished with a naked man playing an electric guitar atop a lake of baby dolls. Their first audio project, ‘Monument’, took place in Trafalgar Square and speculated on the threat of spying and the inevitable destruction of civilisation as we know it.

Their latest project, Walk Like Natives – a collaboration between director David Rosenberg and the choreographer Frauke Requardt, stays very much on theme with their previous shows. Audience members purchase their tickets in advance through an app, which then lies dormant until the morning of the show itself. At that point, a notification pops up – “WIRETAPPER – 12 HOURS”, and the secret location of the performance is revealed.

The app is more than just a gimmick, however, as it delivers the audio of the show to each individual audience member through headphones. Using binaural voice recordings and sound effects that seem to come from all around you, Wiretapper has an incredible skill for creating an intimacy between you and a performer standing over 30 metres away.

Walk Like Natives has no explicit story, but is more of a half-hour tribute to dancing like nobody’s watching – especially ironic given the show’s continuous sinister allusions to constant CCTV surveillance over a fake station tannoy in the audio track. We are told to watch a woman in a bright blue beanie as she disco-dances to Daft Punk in front of Platform 10, and soon she is joined by other people who step in time for a number of beats before disappearing back into the crowd.

Over the course of the show, a total cast of six performers who previously seemed just to be audience members don their own beanies and begin to dance to the pop soundtrack in synchronised choreography, grouping together for a verse or a chorus, then rapidly dispersing again.

It dawns on us how difficult it is to tell which of us are performers, which are audience members, and which are just members of the public, who also happen to be wearing unrelated headphones, simply bemused at the silent performance that’s happening in front of them. It is a flash-mob blending into the crowd. It’s very easy to get distracted from the show itself by that suspicion. Who around me also knows what’s going on? Who knows more than I do?

However, the charm of Walk Like Natives is that these questions aren’t posed seriously, but playfully. Unlike other recent audio experiences such as Circumstance’s It Must Have Been Dark By Then or, more notoriously, Punchdrunk’s Kabeiroi, Walk Like Natives does not take itself at all seriously. As the recorded tannoy announcements get darker over the course of the show – “the next train at platform 9 is the delayed service to Death” – the audience simply laughs at them. The whole experience is a pure celebration of joy. Every audience member leaves with a smile on their face and a rhythm in their head.

Although Walk Like Natives has only one additional listed date, its blurb hints that it will one day form a part a longer, more fleshed-out piece of theatre. How much of this simple initial idea will make it into the final product is yet to be seen. Regardless, it’s certain that, however Rosenberg and Requardt develop it, it will be unique, vibrant, and definitely not one to miss.

1...835836837...2,584Page 836 of 2,584

Support Student Journalism

Cherwell is Oxford’s oldest independent newspaper, established in 1920. We are entirely student-run. By supporting us, you will contribute to keeping our paper in print and online. Every donation makes a difference.

Donate

Explore

Follow us

More

Oxford Student Publications Limited © 2025 - All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy

Website by Jamie Ashley