Saturday 9th May 2026
Blog Page 937

Polemic, platitudes, and empty rhetoric

Cat Bean
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Polemic, platitudes, and empty rhetoric

The chance to see Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is one that cannot be passed up lightly. In the current political climate a politician that seems to explicitly understand the youth and issues facing the future, a man with genuine principles unhampered by the slickness that seems inherent in the worldwide political system, is incredibly hard to come by. However, the hour or so that he spoke for was unconvincing and depressing, a disappointing charge to level at the man described as “America’s most popular politician” by Baroness Helena Kennedy when introducing him.

Speaking to Oxford less than 24 hours after Trump withdrew from the Paris agreement, Sanders’ tone immediately snaps to one of anger, that which he has become famous for over the past couple of years. So far, so justified, and after thanking his brother Larry for introducing him to the stage he launches into a fluent and passionate diatribe about the issues facing the climate. By tapping into the fears that most rational and climate-aware people share regarding the future of the planet, he makes it clear that he is still the candidate of the youth. Candidate is the key term here, with much of his speech feeling as though he is trying to sell himself to the audience, rather than to capitalise on the momentum his presidential campaign created and throw himself into new future projects. While his words on the environment are up to date, they feel rather more like an addendum to provide some deviation from what subsequently veers dangerously into stump speech territory. The whole speech felt like a campaign rally rather than the launch of the paperback copy of his 2016-published book, Our Revolution: A future to Believe In.  

Trump is naturally given prominence in Sanders’ speech, a vast polemic that covers fake news and the media, the President’s pathological lies, this week’s disastrous budget proposals, and the state of healthcare in the United States. This first part is informative, and serves nicely as an introduction to the rest of the talk, which considers how America ended up in the position it is in now, post-2016 election. This is where Sanders’ populist rhetoric is most expanded. Inequality (which Sanders considers to be the biggest issue facing politics), massive poverty rates, as well as the flaws of the Electoral College, are used to explain why the Democrats lost last November. However, these arguments, while powerful in the sheer force of their anger, didn’t feel like the rallying cry Sanders clearly intended them to be, but rather a rehash of the same miserable politics we see every day on our Facebook news feeds, discussed between friends over dinner, or in the pages of broadsheet newspapers. His analysis of the causes of what Trump so ominously called “American carnage” was certainly interesting, but is so present in our current political discourse that it doesn’t need repeating— everyone is already painfully aware of them. The question of how to solve them was hardly touched on.

Sanders jokes that his wife tells him that people need tranquilisers at the end of his speeches. So, he attempts to end on a high note, addressing hope for the future and telling young people to get involved in politics. It is certainly rousing, but somehow falls flat at the same time. Given the long tirade coming before it, the juxtaposition of an attempt to inspire leaves a sour taste in the mouth. All in all, the speech feels somewhat incomplete, focused almost entirely on a depressing forecast for the coming years under Trump’s demagogy and very little on how to actually enact change and solve the problems of inequality in America. If this had been a campaign rally, the negativity would have been followed by an upswing—an imperative to vote for Sanders to solve the problems. Instead, the audience was left with few policy prescriptions beyond promises to break up the big banks, attempts to rebuild the Democratic Party to be one of the working class and of young people, and of a movement coming together against Trump. How are these lofty aims going to be achieved? Platitudes alone are insufficient for the kind of revolution that Sanders is trying to inspire.

An issue that is conspicuously absent until the very end, in a short question and answer round, is that of Hilary Clinton’s success over Sanders in the Democratic primaries. When asked whether he would have won in November, having been chosen as the Democratic candidate, it feels like the elephant in the room has finally been addressed. Diplomatically, he answered with a refusal to engage in counterfactuals—and rightly so. The fixation of the liberal left with the ‘what ifs’ of a Sanders candidacy is today still far too prominent in post-election rhetoric, rhetoric which is now stale, seven months on. Had Sanders come to beat Trump last year, I suspect many of the same problems that Trump is currently experiencing when trying to pass laws through the House and the Senate would be experienced by Sanders (albeit without insidious Russian interference).

It is easy to understand why Sanders’ populist doomsday tones captured the unrest felt in the American youth, particularly in the face of Clinton’s veneer of control and party-political machine behind her. Sanders felt real, and truly on the side of the people. But there were no coherent policy proposals and acknowledgements of an inefficient legislature in his speech, an attribute of Clinton’s that has sorely been overlooked. Politics is a game, and an institutionalised system, and a workhorse like Clinton would have ten times the positive gains in DC because of her intimate knowledge of the system, not despite of it. Clinton has emerged from her loss with plans for a new political action group ‘Onward Together’, with plans to fund groups that train women to run for representative positions and groups fighting for criminal justice reform. Sanders is still aiming at the same targets he has always done.

The Clinton comparisons serve to highlight what seems to me, as a cynical politics student, a large oversight in the dominant narrative of politics among my peers. Often the way to enact actual change is going within the system rather than against it. Populists like Sanders in the US, and Jeremy Corbyn in the UK can only create so much momentum until they tire out. Sanders’ liberally abrasive style, combined with his almost empty rhetoric, exposes the rational limits of populism. Political parties cannot be built around a populist, because things start to rapidly fall apart around them: the centre cannot hold. Even where populists do have policies (like the Labour Party manifesto), they are often idealistic rather than efficient and effective in reaching their stated aims—the promise of totally free higher education for all is one contemporary example. Those wanting to avoid the mistakes of 2016 in the upcoming June 8 general election should be wary of this when thinking about their vote.

America’s most popular politician? Perhaps. The audience seemed to think so, lavishing Sanders with applause and giving him a standing ovation at the end. But the rhetoric seemed to be stuck: the politics of progression ironically unable to move forward from the place of anger we are at right now. Anger is good, but it isn’t enough to actually change anything.

Oxford makes non-European history paper compulsory

Henry Straughan
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Oxford makes non-European history paper compulsory

The Oxford History Faculty has introduced a new requirement that students take at least one non-British or non-European paper. However, Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) campaigners have criticised the media coverage of the course change.

In a Facebook post the Rhodes Must Fall campaign registered their dissatisfaction with the move. Though RMF admitted that “the step is in the right direction”, they maintained that “the ways that [the change] has been exaggerated have given good press to an institution which still does not deserve any good press at all”.

The post also claimed the Oxford history degree remained too Eurocentric, writing that: “There is still only one fifth of one paper, (a paper on imperialism and globalisation), in which study of Sub Saharan Africa, 1/5 of the world’s land mass, is available.

“There are seven different options on the history of the British Isles alone. The real question is, why up until 2017 non-European history was not compulsory on the syllabus of the world’s supposedly best institution.”

The University has also refuted claims in the national press that the move was in response to any kind of campaign or pressure. In particular, while many have sought to link the change to the Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) campaign, the University has denied this, and pointed out that the curriculum review began a couple of years before RMF had even formed at Oxford.

The Oxford History Faculty released a statement, saying that the Faculty “regularly reviews and updates its course curriculum to reflect the latest developments in the subject. After a number of years of discussion and consultation among ourselves and with students, we have decided to make a number of changes to the curriculum.

“Among these is a requirement that students study one paper (from a wide range of such options) in non-British and non-European history, alongside two papers of British History and two papers of European History.

“Students take eleven papers in total during their history degree, and many of our students already take at least one paper of non-European/British history.

“We are pleased to be modernising and diversifying our curriculum in this way.”

History and Politics student Henry Sasse told Cherwell: “It’s not a huge change … many people seem to take American or Asian or Middle Eastern history at some point by default and they aren’t forcing [students to] take any course in particular.”

Sasse also expressed appreciation for the fact that the move was not an introduction of a specialized course, saying that: “In some ways I applaud them for not cobbling together a new module that wasn’t indicative of the specialities and interests of the faculty as well as allowing everyone to follow their own interests”.

Earlier this year Cherwell reported on the controversy over the disparity between the Oxford’s History dissertation prizes for British and African research pursuits. Billy Nuttall, a history student at Magdalen, launched a crowdfunding campaign to make up a difference of over £400 between the prizes.

At the time, Nuttall criticized the fact the history syllabus contained “two compulsory elements of British history, two compulsory elements of European history” but “no African no Latin American, no Asian [compulsory elements]”.

In response to the recent change, Nuttall told Cherwell: “I’m really happy the faculty is making these changes, they seem to be really ahead of the trend here in Oxford in terms of the diversity of subject matter that will be available.

“[The faculty] seem keen to work with students to work towards improving teaching and I would encourage anyone with concerns to voice them with the faculty via college subject reps and the like, they are really keen for feedback.”

Some have been disquieted by the change to the curriculum.

Historian and former Oxford Professor Niall Ferguson told The Times that universities ought “not to stop teaching crucial subjects like the rise of the West or the world wars in the effort to make courses more diverse.”

However, Sasse pointed out that “we are so far off from that being a concern. The majority of courses still discuss those sorts of things and the world wars are certainly not understudied by Oxford history students”.

Oxford West on election knife-edge

Akshay Bilolikar
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Oxford West on election knife-edge

Oxford West and Abingdon constituency is hotly contested between the incumbent Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats at the general election on 8 June, according to a shock new projection by pollster YouGov.

The projection, which predicts a hung parliament nationally, sees the Conservatives winning 40 per cent of the vote in the seat, with the Liberal Democrats ahead on 42 per cent. The Labour Party are significantly behind with a projected 17 per cent share of the vote, with the UK Independence Party, the only other party standing, projected to win just four per cent of the vote.

The seat has been represented by Conservative MP Nicola Blackwood since 2010, and has a Tory majority of 9,582 over the second-placed Liberal Democrats. Until recently, with the Conservatives riding high in the polls, a third term for Blackwood was considered highly likely.

Blackwood, who read Music at St Anne’s College, was criticised in a 2013 letter by 38 JCR presidents for voting against the legalisation of same-sex marriage despite intimating her support for the measure to students. She also garnered significant press attention in February after being moved to tears during a debate over alcoholism.

The Liberal Democrats, whose physics teacher candidate Layla Moran also stood in the constituency in 2015, aim to capture the seat with a strongly anti-Brexit message. Oxford as a whole voted by 70 per cent to 30 per cent in favour of remaining in the European Union in the referendum last June.

Lucasta Bath, President of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats, told Cherwell: We’re really thrilled by the results of this poll: they are a strong indictment of Nicola Blackwood’s poor record as a constituency MP, and a tribute to all our members and volunteers who have worked so hard in recent weeks.

“We would urge all students in Oxford West and Abingdon to consider voting Liberal Democrat on 8 June as the only viable opposition in this constituency, and the only way to help prevent a Tory majority government.”

William Rees-Mogg, President of the Oxford University Conservative Association, was more sceptical, telling Cherwell: “I’d start by noting that this is a poll from YouGov, whose predictions have been way out of line with all other pollsters—who knows how accurate this is? It’s a single poll carried out using an untested method.

Rees-Mogg continued: “Nevertheless it’s a real encouragement to students to get out and vote Conservative, ensuring that we have a voice in government to represent us, not just a voice on the opposition backbenches.

Speaking to Cherwell, the incumbent MP Nicola Blackwood said: “Of course we know every vote really does count in this constituency, it’s why I am standing on my record as constituency champion.”

The projection suggests that the race in Oxford East is much less close, with Labour projected to win 62 per cent of the vote ahead of the Conservatives at 22 per cent. Last week, Cherwell revealed that the Labour candidate, Anneliese Dodds, was fined £75 for “illicit canvassing” in her successful 1998 campaign for the OUSU presidency

A poll commissioned by Cherwell last week revealed that 40.8 per cent of students in the Oxford West and Abingdon constituency planned to vote for Moran, compared with just 18.3 per cent for the Conservatives. In the Oxford East constituency, 54.2 per cent of voters planned to back Labour.

Layla Moran was contacted for comment.

Rhetoric and realism in ‘Raphael: The Drawings’

Anoushka Kavanagh
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Rhetoric and realism in ‘Raphael: The Drawings’

Everything in this exhibition has so much to offer, you would be here for several days if I were to go through everything” laughed Dr Catherine Whistler apologetically as we neared the end of our whirlwind tour of the Ashmolean’s new exhibition. I think she’s right, for each of the 120 sketches in Raphael: The Drawings—which opened yesterday—presents us with something new.

The display showcases a phenomenally diverse range of styles, medium, and subject. Every individual drawing—be it a vibrant nude in red chalk, animated male figures in vintage brown ink, or a monochrome self-portrait in layered charcoal—is a treasure trove of artistic capability and (unexpected) wild imagination in its own right.

Raphael forms part of the Holy Trinity of Renaissance masters, alongside Michelangelo and Leonardo. Though whilst Michelangelo was held to be the great ‘creative genius’ of the era—lacking in formal restraint and pushing the limits of artistic boundaries—Raphael has long been believed to have been the ideal ‘balanced’ painter, who obeyed all the rules then supposed to govern the arts. His classical perfection and geometric purity appealed to the contemporary Renaissance Humanist audience for whom mannerism was simply too excessive, whilst his anatomical accuracy, perfect decorum, and rigid discipline meant he dominated the curriculum of the European Academies throughout the 18th century.

Yet The Drawings—which includes unedited frenzied brainstorms and thumbnail doodles— presents a different side of the master, leaving us with the lasting impression that Raphael was not simply a phenomenally talented artist, but also a highly gifted story-teller, with an exceptional imagination and immense flair for experimental expression. The Ashmolean’s curation convinces us Raphael was far more inventive than his famous frescoes let on.

Raphael’s figures are beautifully emotive, yet rhetoric often appears to take precedence over realism in many of them. As the curatorial team’s description of their ‘renaissance yoga’ antics let on, often, the portrayed positions are simply humanly unattainable. The limits of figural narration are pushed, as such, in ‘Study for a soldier in a Resurrection’ (c. 1511-14). The male figure, sketched in black chalk, cowers under the force of resurrection with arms raised protectively to shield his face. But his legs and torso don’t quite connect in this painfully contorted pose—as if they have been formed from two wholly separate studies. Raphael’s sketch may not be realistic, but it expressively captures the force of the moment. It narrates a story and showcases his talent for persuasion.

This underlying theme of persuasion pervades many works on display this summer—we can’t help but feel the artist wanted to affect us with his art. The overpowering, vermillion chalk marks in ‘Study for God the Father with Cherubs’ (c. 1515-16) exude a sense of awe. The Father figure, shrouded in this vibrant red mist, is deeply stirring—his hands raised in gesticulation and mouth hanging open, as if we can almost hear the booming voice projecting out. We find ourselves looking up at the character due to Raphael’s skilful use of angle, further adding to the might the piece manifests.

‘Study for Massacre of the Innocents’ (c. 1509-10) is similarly emotive. Frenzied ink marks portray a hollow, harrowing face as a lone woman desperately clutches her baby, hurtling towards us through the crowds engaged in violent slaughter. Much of this study’s narrative capacity finds itself in space and direction though. The crowds part, leaving a clear central channel through which our attention is focused.

Raphael’s gift for oration similarly manifests itself in masterful manipulation of space, rhythm, and direction throughout the exhibition. In the remarkable range of studies for Vatican frescoes presented—especially those for the stanza della segnatura—Raphael transforms abstract themes like theology and philosophy into compelling visual stories.

Gesticulating figures carve out indicative spaces: ‘Study for the lower left part of the Disputa’ (c. 1508-10) is marked with a diagonally upwards surge, heads and shoulders within the crowd amassed on the steps angled upwards towards a focal point, out of the frame. In a study for the upper part of this project, light is instead used astoundingly convincingly to orchestrate heavenly space. Two tiers of figures—occupying the heavenly zone of the fresco—are bathed in luminous white chalk, as if divinely illuminated.

No doubt Raphael was influenced by the Humanist education’s emphasis on oration, as it trickled down the ranks, using drawing instead of words to ‘marshal his visual arguments’ as such—but that does not go the whole way in explaining his inventiveness.

Within the series of sketches here, we are indulged with Raphael’s scribbles, doodles, and brainstorms, conjuring up the image of a hugely experimental young man. ‘Studies for figures in the Disputa with drafts of a sonnet’ holds poetic abstractions amongst the sketches of conversing papal figures. Vigorous revisions and cancellations highlight his efforts to forge fresh ideas, concurrently evidence of another artistic outlet and a testament to his creativity.

A rare insight into Raphael’s imagination also presents itself in ‘Sheet with inventive ideas’ (c. 1511-14). A flurry of figural activity gathers in the bottom right-hand-corner, before forms disperse upwards to heaven, like human wisps of smoke. Here is a frenzied brainstorm in which we witness the master’s rush to pencil his ideas down.

Evidently, Raphael was every bit as much the creative genius as Michelangelo, his drawings capturing imagination and projecting the inventiveness that is lost in his painting. Here, what the Ashmolean calls his ‘process of thinking, experimenting, recalling from memory, and revising’ comes alive. At the same time, exceptional skill pervades the collection—though that is almost a given. His human forms and cloth folds are tangibly realistic, his use of light in white chalk truly awe-inspiring. A deep understanding of humanity is harboured in his recurrent theme of mother and child, and sensuous depictions of the female form in drawings like ‘The Three Graces’.

Every drawing is so intriguingly different, though you’ll only truly understand if you visit The Drawings yourself. For every mark here provides a new, invaluable insight into the artist’s mind, a flurry of imagination far removed from the rigid formality so often associated with Raphael.

Music without borders : Misogyny and Bollywood

Jeevan Ravindran
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Music without borders : Misogyny and Bollywood

In Bollywood, the ingredients of a fast drumbeat, absurd lyrics, skimpy outfits and total irrelevance combine to create an old classic: the item number.

But what exactly is an ‘item number’? Wikipedia defines it as a ‘musical performance that is often shown as part of the movie without any importance to the plot of the movie.’ What Wikipedia gets wrong is that it is not a musical performance, but rather a presentation of a skimpily dressed female dancer mouthing sexual lyrics in an appearance that is entirely irrelevant to the film—in short, an exercise in pandering to a male audience in the throes of objectifying women.

Whilst this is a sad reality, there are in fact some instances in which dance music has been used in a positive light.

A wave of classically trained actresses, including Padmini and Vijayanthimala, popularised these songs from the 1950s to the 1970s. In Tamil cinema, these songs were inspired by the traditional South Indian Carnatic music style and used classical percussion instruments, including the Mridanga drum and the wind instrument Morsing.

In Bollywood, these songs made use of the sitar and tabla and often displayed the Kathak dance style.

Whilst these songs are still present in the odd film, including director Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2002 film Devdas and his 2015 film Bajirao Mastani, more often than not they have simply been abandoned, with the most recent example of popularisation being Madhuri Dixit in the 1990s.

And when she made a comeback, even she fell victim to the ‘item number’, appearing in an entirely irrelevant sequence in the 2013 film Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. But whilst classical songs celebrate the traditional dance and music styles, item numbers are intended only to gratify.

Lyrically, most songs seem ridiculous, but others subtly allude to the alarming disregard for consent in contemporary India shown by the increasingly common incidences of gang rape and sexual assault.

For example, the item number ‘Aao Raja’, performed by Chitrangada Singh, includes the refrain ‘Kundi Mat Khadkao Raja, Seedha Andhar Aao Raja’—meaning ‘Don’t knock at my door, Mister, just come straight in’—an open invitation for men to do as they please without first obtaining consent.

Having previously appeared in starring roles, Chitrangada has now been reduced to item numbers, and has not acted in a film since Aao Raja. Actress Parineeti Chopra recently expressed the worrying sentiment that she wanted to show viewers ‘this side of me’ by appearing in an item number—showing that the item number has become something to revel in.

Perhaps what is most problematic about item numbers is that their music is so intoxicating. Whilst, at first glance, these item numbers might in fact seem utterly harmless, fun and self-indulging, doesn’t the very use of the word ‘item’ emphasise the objectification of women?

Item numbers are far from being the strength of Bollywood—for me, Bollywood music’s crowning glory has always been its haunting, plot-enhancing songs, with their enchanting lyricism. I find these qualities absent in item numbers, temporarily captivating though they may be.

It’s time for Bollywood music to grow up, abandon the outdated tradition of the item number, and keep doing what it does best—mature music based on real human emotion.

X-Rated?

Eleanor Birdsall-Smith and Megan Husain
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X-Rated?

Recently the fashion team has been increasingly interested with the taboo on everyone’s lips, sex. Sex is back in fashion, in a way it never has been before. Sheer lace, nipple tassels and leather have been seen on the YSL runway, but while that may be disregarded as the showmanship of the catwalk, there’s also been a sudden arrival of all things sheer, mesh and netted onto the clubbing scene. Club pictures are dominated by statement bras showing through clothes, slip dresses which look like lingerie, and at times lingerie itself being displayed, tucked into jeans or over other tops. This movement doesn’t only rear its head in the midnight hour—we’ve seen it all over celebrity Instagram’s from Lily Rose Depp to Gigi Hadid. However, the nature of going-out adds new levels to the connotations of sex and expectation.

In conjunction with our fashion shoot this week we decided to interview the models about their experiences of clubbing and opinions about this type of fashion. We found that one of the biggest issues is the relationship between the pressure to bare all in an attempt to be accepted in society as an attractive woman compared to the agency of women in reclaiming their sexuality and embracing more revealing clothing as a source of empowerment.

Despite the separate opinions of each model, something that we could all agree on is that to dress up in this way feels ‘good’. While potentially a simplistic sentiment, feeling good about yourself and your body can be quite a ground-breaking achievement for young woman. We are still in a society which pressures girls to self-deprecate, especially when it comes to their physical appearance. Francesca draws from her experience performing on stage to reinforce how fulfilling the sensation of being in control is: “So when you’re on stage everything about you is sassy and confident, and that is part of the illusion…I’m like me 220%, I’m like me squared. [This type of clothing] gives you that sense of being a slightly different person, and a more confident person. I don’t think that in itself is a bad thing, I don’t think that’s vain, I don’t think it’s anything other than a healthy exercise of presenting an identity you don’t have during the day.”

This freedom to value and show off your own skin is not just about having fun in clubs and on stage however, after years of being taught to feel ashamed of your body growing up, being able to express yourself through clothes can be incredibly empowering. Liv tells us about growing up with her larger bust, and feeling the need to cover up, while all her slighter friends who were still working with pre-pubescent bodies dressed as they pleased for parties. She also related an anecdote about being shamed by persistent catcalls and beeping while wearing a bikini top outside a water park when she was 13. Now she can embrace and enjoy her body, ignoring comments and showing as little or as much as she likes. Fliss agrees “I felt very vulnerable going through puberty, realizing that my body would be something subject to the male gaze”. Now she has more control and body-confidence her attitude has changed “I feel like in some ways it is a way of taking control of the male gaze yourself, you know they’re going to look at you, because they’re probably going to do that anyway, so you might as well own it.”

Nicole, however, questions the motives behind wearing such revealing clothing, highlighting that perhaps the main reason women are dressing up in this way is simply to please someone else and attract the opposite sex: “Everyone wears crop tops, everyone wants to show a bit of cleavage, everyone wants to show a bit of a stomach, that’s just become the norm…And because it’s become such a norm, we don’t actually see through that. I think the lines are blurred between what is empowering and what is just revealing.” When the clothes are this revealing it can become hard to discern where the line between self-empowerment and self-objectification due to internalised misogyny lies: “We are kinda being objectified, guys are interested in us, guys like it and we get confused.”

Fliss on the other hand sees this as the most empowering thing about these new movements in fashion; women can demonstrate they are interested in sex, and not shy away from attracting men. A big issue in people’s perceptions of these kinds of clothes seem to stem from the prejudiced idea that women don’t enjoy and desire sex, which is certainly not the case. In fact then this wider range of choice in clothing gives women greater freedom and sexual agency. Fliss suggests “I feel like we’ve embraced what would be considered the masculine idea of going out to pull. Now my friends will support each other and be like yeah do it, go back with someone, have fun, it’s funny.” Francesca agrees and stresses the sense of power behind the feeling of being attractive: “It feels massively empowering and it becomes empowering when you can do something and invite a certain interest from someone if you want it.” Perhaps this fashion is opening peoples’ eyes to female sexual desire through giving young girls more freedom to talk honestly about it. Fliss berates the way culture at the moment views sex from a male point of view : “I found that, before my friends from college, I never really talked about girls feeling pleasure, I don’t think I ever heard anything about it the whole time… that’s the kind of culture which makes people more objectified than anything that you can wear, when girls are participating in sexual activity with guys, and the guys are the only ones that anyone thinks about …Sex education in schools just makes me so angry because it just feeds into all the misogynist narratives, it’s just terrible.”

While this kind of clothing does enable women to take the reins to an extent, and be proud of their bodies, the models were also aware of the negative body pressures it produces: all the potential positives do not overshadow the ever present notion of the ‘ideal’ body to which everyone should ascribe. Francesca explains that “fashion is now more to do with how to accentuate your body than it is to do with the garments themselves, it’s all how to look good, how to make your waist look tiny and your boobs look big as opposed to anything else… you’ve got clothes now moving towards being body elitist, and the lack of choice in fashion at the moment means that if people don’t have the ‘ideal’ body they can’t get involved, and the ‘ideal’ body currently is hypersexualised.”

Liv agrees, and explains that the pressure to wear the new ‘sexy’ trends isn’t always healthy: “I really don’t like it though when people talk about the new sexy or the new confident because for me, I would never wear that kind of thing—does that mean I’m not fitting in to the new sexy look, because I’m refusing to buy one? By labelling it as this new thing, it always seems to target what you as woman must do to be feeling confident, which kind of defeats the point.” Fashion may be pushing the boundaries with these revealing garments, but are they just cashing in on a feminist trend and creating another set of pressures for young girls?

Ultimately of course the place for this type of clothing is on a night out clubbing. Our models have conflicting views on this space. Speaking especially from her experience of clubbing in London, Nicole highlights the superficiality of the entire thing: “Clubs have become this business, they’re just used to having the same kind of girls coming along and letting the same kind of girls…With high-end London clubs I feel like it’s always going to be a thing, image is everything, without the image there is no club.” She gives anecdotes of dressing up for a club as a group, and being ranked in the queue outside in levels of attractiveness: “We have kind of become passive puppets to clubs and just conform.”

For Liv on the other hand the club is a space of increased freedom: “I actually feel more comfortable with it in a club environment, because I’m feeling more confident anyway, but also when you’re on a night out people can be more experimental with the way they dress. I actually feel far less confident in things like basic t-shirts because they make my boobs far more obvious, and I’m far more conscious of that than I am in a mesh top and bra, especially as the sexualisation that then happens is even more annoying because they should just be on staple parts of your wardrobe, rather than something you have put forward on your own terms.”

Clearly there are conflicting views on the sticky dance floors, but Fransesca importantly highlights the singular nature of the clubbing space. The sexualized clothing has far more power in a club because it is naturally a hot-bed of sexual tension, as “there isn’t that much interaction with people verbally, it is another kind of performance. You go into that club space and it is a kind of stage, you’re dancing, you’re interacting with people non-verbally, you’re using visual cues…it is a weird space which suspends societal norms and rules which means that not only can people dress in this weird thing, but they behave towards each other in a very different way.” The experimental clothing that is adorns Cellar goers is certainly part of this ‘performance.’

It is clear to see that the main issue when it comes to these topics is freedom. Even with a select group of four models it is clear that opinions and experiences of club fashion and increased sexualisation in fashion differ widely. While the conclusion that women should be able to dress as sensually or modestly as they please should not be a revolutionary one, it seems to be the outlook most needed. For some the lace bralette is a source of empowerment, for others, it is simply a bowing down to pressures from the fashion industry and society. No new trend, garment or shoot can be named categorically empowering or even feminist, but one thing we can do is open up the conversation, consider the implications of these changes and above all push for greater freedom for women.

Does Oxford create a class of its own?

Eimer McAuley
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Does Oxford create a of its own?

When I first came to Oxford, I was introduced to the idea that the University is like a sausage maker. No matter what class you belonged to when you arrived at Oxford, you become part of the Oxford class when you leave and re-enter the world. Although this is reassuring in terms of employment prospects for working-class students, for me it raised anxieties about how my background forms a part of my identity during my time here.

I was told, in no uncertain terms, that everyone knows which fork to use for what by the time they graduate. My reaction was immediately defensive. I already knew about place settings–I’ve waitressed for three years. At the peak of my imposter syndrome, I was beginning to feel like a walking specimen of Oxford’s ‘look, we do let in non-privately educated students’ outreach mantra, and becoming a sausage wasn’t the most appealing alternative.

When I told my friends at school that I was applying to Oxford, the unanimous response was: “But won’t everyone be so posh?” Having spent a year here now, I can say the answer is both yes, and no. Everyone is familiar with the statistics: only 14 per cent of sixth formers attend independent schools yet, from 2012-2014, they made up 38 per cent of Oxford’s intake. However, even when we reduce the issue of social diversity at Oxford to statistics, it’s more complicated than that. One in five of the state school students admitted going to a grammar school, which otherwise only makes up five per cent of the population, and although children on free school meals account for 15 per cent of the population, they make up one per cent of Oxford’s admissions.

Oxford remains socially unequal, elitist, and unrepresentative of the UK’s population. However, these statistics simplify the issue. It means we take private/state school as shorthand for middle/working class or privileged/underprivileged. I’ve found that the reality of class integration and representation at Oxford is more complicated than this polarisation allows. To form a long term solution to access problems, we need to take into account the nuances of ‘privilege’ and what Oxford is really like for working-class students.

No one ever encouraged me to apply to Oxford, there was never a ‘hey, maybe this is for you’ moment. Coming from a working-class village and attending the local grammar school, Oxbridge didn’t factor into societal expectations. Grammar schools effectively replace private schools in Northern Ireland, claiming the top ten places in the region. Despite this, no one from my school in recent history had ever gone to Oxford. When I got in, it felt like a lottery win.

Unsurprisingly, when I arrived in Oxford for fresher’s week, it was a culture shock. People seemed to already know each other, or of each other, and ‘what school did you go to?’ was a go-to conversation starter. Yet, despite this start, my expectations of ‘posh’ private school kids were disproved by the friends I made—they were grounded and friendly regardless of their background. This doesn’t mean that I haven’t felt aware of my background as a part of my identity here. At times, the sense of being in an institution that perpetuates elitism is overwhelming.

It can be alienating when I’m watching student-written drama where students throw on a pair of Adidas superstars and play what seems to be a parody of state-educated students, or when I’m listening to someone— whom I really suspect has never stepped foot on a council estate—talk like an authority about benefits culture.

It’s the same feeling that arises when yet another person asks the dreaded ‘what school did you go to’ while in the Bridge smoking area. I have not felt like I have assimilated in terms of class, or lost my identity to the ‘sausage maker’ that is Oxford. Yet, I have felt like I’m participating in an elitist institution that is so painfully far removed from what I’ve seen of society.

I’m not suggesting that people who received a better education or come from a privileged background can’t get involved in the conversation about class in Oxford, but it’s important to accept the limitations of their privileged perspective. You might know the statistics off by heart, but, if you don’t know the people, it isn’t the same.

Class itself isn’t a black and white issue—it can’t be understood purely by looking at someone’s schooling. Although I’ve never received any kind of private tuition, and spent my childhood in a low-income family, I’ve enjoyed living in financial security since I was an adolescent. In contrast, some students have attended schools with significant fees and have simultaneously dealt with financial stress throughout their schooling.

Two students I spoke to both experienced having one of their parents declare bankruptcy while they were attending fee-paying schools. One second generation student at Oxford said: “My sisters and I went to school every day thinking it was our last. At times we missed weeks of school because we couldn’t afford the fees.”

The impact this could have on a student should not be underestimated. This same student said that her skeleton became “permanently changed due to stress in my back muscles, because I was constantly so anxious about money”.

Unfortunately, this story is not as uncommon as one would like. Another student spoke to me about her experience of when her parents became bankrupt. While her two brothers were immediately transferred to state schools, she stayed at her private school due to her ambitions to study medicine. This pressure caused her such stress that it led her to “lose chunks of hair due to the stress of having to get a scholarship”.

One feeling both students shared was the need to remain silent. Both spoke about feeling like they couldn’t talk about their financial struggles here as they felt “lumped into a category of extremely wealthy students, despite receiving the maximum student loan” and of their experience of being “made to feel ashamed of having attended a private school, whilst being silenced on my financial struggles”.

There is a complex hierarchy that goes beyond the private school versus state school view when it comes to the people’s privilege and its role in admissions at Oxford. It is a complexity that is rarely ever discussed.

Though many private schools supply their students with an invaluable social network when at Oxford, this is most obvious when looking at parts of the London private school network. The benefits of this network are most obvious in extra-curricular activities. When you’re running for positions in various societies, connections are invaluable. This can make working-class and state school educated students feel like outsiders who have to set off on the wrong foot simply due to lack of connections.

On this, one second-year said he had to get past “a lot of internalised anxiety and self-doubt compared to my middle class friends who were well-connected and so confident”. Another said that it is only at the Union that they have been made to feel aware of their class.

This issue manifests itself differently in student drama—it stems from the extra experience available at private schools. One thesp, despite doing “as much theatre as physically possible in school”, still feels disadvantaged when competing with people who were in half a dozen shows a year in school and have had opportunities to use high tech equipment. To them, it seems as though “it doesn’t matter how much effort you put into being a pink lady in year eleven, you’ll always be overshadowed”.

The class barrier at Oxford is evident not only socially, but also academically. Once you get past the process of interviews, the academic disparity between candidates of different backgrounds is still an issue at Oxford. Whilst the University can invest heavily in outreach, it has to be willing to invest more time in students from working-class/ state school backgrounds once they are here. The first issue is obviously one of confidence. Personally, I have been lucky enough to have a tutor who has ensured that I feel affirmed in my right to my place here, however my experience is by no means universal. As one English student put it: “You think the interview process should have been enough to prove you’re worth your place here, but I still felt like I had to prove myself to my tutors, because academically I have always been three steps behind.”

Yet, this isn’t the only issue. The experiences of many students suggest that Oxford, and its tutors, are catering directly for privately educated students. For example, one first year said that they have no idea what grammatical cases are for old English “because the tutor skimmed over them as all bar two of us in the class had studied Latin and already understood them”.

At my school, the suggestion of doing Latin would have got you laughed out of the room faster than you could say ‘Veni, vidi, vici’ (or ‘et cetera’, come to think of it). Another student, who recently sat their finals, said one of the questions was in Latin, despite this not being part of her degree. She says that, if she had been able to read it, that is the question she would have answered.

For the most part, discrimination from tutors towards students of less privileged backgrounds is simply in what they presume. One student described to me how her tutor had told her that Wordsworth’s ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ was probably his most widely read poem, but that her parents probably wouldn’t know of it. She responded: “I’ve been reading Wordsworth since I was six, we know who Wordsworth is.”

So whilst the University might want to increase its intake of students from state schools, it doesn’t necessarily cater to their needs when they’re here. At times, it can be the academics themselves—who are in a position of authority—compounding the feeling that people here, no matter how liberal or pro-Corbyn they are, ‘just don’t get it’. Though this statement is difficult to unpack, so is the feeling. It’s one of feeling as though your perspective here is assumed, and so not listened to or valued.

I think this is where the real risk of feeling like a product of the Oxford sausage factory comes in—when people feel that their identity as a working-class student is brushed aside, and their insight into working-class issues is trivialised. Classism does exist here in Oxford, and I can tell you that, based off the conversations I’ve had this week, it is not just a statistic. One student I spoke to said a friend had told her that she “couldn’t speak about working-class issues anymore”. By being at Oxford, she was “no longer working-class”. In contrast, another experienced a friend tell her that her parents were unfit because they didn’t have university degrees or ‘proper jobs’.

While it’s true to say that classism exists here, it does too in society at large. There will always be people who will put others down because of their backgrounds, but if people in Oxford feel they are being denied the right to a working-class identity, we face a much bigger issue. It’s horrible to feel underrepresented or alienated here because of your background. It is worse still to be told that your background is now irrelevant, and that a part of your identity has been erased.

The emergence of new initiatives such as OUSU’s Class Act are vital in providing students with a platform for their issues to be voiced and represented. It’s clear that such a platform is necessary given that Class Act has already revealed that over 70 per cent of respondents to a survey believed “your class was a barrier when integrating at University”.

Speaking to Cherwell on the need for the initiative, Jaycie Carter (Class Act co-chair) said: “Currently, the needs of students represented by the Class Act campaign—working-class, low income, state comprehensive school educated and first generation students—are neither adequately discussed nor addressed by the University or by our colleges.”

By bringing working class students together in campaigning, having a unified voice is legitimising in itself. Through campaigns like this, there is a chance that the voice of working-class students can be heard at Oxford. Through this, we can mobilise change.

In terms of ways of making the student body more socially diverse, I don’t think there is any quick fix solution. One JCR Access rep told me: “Though the University is putting in a load of hard work, it’s a long term campaign, so success can’t be immediately measured.”

I think a good starting point would be to demystify Oxford. It really isn’t as hard to get into as I was led to believe in Sixth form. Bright students from under-privileged backgrounds need to be told that Oxford is within their reach too, and that Oxford holds a place for them where their identity can be valued—it’s time to finally debunk the myth of the sausage maker once and for all. Only then can we really break class barriers.

“A fascinating interpretation of Racine’s masterpiece”

Louisa Cotterhill
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“A fascinating interpretation of Racine’s masterpiece”

Full spoilers for Phèdre follow

Phèdre, Jean Racine’s carefully constructed and powerfully visual seventeenth century tragedy, is a text that is familiar to almost every first-year student of French at Oxford. Written entirely in Alexandrine verse, based on Euripides’s Hippolytus and incorporating elements of Seneca’s Phaedra, Racine’s poetry depicts a tale of dark human desires and motivations, in a way that brings the eponymous Phèdre’s fear and guilt to the forefront. The recent production of Ted Hughes’s English translation of Phèdre, directed by Sarah Houllion and Lily Begg, and performed in the New College cloisters, brings this tale of cursed fate, forbidden love, and dynastic crisis to life.

Phèdre is the wife of Theseus, King of Athens, but falls in love with her stepson, Hippolytus. Believing that Theseus had died while he had been away fighting monsters, Phèdre confesses her feelings to Hippolytus. After proclaiming her love, however, she learns that Theseus is in fact alive and on his way back to his family in their home town of Trozen. It also surfaces that Hippolytus is in love with Aricia, who comes from the family of his father’s political enemy. In a state of despair, Phèdre follows the advice of Oenone, her nurse and confidante, and lets her lead Theseus to believe a fabricated story that Hippolytus tried to rape Phèdre. In a rage, Theseus exiles Hippolytus and calls upon mighty Neptune to curse him. Hippolytus subsequently falls into the clutches of a vicious sea monster and perishes. Theramène, Hippolytus’s tutor and confidant, brings the news of the fatal encounter back to Trozen. Phèdre reveals the truth, proclaiming Hippolytus innocent and then dies on stage after taking a Medean poison, shortly after a remorseful Oenone has drowned herself. Theseus, horrified at his lack of judgement, vows to preserve the memory of his son and treat Aricia as his daughter.

From the minute one steps into the open-air theatre, ingeniously set up in the cloister of New College, an atmosphere of the supernatural is apparent. The slowly setting sun illuminated the beautifully intricate stonework with a hazy glow: the perfect backdrop to a play where the characters are descended from Gods, yet are subject to higher forces beyond their control. The mise-en-scene is minimalist, yet highly effective: a single pink chaise-lounge framed by two tables. The seat of many characters at the height of their emotional intensity, it also serves as the deathbed of Phèdre as the poison took its toll. The on-stage musicians, Claire Frampton and Patrick Hall, mark the transition between acts with skilful pieces, conjuring up an ominous sense of foreboding as the tragedy unfolds.

Jeevan Ravindran shines in the role of Phèdre. Capturing every aspect of a character that is ailing in body and mind, a presence that fills the entire stage, Jeevan’s gestures and varying tone of voice embody Phèdre’s overpowering fear, guilt and paranoia, as do the powerful wide-eyed gazes at the audience. Particularly impressive was the scene of Phèdre’s death at the end of the play—despite having spent the past three hours watching the drama unravel, I was on the edge of my seat, transfixed on Phèdre as she took her last breaths. Oenone’s part in the tragedy is portrayed with skill and subtlety by Hannah Rose Kessler, who seems particularly influential over Phèdre when coaxing her into following her wicked scheme, although her version of the character is less conniving than my initial reading of the text suggested.

The role of Hippolytus is skilfully played by Arthur Wotton, conjuring up both his disgust at his step-mother and love for Aricia, whose determination as the sole survivor of the family feud is beautifully captured by Julie Dequaire.

Other impressive performances include that of Jon Berry, who masterfully took on the role of Théramène, both as a friend to Hippolytus and the bearer of the news of his death. His lengthy monologue, which describes the fatal encounter with the sea monster, is delivered with considerable power, but at the same time with a quiet sense of grief. Similarly, Theseus, played by Thomas Rawlinson, commands the stage as a powerful presence, showing particular anger when passionately invoking Neptune to harm his son.

All in all, I was fascinated to watch this interpretation of Racine’s masterpiece: it was one that I felt softened Phèdre’s literary image as the self-hating figure of shame, instead portraying her as the victim of the gods who control her. On a beautiful evening, in a perfect setting, this play captured me from beginning to end, providing a slightly new take on the character who has one of the most famous epithets in all of French literature: ‘la fille de Minos et Pasiphaé’.

“Precisely the kind of theatre I would like to see more of in Oxford”

Charles Britton
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“Precisely the kind of theatre I would like to see more of in Oxford”

With Finals and Prelims lurking around the corner for some, there is no better antidote to stress than ignoring your studies entirely and escaping into the fantastical realm of comedy. Jack Bradfield’s Garden not only delivers on escapism, but provides laughs in spades. The play is an absurd hotchpotch of ideas, blasting bass at the audience while the characters enter their virtual stasis, and referencing everything from Don Quixote and Super Mario 64 to the time-honoured tradition of Wetherspoons pubs, all effortlessly synthesised.

Garden’s premise alone demands attention: in the not-too-distant future, scientists are convinced that humanity is living in a simulation, “like the world is scripted […] running on a programme”. The audience follows a group of workers at a research centre where the study of phytology has been deemed obsolete and is to be replaced with a supercomputer. Everyone in Garden is looking to make sense of the nonsensical world in their own unique way—Elizabeth works almost ascetically, preferring to talk to plants rather than humans, while Jessica cannot comprehend jokes, so forces people to repeat them so she may record them. These individual methods only alienate them from each other, however, as they are wrapped in self-interest.

The production’s defining feature is its dry sense of humour. Characters lack any kind of filter to their speech and their bluntness makes them some of the most socially incapable (but immensely likeable) misfits on the planet. The acting on show is phenomenal, everyone demonstrating an adept sense of timing, holding comic silences with ease. Some lines are just so quotable that they will never lose their charm, “Kids shit in the Eden Project”, “You’re not a veggie spider”, and “You’ve dismembered my fucking aloe vera” being some of my personal favourites. The sense of irony is strikingly clever: viewers will delight at noticing that the aloe vera Elizabeth works so hard to protect is eventually blended into cocktails at her own leaving party. This party scene, incidentally, is also the most intelligently composed scene in the play, dipping in and out of individual conversations seamlessly, almost in the manner of a sitcom.

Much of this effect is evoked by the narrator-figure, a mysterious entity exercising full control over her subjects and flaunting that omnipotence before the audience. Her distantly scientific idiolect reduces human behaviour to its constituent components, further satirising the characters’ follies. The narrator always manages to find the most opportune moment to release the worst character possible from stasis at the worst possible time, normally when another is spilling their darkest desires. She replays characters’ pasts at will, forcing them to re-enact painful moments from their childhood at symbolic moments in the present. The narrator’s role in the drama raises the most stimulating questions about the world being constructed onstage, making her the greatest asset to its meaning.

Were that not mind-boggling enough, Garden throws a convention-defying curveball towards the end, drastically changing the tone of the play. What is supposed to be cathartic comes across as disturbingly ambiguous. The aftermath allows for an incredibly touching scene, but whereas the false ending denotes a masterful playing with form, the real ending feels like it struggles to actually end in the looming shadow of what has passed. Unfortunately, this is also true of some of the gags, some of which are strained, some having three punchlines, and which overstay their welcome. A minor complaint, and one which did not impact my overall judgement of the play, but worth mentioning nonetheless.

All in all, Garden self-assuredly toes the stylistic line between sitcom and comic play. Its originality and vivacity are infectious, made even more affecting by its ability to hold a mirror up to our own antics and quests for purpose. This is precisely the kind of theatre I would like to see more of in Oxford, and I look forward to Bradfield’s future pursuits. For now, however, as I return to my study, I shall remember what Garden taught me, that “to waste time, it seems, is to be human”.

Oxford’s historic skyline will “absolutely not” be damaged, despite “high rise” plans

Theo Davies-Lewis
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Oxford’s historic skyline will “absolutely not” be damaged, despite “high rise” plans

Oxford’s historic college and university buildings will “absolutely not” be damaged despite new plans for “taller” and “continental-style” developments in Oxford, according to Councillor Alex Hollingsworth.

Councillor Hollingsworth, who is reponsible for Planning and Regulatory Services on the City Council, dimissed the “headline fantasy” of The Oxford Mail, who reported that “high-rise” buildings were set to be erected across the city.

New options from the Local Plan, viewed as the blueprint for new building developments, will be consulted upon during the summer.

Draft proposals by the City Council would “end blanket height restrictions” and “favour developments that use space most efficiently”, according to The Oxford Mail.

These changes are thought to be inspired by how other European cities such as Barcelona are planned and organised, and could help deliver 10,000 new homes over the next two decades.

Speaking to Cherwell, Councillor Hollingsworth said: “There’s no high-rise: that’s The Oxford Mail headline writer and not what the report has said.

“There’s a long standing rule in Oxford that buildings cannot be above a certain height limit. The issue with that is that there’s a lot of low buildings, and what we’re talking about is not tower blocks or twenty or thirty storey buildings—nothing absurd like that.”

Councillor Hollingsworth admitted that there would be “five, six, seven story buildings”, but these would be would be seen outside the city centre, in areas like Summertown, Headington, Cowley, Blackbird Leys and Littlemore, which are referred to as “district centres”.

He added: “What we’re doing is meeting a need for housing in Oxford which is huge, and one of the indicators of that is that it’s one of the most expensive cities to live in across the UK”.

Nevertheless, in the suburbs where the developments would be concentrated, there would be denser buildings—meaning that there could be flats or apartments above shops, while there would be community centres and transport hubs on the ground level. This form of structure is common in European cities such as Vienna and Berlin.

According to Councillor Hollingsworth, the response from the University has been “pretty positive” so far, with the University of Oxford “thoroughly engaged” in discussions about the future of the city’s building developments.

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