Headlines
Over 170 Oxford faculty and staff sign statement of support for students’ pro-Palestine encampment
"Over 170 faculty and staff at Oxford University have signed an open letter expressing their support for the ongoing pro-Palestine encampment. The statement calls for divestment from Israeli actions in Gaza and for support for Palestinian scholars, following the destruction of all universities in Gaza."
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Features
Sharron Davies, the Oxford Literary Festival, and the place for transgender athletes in professional sport.
The bell chimed for 2 o’clock on Thursday the 21st of March and the doors closed for the Oxford Literary Festival’s most controversial talk: ‘Sharron Davies, Unfair Play: The Battle for Women’s Sport.’ I...
WaterTok, Stanley cups and the half-empty glass of consumerism
We all need to drink more water. A 1998 New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center survey of 3003 Americans found that 75% of those interviewed were ‘chronically dehydrated’ — a condition apparently characterised by fatigue,...
Philosophy and Technology: Science’s moral afflictions
On March 28th in a dingy Manhattan courtroom, unrepentant crypto-mogul Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison. This landmark sentence came after an appeal by his lawyers against Bankman-Fried’s conviction in November...
Oliver Twist, a Sceptical 9th Grader, and an Orthodox Monastery: The Making of a New Generation in Northern Kosovo
Eager hands reach toward the ceiling as children at the Ismail Qemali school in Mitrovica, northern Kosovo, desperately try to attract the attention of an author who has come to talk to the pupils about her new book. They want to know more about the central character - a...
Tristram Hunt: the Politics of Repatriation
If you came here for a vicious takedown or a strident defence of Tristram Hunt’s position on “colonialism and collecting”, you might be slightly disappointed. Now, it’s clear that the important conversation over decolonisation has continued to ring out across this university’s faculty and student body – reverberating strongly...
How To Grieve a Stolen Diary
Elizabeth Bishop’s poem ‘One Art’ is beautiful because of its hypocrisy. The speaker exalts loss - of places, names, houses, their mother’s watch - with an odd joviality. You’re sure, reading it for the first time, that there must be something disingenuous going on here. The act of writing...
Profiles
“They’re side notes in history”: In conversation with Bluestocking Oxford
Perhaps you’ve heard the term ‘bluestocking’ before. Though it came to be used as a misogynistic pejorative, its origins lie in 18th-century Britain, when groups of women would attend literary societies, which provided a space for literary, artistic and intellectual discussion.
I spoke to Olivia Wrafter, Editor in Chief, and...
“Everywhere we go, we ask: ‘What are the dominant narratives about the city? And what are they hiding?”
I’ve walked past the Clarendon Building on Broad Street many times – but I’d never thought to ask what it had been used for in the past. While today it innocuously houses the Bodleian Library admissions department, in the 19th century, its basement was used as holding cells for...
Culture
Cherwell Introducing: Phoebe Blue
Joining me this week is the radiant Phoebe Blue, a 2nd year classicist at Balliol, singer-songwriter, and bassist. Meeting me on a blustery Saturday afternoon outside the Ashmolean, Phoebe told me all about her neo-soul sound, her first busking experience at age nine, and the importance of songwriting as...
Artificial insights: Decoding diversity and redefining art history with AI
In the age of AI-enhanced art, the possibilities for creativity and cultural exchange are limitless—and inclusive.
Life
Navigating being a baby adult
After complaining that the Easter hunt had gotten too hard this year, my parents were quick to decide that it had in fact been my last hunt as I was an “adult” and it was “getting a bit ridiculous now”. I took this news super well and felt like...
‘Women in STEM’ – empowerment or disempowerment?
We’ve all heard the phrase ‘woman in STEM’; the term is now so well-known that it has left its textbook definition behind and become a sort of half-ironic, half-genuine, inside joke. I’ll use it to comfort my biologist friend through her multiple hour-long lab sessions, I’ll even use it...
