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Pro-Palestine protests continue after Vice Chancellor’s statement

Over 600 gathered in front of the Clarendon Building on 16 May for a rally organised by healthcare workers and Oxford Action for Palestine students. Speakers discussed media co-optation of the ongoing encampment’s narratives and encouraged focusing attention on Gaza. British-Palestinian surgeon and Rector of Glasgow University Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah said to the crowd that protesters were calling for severing academic ties between Oxford and Israeli Universities because “there’s no seam where Israeli academia ends and where the Israeli army begins.”  Abu-Sittah cited quadcopters, drones capable...

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Features

Making Art in the Age of Generative AI

When they told us that AI is coming for people’s jobs, most of us didn’t think that they were talking about artists. Our popular imaginings of artificially intelligent futures often seem to bracket the...

Flights to Rwanda? Navigating political, economic, and moral turbulence 

“Batshit crazy”, was how one cabinet minister (James Cleverly) described the Rwanda policy.  In his former role as chancellor, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was characteristically more reserved, saying “it won’t work”.  Human rights organisations...

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...

2024: The year of elections

In his classic 19th-century work Democracy in America, the politician-cum-philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville looked to the democratic system in America with deep envy. In this system, he perceived a largely egalitarian society in which the virtues of industry and social cooperation contributed to America’s functional democracy; a state which...

“Diesmal schweigen wir nicht!” (“We won’t be silent this time”)

Germany’s right-wing factions push forward In another spectacular repeat of European history, a group of right-wing politicians met with an Austrian neo-Nazi last November in a small German town called Potsdam, known for being the seat of residence of Prussian kings and the German Emperor until 1918 The meeting ignited...
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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...

Profiles

‘Theatre is, at its best, one of the most democratic of the arts’

I had the chance to sit down with Gregory Doran, Oxford University’s Cameron Mackintosh visiting professor and the former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, to talk all things Shakespeare, contemporary theatre and the importance of accessibility in the Arts. Greg Doran is Oxford University’s Cameron Mackintosh visiting professor...

An interview with Federico Enciso, Paraguay’s First Openly Gay Politician 

I am not going to lie. I myself was pretty much oblivious to Paraguay’s existence before being introduced to the documentary, 108: Cuchillo de Palo. Set during Stroessner’s dictatorship, it goes in search of the truth surrounding the director’s uncle, a gay ballet dancer who was found dead in...

Culture

A Future in the Light of Darkness review: Imagined engines of desire

Modern Art Oxford’s exhibit Frieda Toranzo Jaeger: A future in the light of darkness counters the potential for automated vehicles and social media algorithms to consume our future reality. With her work Toranzer Jaeger creates a space where one can explore and affirm an alternative future in which Audis, Teslas,...

Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poet’s Department: Who tortures the poet?

The most tortured love affair on Taylor Swift’s new album is her relationship with her audience. Following its release on April 19th, the album’s reviews were marked by a shared preoccupation with the autobiographical element of her work. This extends beyond speculation as to which ex-lover any given song...

Life

Siblings: there’s a fine line between love and hate

After watching a Tiktok that said we have already spent the majority of the time we get to ever have with our siblings by the time we leave home, I ran into my brother’s room, misty-eyed, ready to spend some quality time together. I was immediately reminded why this...

The great outdoors: Oxford’s best green spaces

As the sun emerges from its miserable winter enclave, so do students from their rooms, shedding the weighted blankets and hot water bottles of the colder months to enjoy the sun. As we flock to revel in these warmer months, here are some of the best natural spaces around...