Culture

Seasonal reads: On childhood hobbies, growing up, and guilt

Reconnecting with reading is something many people tend to do on a summer holiday, and statistics suggest it is one of the only times the majority of  adults read...

Between beer gardens and picnics: Climate Culture Care at the Ashmolean

When I returned to Oxford this term, just as England teased us with the sixth heat-wave of the year, I found myself at a loose end. With the deadline for two vacation essays still far in the distance, the sun lit up the sign for Soma Surovi Jannat’s Ashmolean Now exhibition, Climate Culture Care.

“What is a good life?”: The Standard of Living in review 

“What is a good life?” This axiological question, asked earnestly in the opening lines of James Graham’s The Standard of Living – playing at Theatre Royal Haymarket until December 12 – is often overlooked by the fractured and hyper-specialised discipline of economics.

Diverse voices: ‘Inshallah, Madonna, Inshallah’ by Miljenko Jergović 

‘When he created Earth and these lands upon it, when he divided people into...

Christina Lamb on women’s writing and journalism

Christina Lamb on her 30-year fight against male domination in journalism and the women who have shaped her life and career

Iris Murdoch’s Oxford Life

Benn Sheridan reflects on Iris Murdoch's life and work in the final instalment of Through the Looking Glass

Love in a Renault Clio

Susannah Goldsbrough outlines Nancy Mitford’s tragic wit

A pioneer erased: Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Alice Townson argues that the innovative rock and roll talent should be discussed as unique in her own right

OxFolk Reviews: ‘Vortex’

Ben Ray reviews Methera's new album 'Vortex', and is swept away by their live Corpus performance

Review: Jealous of Herself

Bessie Yuill is impressed and entertained by the accomplished acting and original music of this thought-provoking comedy

Review: I, Daniel Blake

Jonnie Barrow is bowled over by the film’s emotional realism, the kind to which so many of us should open our eyes

Beyond anger: an evening with Frank Carter

Somehow we have got to a point where modern rock music feels as if it is becoming ever more sanitised and anodyne. The idea...

Remembering Laughing Lennie

The day before I left home to come to Oxford I found a hidden stash of my parents’ records in a cupboard in the...

Preview: Much Ado About Nothing

Susannah Goldsbrough looks forward to seeing Poltergeist Theatre's millenial twist on Shakespeare's classic comedy

Preview: Tremor at Modern Art Oxford

Edward Mair looks forward to Tremor, a space where different genres and arts collide

Preview: Dates

Charlie Atkins looks forward to Oxford's most topical sketch show yet.

Is it wrong for a dictionary to offend me?

Laura Wilsmore questions the OED’s newly-added definition of ‘Essex girl’

On the incompleteness of reading

Ellie Duncan gets lost in the countless possibilities of translation

Bah, humbug: An Oxmas Carol

Charles Britton pastiches Dickens’ classic with a familiar setting and an all-too familar overworking protagonist

Rewind: Miracle on 34th Street

Susannah Finlay defends the capitalism of Miracle on 34th Street

Graham Greene and Oxford’s pubs

Daniel Curtis loses himself in tales of writerly pub trips in the penultimate Through the Looking Glass

A “tinsel-covered silver lining”

Safa Dar analyses the spectacle of Oxmas as an intrigued international student

Sci-fi review: Arrival

Jonnie Barrow finds Villeneuve’s latest release a true masterpiece in both performances and intellectual power

Jon Boden at the O2: Painted Lady and other folk

Ben Ray discusses folk music legend Jon Boden's latest album Painted Lady and performance at the O2 Academy

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