Inventing the Aesthetics of Trans-Femininity

by Miriam L. Mason | July 25, 2024

At some point during my first semester of college, I found myself naked in another girl’s room. I was a newly out trans fem trying on her old clothes, desperate for anything feminine to wear. The third or fourth time this happened (call me a heartbreaker), I picked up a slip of fabric with a […]

Why should we assimilate?

by Julia Szypula | July 5, 2024

‘You don’t belong here.’ The painfully familiar words seem to apply even more to Eastern European students than your average imposter syndrome sufferer. But why would that be the case when first generation families have been present in the UK since the 1920s, running away from war, socialism, or the slowly growing economy following our […]

Equus: Talking to director Marianne Nossair

by Treya Agarwal | June 18, 2024

Bestiality. Making out with horses. Sweaty, sexual intercourse fantasies atop their backs. Dreams, nightmares, and the sacred deification of them. Not exactly what I was expecting from my Saturday afternoon; but instead of being horrified or repulsed, I came out of Equus strangely sympathetic towards the tortured protagonist, Alan Strang, and his desires.   Equus […]

Rulers Without Robes

by Anna Couzens | April 16, 2024

The recent BBC drama Marie Antoinette is an uncomfortable series to watch. The combination of off-tune music, flaking powdered faces, and menacing whispers reveals the truth which lurks behind the beautiful Versailles backdrop: it is a cage, rather than a palace, for the 14-year-old Austrian princess. In one particularly disquieting scene, the future Louis XVI […]

All That’s Left

by Keng Yu Lai | July 17, 2024

  After Liberty Brignall  She fills the Emma Bridgewater mug with hot water—her daily cup of English breakfast tea, with more than a splash of milk. The mug has a permanent home on her desk, its polka dots striking as ever—red, yellow, green and the blueish purplish grey—which was it? They could never quite decide. […]