Venturing into the world of Arabian jazz: In conversation with Shirley Smart
On a Mad Hatter jazz night like no other, I was immersed into the eclectic sound world of cellist Shirley Smart. One of the UK’s most innovative cellists, in her reverberant embrace of strings, she weaves a symphony that transcends genres, seamlessly fusing the elegant precision of classical techn
The best lectures I have been to: An Interview with Amia Srinivasan
Pin-drop silence is not an easy feat in an Exam School room filled to over twice its capacity, but it is achieved weekly at Amia Srinivasan’s ‘Feminist Theory’ lectures. Necks crane, coughing is held back in throats, and an hour of cross-legged devotion promises to test hip strength. It is n
The Beginning of a Name
So what if a name is a betrayal of eyes? How the vowel catches fire in the threat of tongue but refuses to die. Every morning begins with revolution: a boy learns all the ways a body can break into truth. & that is to say, a boy learns to love. To stand in a […]
The Farce of By-Elections
It’s been quite a year for by-elections. Last month there was double trouble, with Nadine Dorries and Chris Pincher both being thrown out of their seats in a single day. In July there was triple trouble, with three by-elections in one day, including the final exit of Boris Johnson. In all, at the
And To Dust You Shall Return
My class has a test on Thursday, but today is Wednesday, and I am sitting in the Lady Chapel, and thinking sinful thoughts, and listening to a man who is brought in twice a term to say Mass (apparently God isn’t keen on women speaking in His house), and I am quietly memorising my index […]
Paper Paraphernalia: What we can learn about Oxford from the way we use noticeboards
While the listed sandstone persists, the student communities that animate Oxford’s city centre come and go with what — when compared with the lifespans of the buildings they’re surrounded by — seems like a dizzying speed. As students, we come to Oxford with the intention of being shaped by o
Is Caroline Calloway a Scammer?
Our relationship ended the way it was always going to end: influencer/memoirist Caroline Calloway ignored my follow-up texts asking for an interview. But before the dream died, she sent The Isis her book. This slim memoir, Scammer, is composed of 67 chapters, most not longer than two pages. She desc
Icon of the Week: Carl Smithson
Flora Bigham speaks to the manager of Truck Records in Cowley, Carl Smithson, about the local music scene, the vinyl revival, and the store’s role in building a community around music in Oxford. How did you get to this position of running the store? Our parent company, Rapture opened up a shop
