IOTW: Calliope, Oxford’s eldest daughter
Art historian John Rolfe was walking down an eerily quiet Broad Street in 2020 when he looked up and saw something peculiar: a crumbling Muse, or rather the ghost of one, teetering atop the Clarendon Building at the corner of Broad and Catte Street. The Clarendon is one of those Oxford buildi
Do not miss A View From the Bridge
When historians, whether AI-generated or human, look back on our time, what will be the singular issue they pick out as having defined this particular era? Perhaps such attempts at a grand theory will be viewed as even more futile then than they already are today. Grand theories may be futile in his
The problem with a democratic system of culture
Decentralisation has long been an ally of democracy, divesting powerful elites and institutions to confer autonomy and opportunity to the common man. In the UK, we have never been freer, never more decentralised. We often think about this in terms of economic or political power. However, technologic
Letter to the Editor: Part of the solution
To the Editor, How refreshing to be seen! Many-a-time I have been accused of performative reading. Occasionally, I carry a novel in my back-pocket. This seems to provoke especially vehement allegations of performativity…but isn’t that the point of a paperback? One day stands out in partic
Letter to the Editor: Performance as survival
To the Editor, Ms Hagen is right: men should read without ridicule, resist anti-intellectualism, schlep tote bags stuffed with feminist literature while listening to Clairo. I agree, in the face of a rise in conservative views about gender roles, it is crucial to bridge the gap between
Icon of the Week: Ruby Duncan
For Ruby Duncan, art is not just a reflection of the world but a means of interrogating it. She speaks about curation as a place where the act of being seen is never neutral. In Ruby’s hands, exhibitions are not simply collections of work but acts of revision exposing what official histories omit.
TW: Genocide
In times of conflict, the images that reach us don’t just inform us, but play a vital role in deciding who, and what, the world chooses to remember. During the Vietnam War, widespread access to television sets brought the scenes of violence into American living rooms, eroding support for the c
‘What the fuck are they feeding you guys?!’: on the persistence of creativity in a digitally entrenched generation
For a platform so routinely cast as the emblem of cultural decline, accused of eroding attention spans, diluting originality, and trapping us within an endless scroll, TikTok has unexpectedly presented us with a startling contradiction — becoming a fertile ground for one of the most radical creati
Letter to the Editor: This scene kicks and screams
To the Editor, It’s around 8:30pm, and I’m backstage at the JdP music building at St Hilda’s. I’m sweaty, and I can barely walk in the tight dress I chose completely of my own volition. The second half of the concert is about to start, and as is typical of me, I’m not sure […