It is bourgeois to block your ex.
There is this thing Vladimir Nabokov’s Ada, his longest, most torturous (at least the first 20 pages), and certainly most arduous book to read. In it, Van and Ada, the twin protagonists, two lovers who have been together and separated for over 80 years, share this term for each others’ past flam
In Conversation with the OUDS Committee
Oxford theatre, in its student form, tends to speak about itself the way universities often do—as a community before it is an institution, an open door before it is a structure. It imagines itself as a facilitator of creative freedom rather than a body that governs or regulates. What emerges from
I shaved my moustache in Movember
In the face of an identity crisis, a failed attempt to be Bashar al-Asad for Halloween, motherly disapproval, and being told that ‘bops aren’t for 24-year-olds’, I decided to shave my moustache, hell my entire facial hair, in the middle of Movember. That’s right, I caved. It would b
Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon: A Review
Thomas Pynchon’s history is flat. If anything, historians tend to think the periods of history they study are the turning point; Pynchon does the opposite. His novels are most often historical fiction, but they use history in odd ways. His characters—no matter whether they’re in the 18th centu
I Dated Oxford Men So You Don’t Have To.
Eight weeks into my Oxford term, after enough pints to kill a Victorian child and enough small talk to power a minor political campaign, I have conducted an experiment. A social one. Or maybe just a nosy one. The guiding question: What are Oxford men like? My curiosity stemmed from the susp
Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons: Pre-Show Interview
We sit on yoga mats in Wadham’s Moser Theatre on a rainy Tuesday of Week 0 as I speak to Lighthouse Productions about their debut show, Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons. The play imagines a world in which speech is regulated by law, but it quickly becomes clear that its real concerns are subtler
In Conversation with the EICs
When I meet with Editors-in-Chief Finn Currie and Gruffydd Price to discuss the MT25 issue of The Isis, they arrive in accidentally matching outfits. The pair, who began with opposite visions—Finn, a self-declared maximalist from the fiction team; Gruff, a minimalist with an eye for negative space
Progress in Positano
You might claim that anti-intellectualism is on the rise. You wouldn’t be the first. The assertion that intellectualism—that is, a preference for, and emphasis on, reason and intellect—is under threat has been made many times. Let me give just one example, upon which the above statement is bas
Guillotine: You should keep your unplanned pregnancy and take it to Spoons
In Anglo-American culture, the figure of the mother is entirely inseparable from the image of the martyr. The Good Mother completes her divine Duty. The considerate Mother, who keeps herself indoors with the crying baby, sequesters herself from the world, martyrs herself for the cause of everyone el