The Politics of Space in Oxford
It is perhaps not a surprising statistic – Oxford is the UK’s most expensive city to live in, with an acute lack of affordable and social housing. Over thirty people have died sleeping rough on its streets over the past five years. And the social and economic inequalities in the city are mor
A Lesson in Simplification
As a regular Twitter user, my timeline is an erratic blend of breaking news and memes. For better or for worse, the intense flurry of tweets that accompanies any news updates has become one of my main sources of information. On 5 August, before news outlets had begun to report on the Kashmir lockdow
Too Close for Comfort
On 19 June 2019, Oxford University Vice-Chancellor Louise Richardson appeared on the Today Programme to proclaim “as good news a story as you are likely to find in a long time.” Earlier that day, Oxford had announced the construction of a new humanities building funded by an “unprecedented”,
Mother Tongue
flight after flight after flightmy tongue becomes adjustedto the different cultures: taste,language, kisses; but it mistrusts me the third time I leave home. “What is your mother tongue?”mine earnestly protests. pulled in one, two, three directions, it seems to cry: I have none.an orphaned tongu
WEEKLY ROUNDUP: KASHMIR CONTINUES, BEN STOKES SHINES, PROTESTS, AND MORE.
Kashmir Continues Over twenty-five days have passed since the Indian government began its lockdown on Indian-administered Kashmir. News is slowly emerging from the area, where a communications blackout means information has been hard to get. A recent BBC News report revealed that several Kashmiri vi
Tilting Nights
Sometimes she would stand, hands folded, resting her gaze by the window. She would wait until lights fell flat for laughter on the streets for bodies following faces as words trail slowing feet. She watched the tiny worlds between floating hands as fingers parted ways and how sometimes rain grazed o
Fifty Years On From Stonewall
On a hot night in 1969, eighteen-year-old drag queen Martin Boyce saw a high heel-clad, nylon-wrapped leg shoot out of the back of a police van towards a member of the NYPD’s Public Morals Squad, hitting him squarely in the chest and throwing him backwards. This is one of many stories from the Sto
Mal de Barquement
Wow, I’ve been on the river a lot. Still rocking despite dry land for hours. Back and forth, back and forth and forth and round and up and up. Up to where? I’m greeted by three towering silhouettes. They leer, gnash their teeth and creep their fingers around my face until their fingertips taste
Eden
alone with each other in a rain cloud drops fall in random formations like stars as they drift in the unarranged heaven so near to us – the empty weight of space bends everything towards you as you smile and mention my eyes i don’t remember yours so look again caught in a fragmented atomic [&hel