Author: Ilana Masad

There was this American kid called Davey who started a band with his buddies back in 1991. They played their first concert in their high school quad in their small California town. They had a song called ‘Mini Trucks Suck’. Fast-forward 22 years, and Davey Havok is still the lead singer and front man of […]

    A country house in winter is something which brings to mind a rather romantic picture. But the glittering frosts always come later than expected, and are always accompanied with such an unanticipated, biting bitterness from the cold that the crystals fade half-forgotten on the dull brown leaves.      The cold inside the house staunches […]

Pottery is perhaps the most durable form of art – our oldest record of long lost cultures – it comes from the earth and it’s here to stay. So argues Margaret O’Rourke – organiser behind the confluence of the Craft Potters Association, the Ashmolean and Oxford Ceramics. March 2nd, the opening day of Clay Live, […]

The Wadham College Student Union has passed an unopposed motion obliging current President Jahnavi Emmanuel, and all future SU presidents, to wear a onesie to, from and during meetings. Specific rules also stipulate that a different onesie must be worn to every meeting, and that an accompanier, also known as a “onesie guard,” can be […]

Teddy Hall this week declared that bare breasts had no place in their JCR, after passing a JCR motion to cancel their subscription to The Sun. Voting in favour of the nationwide ‘No More Page 3’ campaign, the College resolved to boycott the paper until the feature is discontinued. 120 people are estimated to have […]

Corpus JCR passed a motion this Sunday to mandate a college-wide competitive blanket fort fundraiser. In return for an entry fee, which will be donated to charity, students will compete to construct forts made from pillows and/or blankets. The winning entry will be give either a bottle of wine or a printed cushion. Amber Barton, […]

Tata’s expression as she looked into her vanity mirror was one of academic scrutiny.  She had decided not to wear the plastic tiara with glittery rhinestone hearts, opting for a more subdued purple feather boa that looked marvellous against her platinum wig.  Some fine lines around the eyes, perhaps, and hands rather wrinkled from excessive […]

Paper Darts is a not-for-profit online magazine devoted to new art and literature. It is also a publishing agency and, in the website’s own words, a community. Thus far, four print issues – the latest comprising a glorious 96 pages – have been released (and they’re really pretty, check it out at paperdarts.bigcartel.com). Online content […]

“Creativity is the residue of wasted time.” -Albert Einstein   The Arts & Lit section is accepting submissions of short works of fiction (500-600 words). Pieces can be self-contained excerpts, descriptions, or stories – anything that you classify as fiction rather than poetry, non-fiction or script. Email culture@oxfordstudent.com with the word “Fiction” in the subject […]

Reaching one arm from the bathroom window, Mary watches snowflakes lighting on the fine, raised hairs of her skin: they perch for a moment in perilous, lacy wetness before retracting into even more miniscule droplets. The fan rasps its endless breath. Last night, with the shape of her own breath above her in the silent […]

The hardest part of walking through the Hayward’s latest exhibition is reading the labels. After-images dance across your eyes, filling your vision with light and colour even as you turn from the luminescent works on display. This is one of the most spectacular visual experiences I’ve sampled in years. Prepare to be bombarded by strobes, […]

Pride and Prejudice is a 19th century classic. It conjures images of young ladies in unflatteringly high-waisted full-length dresses, drawn out conversations through long dances, and the handsome face of a certain Mr Darcy. Committed fans can debate for hours over the superiority of either the BBC or the Keira Knightley adaptation but in either […]

On Wednesday evening last week, I decided to do something brave. I went to a poetry reading. Attending poetry readings does inevitably feel brave (people are often very honest, and that can be unnerving), but that courage can pay off. This wasn’t just any reading: Wednesday, 6th February was the launch of the Oxford Poetry […]

Groping around in the dark, I’ve banged into a work of art again. To be fair, the work is all around me. It lies on the ground and creeps towards the walls, a giant complex of iron crates, but ever so slightly human. Not least because a dozen of us are inside it. This is […]

The Oxford Student looks at Paula Byrne’s new biography of Jane Austen A canny business-woman who loved sex jokes, despised the French and was related to the notorious Lord Byron – this Jane Austen does not square easily with the bonneted vision of domestic harmony that the onslaught of period drama has lead us to believe […]

Love him or loathe him, Joey Barton says some extraordinary things. Aside from the bizarre twitter tirade last week against the  “97 per cent” of the population whom he defines as “stupider” than him, he lampoons those who “decide their to lazy [sic] to work”. And, two days before that, was involved in an online […]

On 31st January, Thursday evening, the Oxford Poetry Society – soon to be, by permission of proctors and paperwork, the Oxford University Poetry Society once again – had its first open mic night of Hilary Term. The event, scheduled to begin at 8pm, filled up rapidly until soon it was standing-room only in The Duke […]

“Sorry. Stinky, get down. He’s got this chemical stuff all over him, you know, the flea stuff. Look, I’m sorry.” The paws receded. The little dog’s wet, searching muzzle let out a puff of warm air on my hand with the shock of being yanked backwards off my lap. His owner, a skinny woman with […]

A gripping (and free) exhibition at MOA. She’s Sorry for the Metaphor. But you really had to be there. Indeed, the vibrant, eclectic and electric work of Amalia Pica is hard to describe without analogy. Even in person her playful objects keep the viewer, teasingly, at a distance. As you enter Modern Art Oxford a […]