Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
Image Description: Corpus Christi students study outside in the Front Quadrangle. This week saw a dramatic announcement by the University of Cambridge. For the next academic year, all lectures will be online. This decision swiftly follows a similar move by Manchester University to shift all next term’s lectures online. Cambridge maintain that physical lectures would […]
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Image Description: U.S Secretary of State John Kerry speaks with Oxford Union President Robert Harris before delivering an address to Union members on 11 May 2016. The Oxford Union has come a long way from the all white, all male debating club that it once was. Now, the Union plays host to a Spotify podcast […]
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Image description: A Canadian anti-lockdown protest The right to protest is a fundamental right which should not be stopped if one does not infringe upon the law. This principle should apply in all circumstances, including that regarding coronavirus. Europe, and the UK in particular, have taken a massive toll from the Covid-19 emergency, and the […]
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Image Description: Books on a shelf about eugenics. Warning: this article refers to content which may be considered disturbing, including incitement to hatred, physical violence, racism, ableism, eugenics, and Nazis. It also discusses trigger warnings, triggering content, prejudice, discrimination, and hate crimes. The most frustrating thing in the debate about the SU motion, and in […]
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I’ve always found the left-wing/right-wing distinction overly reductive. It seems absurd to me to map out an outstandingly wide-ranging set of policies across a one-dimensional axis. How can my views on education, health, foreign policy, ontology and ethics be captured in one category? The corona crisis has made this all the more evident. The unprecedented […]
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Every Thursday at 8pm millions of people take to their front doors to ‘clap for our carers’ and other key workers in an act of symbolism, an act that is supposed to demonstrate the nation’s appreciation of the 7.1 million key workers that are keeping Britain running during the Covid-19 crisis. Although we are ‘not […]
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Image Description: Students playing croquet on the lawn of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Imagine that you have ordered £100 of groceries and only half of the order with some dubious substitutions turns up. Would you still pay the full price of the delivery? Yet still the university asks us to pay full fees for a […]
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Image Description: Students in academic dress outside the Exam Schools, Oxford. The Oxford SU’s recent motion to issue an amendment to make lecture and tutorial content “prejudicial on the grounds of race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, cisgender/transgender status, or socioeconomic background” non-mandatory has sparked much controversy in the press. I have several concerns […]
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Historians, cultural commentators, and sociologists have long wrangled over the extent of secularisation in our society. Does yoga count as a religion? Is listening to Songs of Praise the same as attending church? In reading your horoscope, are you engaging in a new spiritualistic society? Are ‘new age movements’ hippy-dippy rubbish, or truly meaningful? And, […]
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‘Oxbuddy’ aims to connect Oxford students with potential applicants from historically underrepresented schools. Since the launch of the student-led scheme only last week, over 250 student volunteers have signed up. These volunteers will give advice and answer questions from prospective applicants. However, this initiative only highlights the university’s failure to recognise the root of the […]
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Image description: Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman of News Corp, speaking at an event Exiting the Rad Cam for the last time, I found myself lost for words as I passed the librarian behind the counter. After a moment’s hesitation, I uttered a sombre “good luck.” What else could I say? It is not remotely usual […]
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Image Description: View west along part of High Street, Oxford, from the upper deck of a bus outside the Queen’s College. For the first time since The Second World War, Oxford’s students will not be returning to the University for Trinity Term. The consequences of this decision have been widespread and severe in equal measure. […]
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In the perennially wise words of Marge Simpson, it’s very easy to criticise. It’s much harder to come up with a sound policy for mitigating the effects of a coronavirus pandemic on hundreds of different examinations and types of examinations; at a university comprised of nearly 25,000 students of all ages; who study nearly 400 […]
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Image Description: Entrance to the Bodleian Library. Statue of the third Earl of Pembroke. Oxford, UK With a sunny Trinity unexpectedly taken away, I’ve been missing Oxford more than ever. This feeling of absence is expected given the current global pandemic, with the normal lives of students all across the UK being interrupted by the […]
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Image Description: The UCU stop tuition fees march. This academic year has hardly been the best. UCU Strikes disrupted Michaelmas and Hilary, and now Trinity is to be held remotely. It is not a stretch to argue that we have not got what we are paying for. This is what hundreds of thousands of students […]
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Image description: Scrabble pieces spelling out “mental health” Oxford privilege exists. But that doesn’t change the fact that lockdown has played havoc with students’ mental health. Students at Oxford have a lot to be grateful for. We have been able to attend a university that will undoubtedly improve our employability, we have been given some […]
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Image Description: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and officials descending stairs. It’s easy to see a turning point in the coronavirus pandemic. We clap for our carers every week, upbraiding neighbours who fail to appear on their doorsteps at the required hour on a Thursday evening. The government is paying 80 percent of laid-off workers’ […]
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Image Description: soldiers standing in formation wearing medical face masks. From the terrifying images of packed intensive care units in Italy and Spain, or mass graves in the United States, it is clear that coronavirus has dealt a heavy blow to the world. In China, where people were already celebrating an apparent return to their […]
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Image description: Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Prime Minister Boris Johnson clapping outside 10 Downing Street It has become something of a trend to compare the COVID-19 crisis to war, with Donald Trump labelling himself “a wartime president”, Emmanuel Macron telling the French people: “nous sommes en guerre”, and New York governor Andrew Cuomo referring to […]
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