Oxford University
Even as literate adults, we need to learn how to read
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst shows us the rewards of reading slowly and attentively – and making connections between seemingly disparate things
George Abaraonye deserves his downfall
Contrary to what I had expected, the Oxford Union president-elect, George Abaraonye, lost his vote of no confidence by a…
The triumph of classical architecture
It is very hard to imagine the University of Oxford ever constructing a modernist building again. This is the significance…
Learning to speak Latin and Ancient Greek can save civilisation
Finally, some good news from Oxford. The university has recently been through a gloomy patch. It slipped from the top…
Letters: French universities still offer a proper education
Unhappy Union Sir: John Power is correct about George Abaraonye, the president-elect of the Oxford Union (‘Violent opposition’, 20 September).…
The failure of Britain’s elite universities
Politicians, authors, priests and the occasional Spectator editor have all served as the Oxford Union’s president over its 200-year history.…
The Oxford Union’s lynch-mob mentality
The case of George Abaraonye, the incoming Oxford Union president who rejoiced in the assassination of Charlie Kirk, has provoked…
Bring on the robot-run railways!
I awoke on Sunday to what felt like a Brave New World moment: Radio 4’s news-reader reciting an unedited Downing…
A small world: Shibboleth, by Thomas Peermohamed Lambert, reviewed
A satire on Oxford university life points up ideological tensions, the pettiness of college politics and the patronising ways of the young and privileged
The BBC’s Israel problem
Intrepidly, the BBC dared recently to visit Dover, Delaware – source, it implied, of starvation in Gaza. I listened carefully…
‘Sitting the 11-plus was the most momentous event of my life’ – Geoff Dyer
‘Everything else that has happened couldn’t have happened were it not for that’, says Dyer, in a funny, moving account of growing up in postwar England
Studying Dickens at university was once considered demeaning. Now it’s too demanding
Accessible, ‘relevant’ short stories are increasingly replacing the classics, as the monuments of Victorian literature defeat today’s undergraduates
In the footsteps of Cecil Rhodes
In a scrubby paddock on the edge of Bulawayo, I walked up to a half-broken leatherwood tree growing in a…
My bid to be chancellor of Oxford
I have spent the past couple of weeks in Oxford rediscovering the art of conversation while campaigning for election as…
Inside the race for the Chancellor of Oxford
What do we mean these days when we talk about the British ‘establishment’? When Henry Fairlie coined the term in…
Familiar scenarios: Our Evenings, by Alan Hollinghurst, reviewed
There’s a certain pattern to an Alan Hollinghurst novel. A young gay man goes to Oxford. He’s middle class and…
Things can always get worse for the Tories
Before migrating to Wiltshire where I will be for August, I had a friendly dinner with a clutch of Conservative…
What will we do when all our jobs are done for us?
The philosopher Nick Bostrom speculates imaginatively about the travails of extreme leisure, but we don’t get any guru-like nuggets
Disgusted of academia: a university lecturer bewails his lot
The anonymous professor rails against politicians, administrators, colleagues and students who consistently fall short of his ethical and intellectual standards
Could J.K. Rowling be Oxford’s next chancellor?
Among my generation of Oxford graduates – late fifties, early sixties – there is currently a great deal of talk…
Work, walk, meditate: Practice, by Rosalind Brown, reviewed
An Oxford undergraduate makes a detailed plan for getting the most out of a quiet Sunday in January, but soon starts musing on what it feels like to be distracted
Do Oxford students really need trigger warnings?
It is freshers’ week on campus. Brand new students get to make friends, get drunk and find their way around…
Man of vision
‘Our generation owes an apology to the shades of Harold Wilson,’ the polling guru Peter Kellner once told me. Had…
Can Oxford’s new Vice-Chancellor fix the university?
There’s a new Vice-Chancellor taking over at Oxford later this year. She’s Irene Tracey, warden of Merton College, and an…
Does the Bodleian really need a race adviser?
It’s a difficult time for libraries. Budget cutbacks, online competitors and rival forms of media all point to a grim…
