Verities of Oxford

Of the many verities of living in Oxford, there are few more personally fulfilling than those of the intellectual kind. Public lectures from a variety of academic disciplines and fields are frequent, debates are somewhat common and there are a great amount of societies and clubs meeting that seem to cover the most specialised of interests.

A miscellaneous shot of Oxford to set the scene. For those interested this is the one of the rather fine reading rooms available to University of Oxford students - the Radcliffe Camera.

See debates do occur in Oxford. This one was held at the recent Oxford Literary Festival and featured Professors Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath. Dawkins has struck a note of both infamy and fame (depending on who one asks) with the direction of his latest book, The God Delusion. Alister McGrath (Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford) having recently written and published a response to Dawkins (The Dawkins Delusion ?) had agreed to meet Dawkins in debate at the festival. Needless to say - I attended.

A bit of book signing afterwards, McGrath is the foreground, Dawkins in the background. I thought it would only be fair and generous to buy a book from each and have them signed.

For myself I have joined up with some few of these that seemed either fun or interesting. On the fun side (though some of you may disagree) I have become involved with two rather, it must be said, Geeky activities. Yes I must admit to having joined the University of Oxford's strategy boardgames club (called the Diplomacy Society) and, in the true heights of nerd-dom, an RPG (Role Playing Game) club. I now have a character named Caw and we are currently seeking to overthrow the heinous king of our people - Ozdan. The game is called Slaine, it is set in a type of alternate version of prehistoric Celtic Britain, and it features lots of well muscled hero types who like to go around hurting things - lots of fun!

The Diplomacy Society meets here at The Royal Oak every Sunday. They also have a whole room set aside in the Denys Wilkinson Building containing a multitude of boardgames built up over its 15 odd years of history - Thursday night meetings happen there.

On the slightly more intellectual side of things in life I have linked in my mojo with The C.S. Lewis Society, the Knotty Theology Group (of the University Church of Oxford) and finally, but not least, The Graduate Society. During term time at the University of Oxford that's alternate Monday's, Tuesday's and Friday's taken up. As an example of what this can entail, the C.S. Lewis society meets to discuss all things C.S. Lewis (but of course). Each week (on a Tuesday night) a guest speaker (often an academic from Oxford or Cambridge) makes his or her way to Pusey House (at St Giles near the city centre) to give a talk on an aspect of research or scholarship being conducted into the life, works and attributions of the great man. Afterwards the discussions begin aplenty, which means that I get the chance to have some most enjoyable and intellectually stimulating conversations - ah the joys.

The University Church of Oxford where I sometimes attend High Mass. The Knotty Theology group springs from here. As can be guessed from the group's name, we like to discuss theological issues of varying complexity.

Joining the C.S. Lewis Society is not for the faint-hearted, it makes Phillip Pullman really really angry with you. Actually no, he's a rather nice chap in person - I met him recently at the Oxford Literary Festival.

A broader spectrum of scholarly and general academic work and development comes to the fore for me at general lectures held around Oxford and in weekly meetings of the Graduate Society. The Graduate Society is designed to keep up the principle of "life-long learning" and perhaps Plato’s notion of the dialectic, where ideally knowledge and learning come from progressive dialogue from speakers from a variety of different philosophical perspectives. Well perhaps not always, but the attempt is appreciated. It provides a good model for post-tertiary education in any case and the speakers are truly diverse - African colonisation one week, the history of Oxford cananls the next.

I have of course already mentioned the recent Oxford Literary Festival. Here, I not only managed to meet and talk with the aforementioned Dawkins, McGrath and Pullman, but also a good variety of other authors, journalists and academics. These included the ever delightful Religious scholar Karen Armstrong (I have been reading her works for years - so an enjoyable moment), historian John Man, Egyptologist Ian Shaw (from the University of Liverpool), Philosopher Tom Pink (talking on on the concept of free will), the amazingly funny and witty Tony Benn (to say that he is a former labour politician cannot begin to describe him) and the equally funny, but also harsh and angry Christopher Hitchens.

Hmmm, I do love Oxford...


Planning/Doing:

Have just spent the weekend with some relatives down in Bournemouth on the south coast of England. I will be going to Spain next week - mainly Madrid and environs - for a week 1/2 holiday.

Reading:

Currently reading Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton.

Watching:

Rome, Battlestar Galactica, The Brittas Empire and Lexx.