Happy New Year and Upcoming Events

Hello all, and Happy New Year!

The start of 2012 sees the return of those cherished fixtures in the EGO calendar – the weekly bar nights on Wednesdays, and the free lunch on Thursdays. Below is the list of College bars we’ll be visiting this term, starting with the tried, trusted and very fine New College bar this Wednesday 18 January. We’ll be there from 8pm, so hope you’ll join us!

See you all soon,

Kevin & Rosie, EGO Social Secretaries

Upcoming EGO Graduate Drink Nights:

Week 1 - New
Week 2 - St Anne’s
Week 3 – Balliol MCR
Week 4 - Linacre
Week 5 - St Cross
Week 6 – Keble
Week 7 - Corpus Christi
Week 8 - Somerville

EGO Drinks at The King’s Arms

Contrary to earlier announcements, this evening’s EGO drinks (Wednesday, November 30th) will be taking place in the King’s Arms from 8pm, not in the Wadham College bar. Please do join us there to toast the official end of term and reflect on how much longer it’ll be before we all stop working and go home. We’re sorry to break with our established pattern of College bar visits but (a) we think EGO is ready, collectively, to engage with a wider public, and (b) you can get popcorn in the King’s Arms. So, we’ll be there from 8, hope you can join us.

Also, Thursday, December 1st at 1pm is the last EGO lunch of term. The table in the GCR will be groaning under the weight of festive fare – please do come and fill your boots.

Very much looking forward to seeing you all to eat, drink and be in merry mood together.

This Week’s Recommended Events

From Rosie Lavan and Kevin Brazil, EGO Social Secretaries

Exciting EGO things are afoot to see you through the cold dark days: last drinks of the term on Wednesday, last lunch of the term in the GCR on Thursday, and the Christmas Party is drawing ever closer. There’ll be more news about all this from us very soon, and in the meantime the weekly round-up of events is below.

Looking forward to seeing you all soon!

Heritage and Lessons – lecture by Norman Foster, Humanitas Visiting Professor in Architecture. Monday 28 November, 6pm – 7.30pm, Said Business School, free

Gender in Fourteenth-Century Song - Seminar in Late Medieval and Renaissance Music, Thursday 1 December, 5pm, Wharton Room, All Souls

Oxford Christmas Light Night – all sorts going on across the city including at the Ashmolean, Old Fire Station and Turl Street Kitchen for the switching on of the Christmas lights on Friday 2 December

And in London…

Two Hamlets – Michael Sheen as Hamlet at the Young Vic, and Hamlet by Berlin-based company Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz at the Barbican

Faber Poets Christmas Evening at Foyle’s bookshop, Wednesday 14 December, with readings by Daljit Nagra, Jo Shapcott, Lavinia Greenlaw and Chris Reid. Free, but advance registration required online.

EGO Christmas Party and This Week’s Events

From Rosie Lavan and Kevin Brazil, EGO Social Secretaries

It’s 7th week and you’re working hard but things are looking up and looking sparkly because the usual list of events you might be interested in is prefaced this week by some VERY EXCITING NEWS – namely that the time and place for this year’s EGO Christmas Party are now set:

When: Thursday 8 December, St John’s College MCR***

All the specifics will follow in due course, but you can be sure that there will be both mulled wine and fun to be had. Also, we are already taking requests for the Christmas jukebox: email us details of your favourite Christmas songs and we will promise to make at least some of your wishes come true.

In other news, this week’s interesting events are below, and we hope you’ll join us for EGO drinks at Exeter College bar this Wednesday from 8pm.

Looking forward to seeing you all soon, and festively.

In Oxford this week:

Marx and Lincoln, Robin Blackburn (Essex) – History of Political Thought Research Seminar, Tuesday 22 November, 5pm. Swire Room, University College. 

Caligula - a new translation of Camus’s play. Late show at the BT, Tuesday 22 to Saturday 26 November.

The White Review at the Albion Beatnik bookshop, Wednesday 23 November, 7.30, free entry. Ben Eastham and Jacques Testard, editors of the quarterly journal, will present the latest issue. Booker-longlisted and Costa-shortlisted author and St Anne’s fellow Patrick McGuinness, BBC National Short Story award-shortlisted writer K J Orr and Not The Booker 2010 winner Lee Rourke will read poetry and fiction.

Paul Nash in Pictures - James Russell will give an illustrated talk on his new book about the artist. Thursday 24 November, 7pm, Blackwell’s. Tickets £2.

And in London:

Universities Under Attack - Speakers including Stefan Collini and Helena Kennedy QC will discuss the state of higher education. Sponsored by the LRB and NYRB, and the Oxford Magazine. Saturday 26 November, King’s College London. Free and open to all, but reservation required. Full details here.

Recommended Events This Week

From Rosie Lavan and Kevin Brazil, EGO Social Secretaries

Hello to all! We very much enjoyed Wednesday graduate drinks at Jesus College and hope you did too - next up for EGO drinks this week is Mansfield bar: we’ll be sending details and a reminder on the day over e-mail. In the meantime here’s the usual list of things you might like to see and do.

See you all soon,
Kevin & Rosie

This one you don’t even have to move for: work your way through the pick of the Guardian and Observer’s recent Books Season.

Stand-up at the Wheatsheaf’s Big Fat Sketch Night featuring Rory & Tim and other Oxford acts, jokes about literature promised. Tuesday 15 November.

Reading Room at Modern Art Oxford: drawing on literature, art criticism and philosophy to encourage debate and reflection on current exhibitions. This month - John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces chosen by exhibiting artist Abraham Cruzvillegas. Thursday 17 November, 6-8pm. Full details of how to book and what to read here.

And in London…

Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination – major exhibition at the British Library of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts owned and annotated by British monarchs. Full details here.

Adam Phillips – psychoanalyst, writer and editor of the Penguin Freud – will discuss his literary influences with Joan Bakewell in the Cosmo Davenport-Hines Memorial Meeting for the Royal Society of Literature, Monday 21 November, King’s College London, 7pm. Tickets for non-RSL members on the door – Full details here.

This Friday: 5th Week Welfare Tea

From Eloise Stonborough, Welfare Officer

Let’s celebrate surviving Fifth Week (and its associated ‘blues’) through the medium of delicious foodstuffs.

An opportunity to chat, gossip, rant or just sit companionably in silence with your fellow grads. For the Masters’ students, a chance to get pre-C course essay worries off your chest; for PRS-ers, a welcome opportunity to share the woes of referencing software; for all those further on in their time, well, I hope an excuse to leave the library is reward enough (warning: you may be asked to impart hard-earned wisdom).

Get out of the cold, put your feet up on the lovely GCR sofas (I jest, I jest) and relax a bit before the last weeks of term kick in. Tea, coffee, and cake for all! (Some will be provided but feel free to bring your own– bought or made– to add to the delights on offer.)

When and Where: Friday, November 11th, Graduate Common Room, English Faculty, 3:30 pm.

Please come, and if I have accidentally organised this to clash with a major event please contact me and I will try to change it/offer biscuit-based pidge-delivered substitutes.

Much love and library sympathy,
Your Welfare Officer,
Eloise

This Week’s Recommended Events

Here is our weekly round-up of forthcoming events, with a special mention for Clytemnestra, this year’s Oxford Greek Play. It’s on in week 6, and Lizzie Sandis, an English DPhil student, is the executive producer. It’s an Oxford institution that only comes round once every three years, and an extensive programme of free events and lectures has been organised to run alongside it. Full details of everything below – student discounts are available on tickets, but book soon: it’s expected to be sold out by next Monday…

EGO drinks, week 5: This week we’ll be at Jesus for EGO drinks – we’ll send out a reminder on Wednesday morning.

The Oxford Greek Play 2011, Wednesday 16 to Saturday 19 November (6th week): Clytemnestra, a new translation of Aeschylus’s Libation Bearers by Arabella Currie and aided by Tom Paulin. The production incorporates a modern score as well as influences of Japanese Noh theatre. Information about the play and the cast, as well as discount tickets for students, can be found at www.ogp2011.com.

An extensive programme of lectures and educational events are accompanying the play, ranging from Greek religion to the history of the Oxford Greek play and cast Q&A sessions. The full programme is online at www.ogp2011.com/education/education-timetable/. All the events are free but some require advance booking.

Also coming up:

Cuppers, Tuesday 8 to Saturday 12 November: Another Oxford theatrical institution. Competition runs at the Burton Taylor with plays throughout the week, see the Facebook page or the OUDS website for full listings.

Meera Syal, inaugural lecture as Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Theatre, Bernard Sunley Theatre, St Catherine’s, Monday 14 November, 5pm. Register in advance by emailing nathan.jones@stcatz.ox.ac.uk.

And in London:

Charles Dickens, Life & Legacy, National Portrait Gallery: a display of prints, drawings and photographs to mark the bicentenary of Dickens’s birth. Free, and on until 22 April. Full details here.

Ghost stories at the Horse Hospital: Syd Moore will read from her debut novel, The Drowning Pool, which explores a 19th century witch hunt. Part of the Plectrum Cultural Pick evening on 17 November; full details here.

What’s On This Week

Thank you to everybody who made it up to St Anne’s for a drink last Wednesday for our weekly English graduates’ pub night. It was brilliant to see so many people there. This Wednesday: Balliol MCR, details to follow very soon.

In the meantime here are a few things coming up which might interest you, including plans for a theatre trip this week, if you’re feeling Brechtian.

EGO TRIP: THE CAUCASION CHALK CIRCLE, THIS WEEK AT THE BT
We’re going to see this on Thursday night – if you fancy it too book soon (tickets are going fast) and let us know you’re coming! Details and tickets here.

Also coming up in Oxford:

• The Syme Lecture 2011 - Professor Denis Feeney, Princeton: ‘The Contact Zone: The Creation of a Roman Literature’. Wolfson College, Thursday 3 November, 6pm. Full details here.
• Cristian Aliaga: ‘Your Virtues Are Your Faults – Tus virtudes son tus defectos’. An exploration of poetry, translation and the visual arts at St John’s with Cristian Aliaga, a poet, journalist and academic based in Patagonia. Exhibition of poem-art posters Monday 31 October to Friday 4 November; bilingual poetry reading by Cristian Aliaga (in Spanish and English) at 5.30pm on Thursday 3 November. Full details here.
• Earthquakes in London: the National Theatre production at the Oxford Playhouse, 1 to 5 November, full details here.

And if you’re in London, so are they:
US Poet Laureates Robert Hass and Kay Ryan at Kings Place, Kings Cross, on Monday 7 November, 7pm.
Further details and tickets here.

This Week’s Suggested Activities

Here’s our roundup of suggested outings for the coming week:

In Oxford

Children of Oedipus, O’Reilly Theatre, Keble, Wedneday 26 – Saturday 29 October: a new version of Euripides’ least-known play by Arabella Currie. Full details here.

The Body Adorned – To the Divine through Beauty, Taylor Institution, St Giles, Tuesday 8 November, 5-6pm. In the William Cohn Memorial Lecture, Vidya Dehejia of Columbia will explore the human form in the Indian artistic tradition. Free, but booking essential. Full details here.

And in London…

A lecture at the Institute of English Studies: ‘Prometheus²: The Two Shelley’s and Romantic Science’ by Professor Richard Holmes, OBE, Thursday 27 October. Free; details on registration here.

Paul Muldoon at the LRB bookshop, Wednesday 2 November, full details here. 

Writing Photography with Dr Annebella Pollen: Here Comes Everybody? Mass-Participation Photography, 15 November, Photographer’s Gallery, London. Full details here.

EGO Social Events to Come: Mark Your Calendars!

Our esteemed new Social Secretaries Kevin Brazil and Rosie Lavan have put together an exciting social programme for the Michaelmas term. In the spirit of working hard and playing hard, be sure to reserve time in your busy schedules to attend some of these, and commiserate with your fellow graduates. If you have any queries concerning these events, please write directly to Rosie or Kevin.

Weekly Pub Nights

First, the college bars we plan to visit for our weekly pub nights, happening every Wednesday starting from week 2 at the following locations below.  We hope to see as many of you as possible there for a relaxing pint or two:

(MT2) Wed October 19th: New College Bar

(MT3) Wed October 26th: St Anne’s Bar

(MT3) Wed Nov 2nd: Balliol Grad Bar

(MT4) Wed Nov 9th: Jesus College Bar

(MT5) Wed Nov 16th: Mansfield College Bar

(MT6) Wed Nov 23rd: Exeter College Bar

(MT7) Wed Nov 30th: Wadham College Bar

(MT8) Wed December 7th: Hertford College Bar

We’ll send out a reminder on Wednesday, and we’ll tell the porters at each College lodge to direct you straight to the bar.

EGO Trips 

Marat/Sade, Saturday 29 October 2011

As we mentioned on Thursday, we’d love to organise trips to various plays, events and exhibitions which we think might be of interest to you all. We’ll aim to do this twice a term, and we’re planning the first trip for Saturday 29 October (3rd week) to see Marat/Sade at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon – we hope you’ll join us!

This RSC production is a new verse adaptation of Peter Weiss’s play by Adrian Mitchell. In post-revolutionary France, the inmates of an asylum present a play about the murder of Jean-Paul Marat under the direction of the notorious Marquis de Sade. As the director of the asylum and his family sit down expecting to see a patriotic display, they are confronted with a performance that is unruly, shocking and outspoken. Full details and a trailer on the RSC website.

Tickets: We’re planning to go to the matinee performance at 1.15pm on Saturday 29 October. To avoid difficulties with payment, we suggest everybody books their own ticket online at http://www.rsc.org.uk/buy-tickets/marat-sade/. There are a range of seats and prices still available – from roughly £13 to £46 – but they’re selling out fast.

Travel between Stratford and Oxford: is easy! The best way is by train: there’s a 9.07am train on Saturday morning from Oxford which gets into Stratford at 10.43, so you’ll have some time to wander round the town before the play. Coming home there’s a train at 5.40pm which gets in at 7.14pm. Currently a return is £10.45 with a Young Persons Railcard, or £15.80 without. Book online at http://www.thetrainline.com/buytickets/.

If you’d rather not leave so early, there’s a National Express bus from Gloucester Green at 10.55am bus which gets to Stratford at 12pm. A single is £7, but you’d probably have to come back on the train – there’s only one bus back to Oxford on a Saturday which leaves at 4pm (too early for us playgoers). Bus info at http://www.nationalexpress.com/coach/index.cfm. Hope all this makes sense – but do let us know if not!

BOOK SOON! Tickets for the play are going fast, and travel will be cheaper the further in advance you book. And once you have booked, email and let us know! Then we can meet at the station or in Stratford, and gather for an pre, interval or post-show drink.

London Trip: V&A and National Portrait Gallery

For the second EGO trip later this term we’re planning to visit London on Saturday 19 November (6th week) and take in both the National Portrait Gallery’s First Actresses exhibition, and the V&A’s Postmodernism exhibition – more details very soon.

In the meantime, we hope you’ll come to Marat/Sade – the RSC promises it will be bold, unruly, and explicit, and we promise that the company will be excellent…