The skull-numbing alarm rang out in the darkness. I fumbled for my phone: 8.21am. The rain pattered against my accommodation window, and I could hear gusts of wind blowing outside. It would be a soggy walk to my 9am lectures, and a cold one at that. It was peak January. Swiping snooze, I lay in bed, wishing very hard I could hibernate.

The high point of winter is always Christmas. The preceding three or four weeks are filled with Christmas markets, mulled wine, and mince pies. And then it crashes. Following New Year’s Day, there is not a hint of winter festivity in sight, while freezing weather stubbornly remains for the next two months. Is it any surprise that up to 10% of people living in the UK experience winter seasonal affective disorder (SAD)?

Indeed, SAD is a recognised mental health condition, defined by experiencing depressive episodes during certain seasons of the year. However, although winter depression is 30 times more common than summer depression, it is important to acknowledge that SAD is not confined to winter months. SAD is typically characterised by persistent feelings of sadness and emptiness. In the winter, it can present as oversleeping, overeating (with a particular inclination to carbohydrates), and social withdrawal. These elements of SAD might go unnoticed, though, as they are reflected within broader elements of culture. For example, hearty, more filling meals are associated with colder months, and lounging in bed for longer periods of time is more socially acceptable in the winter.  

SAD is a multifactorial condition, with both genetic components and disruption to circadian rhythms, as a result of natural seasonal changes, thought to be potential causes. A circadian rhythm is the body’s biological clock, regulating a person’s sleeping and waking, as well as their metabolism and internal temperature. It makes sense that the changing seasons disrupt this. In the winter, it feels counterintuitive to wake up when it is still dark outside, and bizarre to leave the Rad Cam at 5pm to find out that night has already fallen.      

One of the biggest struggles of winter is that outdoor activities, some of the usual remedies for low mood, must be squeezed into a very narrow eight-hour window of daylight. One could go running after dark, but this is not always safe, especially when alone. And on top of lectures, practical classes, and tutorials during term time, it is nearly impossible to fit in a 5k run with such limited daylight. Another important factor to consider is the weather. It doesn’t matter if there is still daylight, or if I have spare time, if it is pouring buckets and five degrees. Not much could convince me to put on a skort and play netball at that point. It appears that the UK population and I are in agreement, as it has been reported that two in five adults spend less than an hour a day outdoors. As a result of less outdoor-seeking behaviour and lower UV levels, the NHS recommends Vitamin D supplementation for everyone during winter and autumn months. 

This year, the early weeks of March brought abnormally sunny weather. My friends and I ruthlessly capitalised on this, flocking to Trinity gardens and plotting our first Pimm’s of the year. Hilary term gave us a small, tantalising taste of what the oncoming term could offer: early morning rowing sessions with the sun reflecting off rippling water; days spent studying in college gardens; evenings topped off with cocktails on benches outside the King’s Arms. It sounds heavenly. 

As spring firmly takes root and Trinity term looms, I envision myself reincarnated. Gone are the days of thick jumpers and jeans worn for the tenth time in a row. Instead, they are replaced by pretty tops and white linen trousers. Gone are the days of carb-loading on jacket potatoes and cheesy chips. Now there are only smoothie bowls and salad. The longer days and shorter nights represent a new start, a self-renaissance of sorts. 

The ultimate conversation starter in primary school was a real antagoniser: “Which is better, winter or summer?” The winter faction would diligently argue their case: summer gets sweaty, sunburns are painful, and hot nights are a faff to sleep in. But I stand armed with my suncream and handheld fan. I’ll take summer any day.      

The blaring alarm rings out once more. This time, the sun falls through the curtains into my bedroom: 8.21am. I’m awake and ready, it’s spring at last.

Controversial Israeli political philosopher Professor Daniel Statman has been invited to visit Nuffield College for Trinity Term, despite a JCR statement condemning the decision. 

The statement, approved by Nuffield College JCR on 12^th March and circulated by the JCR President Isabella Cuervo-Lorens on 23rd April, accuses Professor Statman of producing academic work which “justifies genocide and war crimes” with “an underlying agenda – creating ethical justifications for Israel’s genocide”. Professor Statman was contacted for comment.

A Nuffield College spokesperson told Cherwell: “The college has given serious consideration to the concerns raised, and has taken the view that Professor Statman has not engaged in unlawful speech or conduct.”

Professor Statman is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Haifa, Israel, and specialises in “ethics and political philosophy”. His time at Nuffield College forms part of a sabbatical from his work at the University of Haifa for spring 2026. 

The statement also quoted comments made by Professor Statman on an episode of the 18Forty Podcast released in October 2023, and recorded after the 7^th October terrorist attacks by Hamas in southern Israel and the beginning of Israeli military action in Gaza. In a section of the interview highlighted by the JCR, Professor Statman said: “I don’t have this very strong moral revulsion or moral sadness or regret by the knowledge of the death of these civilians”, and claimed “it’s okay to kill them”, citing “the principle of collateral harm”. In the same conversation, he acknowledged that civilians in Gaza “don’t deserve to die”, even if they are not “completely innocent”.

In the interview, he also rebutted claims that civilians in Gaza had been left with no safe space  from Israeli military action, saying, “I’m not very convinced by the claim they have nowhere to go to. They have places to go to. Orchards, the beaches and so on”.  He claimed there were “zero publications…in serious journals by Arab philosophers” and that Arab academics were “not part of the philosophical discourse at all”.

In a comment, JCR President Cuervo-Lorens told Cherwell: “The JCR and wider College community became aware of Mr Statman’s plans in Week 8 of Hilary Term 2026”, and that “the statement passed by a wide, near unanimous margin via anonymous vote [by Nuffield JCR members]”.

A Nuffield College spokesperson told Cherwell that the invitation to Professor Statman to visit the College was sent in “the summer of 2023…on the basis of his long-standing work on political philosophy”. The spokesperson described the invitation as “part of the College’s long-standing programme of regular academic visitorships, through which we host researchers from other UK and international institutions.

“As a College of the University of Oxford and an academic institution in their own right, we are committed to protecting lawful freedom of speech and academic freedom, and to providing an environment for rigorous academic engagement, open inquiry and critical debate within the law, where all members of our community are supported and treated with dignity, respect and civility.”

Professor Statman has written several philosophical works. His book War by Agreement: A Contractarian Ethics of War was published by Oxford University Press in 2019. Outside of academia, he has served on public committees to revise the ethical code of the Israel Defense Force and to review requests for exemption from army service for Israeli citizens on the grounds of conscience.

“Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking.” So speaks the withering sarcasm of Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, condemning all flowery fabrics to uncoolness even ten years after its release. Her dismissal implies that the floral print is basic – the horror of all fashion’s avant-garde. Oxford’s seeming aversion to pattern shows leftovers of this logic, with style shown through outfit styling rather than design details. Textiles often fall secondary to an ensemble’s overall impact, with florals seldom regarded as revolutionary. Yet in Oxford’s wealthy male-centred microcosm – and well beyond it – they prove to be a tool of subversion, intentional or not. Flower prints are muddy with complexity, and ripe for revisioning.  

Woven, printed, or embroidered, flowers are easily the most familiar motifs in fashion history. They have become associated with opposing constructions of femininity, with Christian Dior’s ‘flower women’ of the post-war period, petal-skirted in their essentialist embodiment. However, it was his floral-printed day dresses that influenced a generation of women, reaffirming nip-waisted body ideals and linking flowers as pretty, domesticated visions of nature with the ‘domestic goddess’ housewife trope. This is reflected today through a resurgence in the trad wife aesthetic, coupling homemade bagels with flowery, floaty gowns. Celia Birtwell’s sheer chiffons show 1960s reactionism to Dior’s ‘New Look’: the Hippie generation sought to shake off their mothers’ fashioning of femininity, with Birtwell’s prints evoking psychedelia and Pop Art through a feminist lens. Indeed, her Mystic Daisy print is a model for how cool florals can be, outfitting every It-Girl under the sixties sun. Jane Birkin famously wore it for a Vogue photoshoot (back when it was acceptable just to wear one outfit for your fashion call) and Liza Minnelli dons a Mystic Daisy shirt in Cabaret. However, for Anna Wintour, florals are fundamental in crafting her timeless elegance, becoming a motif that is reconfigured and coloured to fit current modernities. Each new series of Bridgerton makes this clearer, with florals used to connect Regency dress with contemporary fashion – and the more diverse narratives that come with it. Bridging nature and art, these biological bouquets have dressed ideological divides, making floral prints unexpectedly contentious.

Rich with jewel-toned realism, the Ashmolean’s In Bloom exhibition captures how flora has afforded creative and economic agency to women specifically. In the museum collection, Rachel Ruysch’s still lifes convey how studies of natural subjects enabled women access into the patriarchal art world without violating their prohibition from art schools. Flowers presented a readily available subject: symbolising female propriety, such blooms – exotic or commonplace – also allowed women to exploit Enlightenment interest in botany. Mary Moser’s flower still lifes gained her enough acclaim to become one of the two female founders of the Royal Academy of Arts and even established within the royal court, demonstrating flora as an entry point into traditionally male professions. Indeed, In Bloom displays a coloured engraving by Maria Sibylla Merian. It depicts a banana blossom with the life cycle of a Bullseye moth, capturing the utmost biological detail in unique composition. Retrospectively, Merian is considered one of the earliest entomologists. Yet the agency afforded by flowers to women shaped the art world’s dismissal of floral depictions. The association between flowers and femaleness has helped and hindered women, extending to their bodies through fashion.

High fashion has recently revamped the floral print. Springing from Paris’s latest catwalk extravaganza, Sarah Burton’s Givenchy collection problematised the prejudicial concept of Old Masters, dressing the modern woman in the Dutch Golden Age world of Rachel Ruysch’s paintings. The standout dress sees jewel pigments of tulips run in embroidery threads, effectively turning flowers into fringing. No daintily-coloured pastels to be seen here – these flowers are wonderfully gothic, outstepping their assumptions as passive embellishment and giving movement and flair to the wearer as she walks. If Jonathan Anderson’s fall/winter Dior show is anything to go by, the floral reformation is set to colour accessories too, romping all through summer in gorgeous water lily heels. This is a welcome step away from literalising the feminine flower at Dior, leaning into a more tongue-in-cheek, youthful use of the founder’s sourcebook. Riotously rosy, Dries Van Noten also saw men in floral-printed splendour, showing how flowers are dying out as binary statements of outmoded fashionings of femininity. This may not seem all that revolutionary in 2026, but in a city that still appears surprised to see a female physicist, the floral print still has a place as a vehicle of gender subversion. Come Trinity, the floral print poses a destabilising antithesis to Oxford’s unpatterned fashion staples, rooted in upper-class fashionings of male exclusivity. Floral fabrics are more than ready to be reclaimed from bastions of prairie-dress-wearing trad wives. They still have the power to be groundbreaking, regardless of what The Devil Wears Prada 2 might soon have to say.