Magdalen College, Oxford

08/09/2026

Chapel looking particularly atmospheric at the Consortium for Human Rights and New Technologies in July.

Thanks to William Pajeski for the photo!

07/09/2026

Plus, it’s her birthday. She’d be 493 if she were still alive. That’s a lot of translating.

02/09/2026

Join Arthur Snell, former British diplomat, historian, and Magdalen alumnus, for a talk about his new book, ‘Elemental: the new geography of climate change and how we survive it’, at the London Review Bookshop on 15 October 2026. He will be joined by fellow alumnus, Sir Simon Manley (1985), former Permanent Representative to the United Nations and World Trade Organisation in Geneva.

Join Arthur Snell, former British diplomat, historian and Magdalen alumnus, for a talk about his new book, ‘Elemental: the new geography of Climate Change and how we survive it’. He will be joined in conversation by fellow alumnus, Sir Simon Manley (1985), former Permanent Representative to the ...

24/08/2026

What do ex-fighters in Libya, prison football programmes, and the death of Cecil the Lion have in common?

They're all case studies in identity fusion - Magdalen anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse's theory of how humans bond so deeply with a group they'll sacrifice everything for it.

Harvey and his former student Dr Martha Newson have used it to study a UK programme pairing football clubs with prisons, which is actually cutting reoffending rates. The same mechanism explains why soldiers feel closer to their unit than their own family, why people gave money to strangers after a storm in Australia, and unfortunately also why it can be weaponised by extremist groups.

See the whole story here:

Find out how Martha Newson and Harvey Whitehouse work together with...