Rhiannon Judith Williams reviews Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. Before there was Twilight, there was Interview with the Vampire. Given the current climate of hysteria regarding the release of New Moon, the second film adaptation of the Twilight saga this week, I’ve chosen to revisit this teenage favourite and classic in the literary horror genre....
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Sam Cooke tackles the tensions of the academic world. This spring, my university proposed the closure of my department. It’s a recession, I am prepared to accept that some departments may be financial dead weights and should be cast off. That, however, was not the issue the University took with my department, but instead...
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Jane Crowley attempts to remedy the side effects of an English degree. As an English student, I hear the words “You must like reading” at least three times a week. The answer to this has always been to nod profusely and exclaim “I love it!” This has changed recently, and I find myself thinking...
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Lyndon Ashmore explores the adolescent appeal of George Orwell. As a young boy tentatively toeing the brink of adolescence my Grandfather imparted a small pearl of wisdom to me. He advised that as I grow older it was important to “not stop believing what one believes as a young man”, this was quickly followed...
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Harriet Jean Evans looks  at the overriding appeal of evil in literature. Take a moment to think of your favourite characters from fiction. Okay, now think again: how many of them are the unquestionable hero of the story? Not many? Exactly. For some strange reason, we are drawn to the antiheros in fiction. But...
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Lyndon Ashmore champions the poetry of the Pre-Raphaelites. Dante Gabriel Rossetti recently became a household name after the BBC drama Desperate Romantics appeared on our screens and established him in the audience’s mind as the rakish, charming deviant that fronted the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in the middle of the Nineteenth-Century. The series, despite the question...
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Huw Halstead casts his eye over European corruption scandals. Imagine. The Church of England, using its overbearing influence on the political system, has scandalously swapped vast tracts of worthless land it owns in the Yorkshire moors for prime real estate in the heart of London, in a deal with the government that will lose...
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Lizzie Beardsley sniffs out scandal in the European Union. ‘A unique economic and political partnership between 27 democratic European countries’. Unique is one way to describe it. Perhaps the uniqueness of how easy it is for MEPs to exploit money from the system. Or most importantly unique because it has been able to hide...
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Asa Roast peers into our obsession with self-image. Everyone is aware of the Western stereotype of the Japanese tourist. Not entirely unfairly, Japanese tourists in the West are generally stereotyped as obsessive photographers, viewing their holidays through a lens which they use to capture and preserve their experiences. This is probably the most visible...
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Ed Dodson explains his fetish for big discs Ever since I visited a mighty vinyl sale in Leeds recently, I have been wondering quite why I – and seemingly many others – have an obsession with vinyl. Is it the material? Do we like the way it feels on our skin late at night?...
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