“Despite the potential for a mass outbreak looming over our heads, Josephine Butler students, and Durham students writ large, have shown a true resilience and a fighting spirit.” Jessica Pabon, a Butlerite fresher, discusses lockdown anxieties, homesickness and enjoying university life during a pandemic.
Rolf Lüders, Minister for Finance and Economy in 1982-3 under Pinochet’s military dictatorship in Chile, is a leading economist and academic at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and as it happens, one of my lecturers during my year abroad in Santiago. Lüders graduated from the University of Chicago with a Master’s degree in 1960, where he was taught by economic luminaries Arnold Harberger and Milton Friedman. Friedman is of course the infamous father of monetarism who influenced the likes of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. In the 1970s, Lüders became part of the Chicago Boys, a group of neoliberal…
During the 2015-2016 academic year Alan O’Cain has been the artist/writer-in-residence shared between Josephine Butler College and St. Cuthbert’s Society. In this interview with Kiran Kaur he discusses ‘The Bikini Line’, an art installation created in collaboration with students, staff and SCRs from both colleges and situated in Durham Botanic Garden from 16th June to 25th July 2016. KK: What is the nature of the installation and what inspired it? AO: In 1946 a total of 167 inhabitants of Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands were relocated by the US Government in order to carry out nuclear bomb testing in the…
Butler’s own Lauriane Povey became a published author at the age of 15 with her debut novel Living a Nightmare. She has since published a second book, Veil of Anonymity. The Butler Scholarly Journal met with Lauriane to discuss her writing and her future prospects. Could you tell us a little about your first two books and their genre? What attracted you to this genre? My first two books, Living a Nightmare and Veil of Anonymity are young adult novels. Living a Nightmare is about a 13 year old girl who has dreams about the past, present and future and…
John Henry Clay is a novelist and lecturer in medieval history at Durham University. The Butler Scholarly Journal caught up with him to discuss his highly acclaimed debut novel, The Lion and the Lamb (July 2013). The Butler Scholarly Journal: What drew you to mid-4th century Roman Britain as a setting for your first novel, The Lion and the Lamb? John Henry Clay: I first came across the period as an archaeology undergraduate, and something about it caught my imagination. It was the ‘Golden Age’ of Roman Britain, a world of palatial country villas and bustling cities, with a highly…