Content Pages of Guide to an Unknown University

Introduction by Theodore Zeldin

Discover the secrets behind the facade of an ivory tower. The new book by The Oxford Muse, introduced by acclaimed historian and broadcaster Theodore Zeldin, is an intimate portrait of the University of Oxford. Hear the voices of porters and students alongside those of professors and college masters.

Contents
Voices
Introduction: The Future of Ivory Towers by Theodore Zeldin

  1. Why, after five years as a management consultant, a graduate has returned to search for something else: Leonora Fitzgibbons, a self-portrait
  2. How I discover that other people feel what I feel: a self-portrait
  3. Why it could be all right to be unhappy: Matthew McLean, a self-portrait
  4. How a specialist on incurable brain diseases cultivates his own mind: Kevin Talbot in conversation with John Reed
  5. How to be guided by strangers through an unknown city: Sabine Hocking, a self-portrait
  6. Being a typical Piscean: Rebecca Williams in conversation with Leonora Fitzgibbons
  7. I work for security and I dream of freedom: Adrian White in conversation with Malini Roy
  8. How polio has and has not coloured a professor's life: Alison Brading in conversation with John Reed
  9. How poetry can help you talk to strangers: Sophia Blackwell, a self-portrait
  10. Why I painted my face, tooth and glasses black: Anna Jackson in conversation with Christopher Whalen
  11. Why stillness is the goal of movement: Simon Beard, a self-portrait
  12. How to deal with those who want you to be what you are not: Zara Chidoub, a self-portrait by a student about to enter university
  13. Under the winter snow the spring grass grows: Bi Scott, a self-portrait
  14. Where I have found like-minded people: Katrina Navickas, a self-portrait
  15. How to make life an adventure, razing all barriers: John Buchanan Reed, a self-portrait
  16. So I find words I never thought to speak: Laura Evans, a self-portrait
  17. How a post-doctoral researcher reconciles science and religion: Louise Smythe, a self-portrait and in conversation with John Reed
  18. How an outsider creates her own international language: Val Crowder in conversation with Roman Krznaric
  19. I'm not white, I'm not upper-class, Im not a man …I'm exploring Buddhism, Nietzsche and rap Malini Roy, a self-portrait
  20. How women invite you to think and men to drink: Chris Fitzgerald in conversation with Christopher Whalen
  21. A lot of my life I live in my head: Andrew Wilkie in conversation with John Reed
  22. What follows forgetting: Dominique Zino, a self-portrait
  23. What it takes to drop material strivings and cultivate a spiritual life: Stephen Eeley, a self-portrait
  24. How to find an ambition that comes entirely from me: Jion Sheibani, a self-portrait
  25. How undergraduates make up their mind about the future: Mark Grimmer, a self-portrait
  26. What a reader for blind students has discovered about learning: Margaret Booth in conversation with Simon Beard
  27. How science is part of our culture in the same way as art and literature: Sir Walter Bodmer in conversation with John Reed
  28. What remains of a Confucian upbringing in a student of chemistry: Yueyang Hou, a self-portrait by a student about to enter university
  29. What medicine should and should not do: Mike Parker in conversation with John Reed
  30. Why a student sometimes resents education: Hayley Jade Cannon, a self-portrait
  31. What a Rhodes Scholar needs to sacrifice: Robin Rotman in conversation with Simon Beard
  32. When to use other people's words to express yourself: James McBain, a self-portrait
  33. How a former tomboy with a passion for mud prepares herself for university: Sophie Townsend, a self-portrait by a student about to enter university
  34. Why a college porter writes poetry: Peter Sipthorp in conversation with Jion Sheibani
  35. How to live in doubt, in rebellion and in an imagined world: Rebecca Clayton, a self-portrait
  36. Why the years from 60 to 70 were the best of my life: Eve Hoare in conversation with Christopher Whalen
  37. What happens if you do not go to college till you retire: Royston Hoare in conversation with Roman Krznaric
  38. How a final year student shakes off unwanted ambitions: Lucy Cowie, a self-portrait
  39. How a specialist on the links between music and the emotions became a peace activist: John Sloboda in conversation with James Powell
  40. Why research is particle physics is exciting, and slow, and what other excitements are necessary: Florian Heinemann in conversation with Simon Beard
  41. Where can an accidental immigrant feel at home?: Michelle Chew, a self-portrait
  42. Is it possible to experience joy without knowing sadness?: Tanweer Ali, a self-portrait
  43. Why diary-writing and navel-gazing do not tell you who you are: Jen Parr, a self-portrait
  44. Getting people to think what they have not thought before: Andrew Graham in conversation with Roman Krznaric

Index