Colin Thubron Journalist Profile

Articles

An Audience with Poet Laureate Simon Armitage

2 weeks ago | oxfordliteraryfestival.org | Lucy Worsley |Anne Tyler |Colin Thubron |Kazuo Ishiguro

Poet laureate Simon Armitage talks about his writing life and about a new collection of poems, Blossomise, that celebrates the transformations of spring. Blossomise is a collaboration between Armitage and illustrator Angela Harding. The 22 poems range between haikus that honour Japanese traditions of the blossom festival to stylistic pieces that take on the tones of ballads, hymns, songs, prayers and nursery rhymes.
Living with Jane Austen

2 weeks ago | oxfordliteraryfestival.org | Lucy Worsley |Colin Thubron |Anne Tyler |Kazuo Ishiguro

Novelist and academic Professor Janet Todd marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen by showing how Austen has inspired and challenged her personally through different phases of her life. Todd reveals what ‘living with Jane Austen’ has meant to her and what it might also mean to others. She reflects on her own life and on Austen’s letters, manuscripts and novels. Todd says Austen has an undimmable power to help us understand the world and our minds and bodies.
World-Builders: Technology and the New Geopolitics

3 weeks ago | oxfordliteraryfestival.org | Colin Thubron |Ken Hom |Paul Auster |Matthew Parris

Portuguese journalist, politician and writer Bruno Maçães offers a new way to understand global events by arguing that geopolitics has become a contest not to control territory but to create territory. Maçães says the age of advanced technology has brought change to world politics. Great powers now seek to build a world for other states to inhabit while keeping the power to change the rules when necessary. Maçães describes this new form of geopolitics as ‘world-building’.
Vice-Chancellor’s Interview. Brain Boost: Healthy Habits for a Happier Life

3 weeks ago | oxfordliteraryfestival.org | Ken Hom |Colin Thubron |Peter Carey |Lucy Worsley

Vice-Chancellor’s Interview.
Off-White: The Truth about Antisemitism

3 weeks ago | oxfordliteraryfestival.org | Colin Thubron |Lucy Worsley |Ken Hom |Kazuo Ishiguro

Journalist and broadcaster Rachel Shabi points to a hopeful way forward in an era when claims of antisemitism continue to distort our politics at home and abroad and make it impossible to discuss issues constructively. Shabi analyses one of the most divisive issues of our time including the contingency of whiteness, Judeo-Christian mythmaking, pro-Israel antisemitism and the Palestinian struggle against colonialism.
Oxford Debates: Immigration and the 2024 Riots

3 weeks ago | oxfordliteraryfestival.org | Ken Hom |Matthew Parris |Colin Thubron |Tim Waterstone

Academic Professor Justin Schlosberg, educational consultant and life peer Lord Tony Sewell and journalist Zoe Strimpel debate the causes of the 2014 anti-immigration riots and ask who can be held responsible. Anti-immigration riots broke out across the UK in the summer of 2024. The riots were triggered by a stabbing in Southport. Three children were murdered. The false allegation took hold that the attacker was a Muslim asylum-seeker.
Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age

4 weeks ago | oxfordliteraryfestival.org | Lucy Worsley |Ken Hom |Colin Thubron |Peter Carey

Journalist and author Rod Dreher says the West has become closed to the idea that the universe contains the supernatural but argues that we might just find it under our noses. Dreher explains how to encounter and embrace wonder in the world. He uses history, cultural anthropology, neuroscience and the ancient Church to show how to reconnect with the natural world and the Christian tradition.
Facing up to Xi Jinping and the new China

1 month ago | oxfordliteraryfestival.org | Kazuo Ishiguro |Lucy Worsley |Colin Thubron |Matthew Parris

Veteran foreign correspondents Ian Williams and Michael Sheridan discuss modern day China and how the new UK government should face up to the challenges it presents. Williams is a former foreign correspondent for Channel 4 News and NBC News who has reported on China for the last 25 years. In Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy, he describes the ‘predatory and surreal’ nature of the Chinese economy. Williams says rules and agreements mean little.
Indulging Kleptocracy: British Service Providers, Post-communist Elites, and the Enabling of Corruption

1 month ago | oxfordliteraryfestival.org | Matthew Parris |Colin Thubron |Tim Waterstone |Paul Auster

Experts in international affairs and corruption Professor John Heathershaw and Tom Mayne discuss their analysis of how Western professionals have enabled kleptocratic elite networks and undermined the rule of law. The authors explain how the British government allowed extremely wealthy kleptocrats based largely in Russia and Eurasia to move to London and thrive with impunity.
Baltic: The Future of Europe

1 month ago | oxfordliteraryfestival.org | Paul Auster |Tim Waterstone |Lucy Worsley |Colin Thubron

Baltic: The Future of Europe 10:00am 1 hour Bodleian: Convocation House £8 - £15 Foreign correspondent Oliver Moody looks at the nine Baltic countries and explains why the area is both critical to European security and increasingly a centre of political and military power.