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The marvelous logic of the mad ... seems to mock that of the logicians because it resembles it so exactly, or rather because it is exactly the same, and because [...]

This article discusses John Henry Cardinal Newman's discussion of the then new science of political economy in his 1873 text 'Idea of a University,' written in response to the first Drummond Professor of Political Economy Nassau Senior's 1826 inuagural address at Oxford University, which set the scope for much of the 19th and 20th century methodology and parameters of political economic studies. The author examines the relationship between religion and political economics in Britain at this time, placing it in context and assessing the validity of the model Newman constructs.

A writer describes his student days at Oxford University. Topics include the type of English spoken there, the experience of taking exams, and the relationship with an academic supervisor.

This article examines the life and work of British historian A. J. P. Taylor. His early educational experiences at Oxford University led to his groundbreaking work on twentieth century European history that challenged the educational establishment and British historical scholarship.

Graham Midgley. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996. Pp. x + 182. To write of Oxford in the eighteenth century is to invite consideration as to how institutions [...]

'Hellenism and Homosexuality in Victorian Oxford' by Linda Dowling analyzes male homosexuality in Oxford on the basis of that seen in ancient Greece. The Greek considered homosexuality as an excess of heterosexuality and did not consider it immoral. According to Dowling this was the reason why in the 19th century the English hostility to homosexuality decreased. The use of Hellenism by the reformers of Oxford to avoid the stagnation of society allowed Oscar Wilde, John Addington Symonds and others to establish a homosexual counterculture.

The medieval universities of Oxford and Cambridge owed an enormous debt to the generosity of a plurality of benefactors of diverse social origins. Given their limited incomes, the universities could not have functioned at a successful level without the substantial material aid of benefactors. Although the English monarchy made a valuable contribution to several areas of university and collegiate life, it nevertheless appears that this monarchical beneficence was less extensive than might have been supposed. The English male nobility gave the occasional gift of property and made donations to loan-chests but before 1500 only one nobleman was a principal founder of a secular academic college. This opened the way for queens consort and female members of the greater aristocracy to emerge as significant benefactresses in both the university and collegiate spheres. Indeed, it could be argued that women from the upper echelons of society came to rank in importance as university and college benefactors with lesser ecclesiastics, knights, burgesses, merchants, current and former members of colleges and university servants. However, taking the donations of the episcopate in the round, it is probably true to say that the English bishops made the most decisive contribution towards university and collegiate development of any grouping in society.

The academic movement that generated what became England's University of Oxford is examined. The conclusion posits that it was not a sudden occurrence, but one that unfolded over a gradual period of time. Scholarly pursuits during the late 12th and early 13th centuries were found to be episodic, creating a longer period of gestation before the university became an established entity., Over the last twenty years received opinion on the earliest development of Oxford University has altered. Of course the old myth of Anglo-Saxon origins was already long gone; but until [...]

Issues relating to whether or not the communists managed to establish a spy ring at Oxford University that came close to matching the success of the spy ring set up at Cambridge University in the 1930s are examined. Anthony Glees, professor of politics at Brunel University, argues that just because there have not been any named and exposed spies from Oxford does not mean that such a ring did not exist, while KGB archives released in 1998 reveal that an extensive recruitment campaign was underway in Oxford during the 1930s.