The purpose of this course is to help you understand how to approach ethical dilemmas, using normative theories and a considered line of argumentation. You will explore both the benefits and the limitations of different theoretical frameworks – from virtue ethics, to utilitarianism and deontology; and you will reflect on the significance of the fact that these are all representatives of Western philosophy. You will then consider what is distinctive in other ethical traditions – such as the Indian, the Buddhist, the Islamic, or the Chinese; and what they share with contemporary Western ethics.

Second, you will test different ethical theories on practical issues currently at the centre of civic debate. These range from human to animal rights, war, immigration, and euthanasia. You will reflect on how these are often related to the broader socio-economic, regulatory, and cultural context; and how commercial interests on the one hand, and socio-cultural commitments, public discourse and prejudice, on the other, impact on the way these practical issues pan out in the public domain.

Third – and upon request – you may focus on business ethics and corporate social responsibility issues, exploring the relationship between corporate power and responsibility, and how this relates to government activity and the wider society. In this context, you may investigate criminal cases that combine moral and legal issues, such as bribery, fraud, money laundering or insider dealing, using major scandals to illustrate, e.g. Enron, Rana Plaza, or the fall of Lehman Brothers. You may also consider cases of complicity between major corporations and corrupt regimes, and reflect on the efforts made by international agencies like the UN, to tackle such challenges more efficiently.

When C.S. Lewis arrived in Oxford in 1917, he came to study Classics: the literature, history, and thought of ancient Greece and Rome. He was an atheist, and was fascinated by the pagan mythology of the classical world, and this was a fascination that never left him. In fact, it was through this love of mythology that he finally became a Christian, and he drew on this rich classical heritage throughout his career and a teacher and writer.

Lewis was a star student, and earned a prestigious ‘double first’ degree before moving on to a career in English literature. (Tolkien, by contrast, also studied Classics at Oxford, but earned mediocre grades and dropped out of the course.) Lewis’s classical education formed him: one cannot read far in his books without coming across a reference to an ancient Greek story, or a Latin quotation, and in this course we will be examining the enormous influence that Classics had on Lewis’s life and thought.

The only classical god to appear in Narnia is Bacchus, the god of wine and license (in Prince Caspian); why did Lewis let him in? This is one of many intriguing questions we’ll be addressing. In fact, Bacchus (or Dionysus) was deeply interesting to Lewis, and closely connected to his views of Christ; and there are many other classical elements in the Narnia books, such as fauns and centaurs, that we’ll investigate. We will consider the role mythology played in Lewis’s understanding of the world, and, particularly, in his conversion to Christianity. We will look at one of Lewis’s favourite poems, Virgil’s epic Aeneid, and consider how its picture of wanderings in search of a home related to Lewis’s ideas of the Christian experience. We will examine Lewis’s final novel, Till We Have Faces, in which he retold the myth of Cupid and Psyche, a task which he had been trying to do for most of his life.

Lewis’s love of the Classics pervaded his thought, and in this course we will be looking at its influence in his fiction, his literary criticism, his poetry, his letters, and his Christian apologetics. Equally exciting is the chance to examine the Classical world through Lewis’s eyes. There is a great deal of pleasure to be derived both from reading Lewis and from investigating the classical world, and in addition to this students will gain a much deeper understanding of Lewis as a writer and as a Christian.

Britain in the twenty-first century is a country looking for an identity. Having left the European Union in January 2020 Britain needs to find new policies at home and a new role abroad. Having ‘regained our national sovereignty’, as Brexit supporters put it, Britons now need to decide how to make use of that sovereignty. Covid-19 has forced further reappraisal of what matters to Britons: should the country return as soon as possible to how things were before, or is this a singular opportunity to reimagine polity and society, giving priority to the things which lockdown showed us were valuable?

This course takes a succession of British tropes to probe what they tell us about contemporary Britain and how they shape discussions of the nation’s future. What, for example, does the Union Jack (strictly speaking the Union flag) reveal about the constituent parts of the United Kingdom and their relationship with the whole? What does the British cup of tea tell us about the nation’s role in global trade and colonisation? What does the king tell us about Britain’s version of democracy? What can we learn from the James Bond novels and films about Britain’s fear of international decline and its sense of superiority? In what way are soccer, cricket, and Wimbledon windows on to British class, ethnic, and regional cultures? What does Britain’s ‘green and pleasant land’ reveal about conservation, rural life, and leisure in Britain? What does Westminster Abbey, the national pantheon, reveal about Britons’ relationship to the past? What does a country church tell us about religion in Britain? Why on earth do Britons talk about the weather all the time? What does the BBC reveal about the English language, Britain’s role in the world, free speech, and British values? What does the Channel Tunnel tell us about Britain’s relationship to Europe?

With these and other tropes we explore Britain and its inhabitants, searching for explanation rooted in the past, and considering what the nation might look like in the future.

If you study creative writing, you will read canonical writing with an eye to techniques you can make your own in writing that will be workshopped, one-to-one, with the tutor. In the prose section of the course you’ll read a short story by James Joyce, noting his stealthy satire of society and literary convention, then take a boat out on the stream of consciousness of Virginia Woolf. Can you pick up her knack of jumping from one person’s point of view to another’s on the turn of a comma?

The poetry section includes looking, though T.S. Eliot’s ‘The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, at ways of communicating through music and repeated sounds. (How do you feel different saying ‘is it/visit’ compared to ‘go/Michelangelo’?) You’ll also, through reading the work of Philip Larkin, learn the right way to use metre and rhyme; the lines round a repeated stanza form make the shape not, as many think, of a ‘constricting’ container, but of a fabulous tennis court at Wimbledon.

The one-to-one tutorials are fundamentally a conversation, with a great deal of flexibility in what is discussed. Throughout the course, the emphasis will be on the pleasure of reading and the craft of writing, and on the triple literary aims of teaching, moving, and delighting both writer and reader.

This course traces the development of the gothic movement from its origins in Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) – the first ‘gothic novel’ – to its interrogation of fin-de-siècle anxieties in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897).

The initial impulses of the gothic movement were architecturally driven, and its fondness for shady precincts and supernatural happenings was a reaction to the dominance of Enlightenment rationalism. By the end of the eighteenth century, it had developed into natural territory for the literary response to the violence and terror of the French Revolution. As a transgressive sub-genre of the novel, it was anti-Catholic, anti-nostalgic, and anti-aristocratic, with conventions including lordly villains and persecuted maidens, suppressed secrets and illicit acts, pursuits and imprisonments, supernatural manifestations, victories of chaos over order and nature over man’s creations, and a heightened version of physical and psychological experience.

Early novels to be discussed include Ann Radcliffe’s highly influential The Romance of the Forest (1791), Jane Austen’s witty and complex parody of the genre, Northanger Abbey (1817), and Mary Shelley’s mythical exploration of man’s Promethean nature in Frankenstein (1818). Students will go on to explore the Victorian evolution of the genre to reflect nineteenth-century concerns about religion, race, gender, imperialism, and cultural degeneration through Charlotte Brontë’s domestic re-imagining of the gothic romance in Jane Eyre (1847) and Oscar Wilde’s aesthetic gothic in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891).

Each novel will be discussed in its historical and cultural context. Questions addressed along the way include: How does art relate to the gothic? Why do we remain fascinated with the forbidden and delight in being terrified? What is the difference between terror and horror and the relationship between past and present? How and why does the gothic genre keep reinventing itself? By the end of this course, students should have acquired an understanding of one of the most popular and beguiling genres of the novel, which continues to exert its fascination today.

The Enlightenment saw the rise and triumph of reason as the supreme power in many spheres. One area which – perhaps inevitably – provoked much discussion was religion. For some, this provided an opportunity to attempt to demonstrate a sound rational basis for religious belief; for others, it led to the challenging of old certainties.

In this course, we’ll examine the application of reason to matters of faith during this period. Our focus will be on the work of three British philosophers in the empiricist tradition, who were at work during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume.

We’ll begin by exploring the key relationship between faith and reason. The two are sometimes contrasted with each other, but philosophers such as Locke argued that in fact they are complementary concepts, and need not be seen as in opposition to each other. A major question which exercised many thinkers was whether God’s existence can be proved, so we’ll also examine Locke’s version of the cosmological argument, Berkeley’s idealist philosophy (which he believed offered an antidote to atheism and irreligion), and the sceptic David Hume’s criticisms of the argument for design. There will also be a chance to look at some responses to these authors, from both contemporary writers and more modern ones.

Although written over two centuries ago, these texts raise crucial questions which remain just as relevant today, and this course provides an opportunity to harvest some of the riches of insight offered by great thinkers of the past.

C.S. Lewis is known to millions around the world as a writer of fantasy literature (most famously The chronicles of Narnia), and as someone with a gift for presenting Christian theology to a large popular audience, through works such as Mere Christianity and The problem of pain.

On the face of it, these two aspects of his writing – the imaginative and the intellectual – may seem quite different. But in this course, we’ll explore how the two work together and harmonize, and how fiction can in fact be an ideal vehicle for conveying complex concepts. We’ll look at a number of key strands of Lewis’s theological writings, examining both what he said and how he said it: we’ll delve into the arguments advanced and the claims made, and we’ll also consider what difference the form of the writing makes.

You’ll have the opportunity to investigate a variety of themes: Lewis’s trilemma (otherwise known as the ‘mad, bad, or God argument’!), his argument from desire (which suggests that the yearning we find within ourselves is an indication we were made for another world), his views on Christianity and myth, the problem of suffering, and heaven and hell. We’ll look at both his non-fiction books and essays, and his imaginative works, such as The great divorce.

You’ll be encouraged to apply your own analytical skills to Lewis’s writings and to some of the various responses to him (both positive and more critical), as we investigate his claim that religious truth requires a response from the whole person: that it must be both assented to with the reason and embraced by the imagination.

Oxford has been a centre of scholarship for centuries, and since the nineteenth century it has also boasted a considerable number of acclaimed and popular writers of what has come to be known as fantasy literature. Nonetheless, by the early twentieth century, the philologist and literature professor J.R.R. Tolkien felt that such fiction had fallen out of fashion and been handed over to children — ‘relegated to the nursery’. He set out to reclaim high fantasy for adults, believing that it had major literary merit and should not be dismissed as escapist or childish. In fact, he argued that fantasy can fulfil humanity’s ‘profounder wishes’, providing readers with a fresh perspective and a world stripped of its dull familiarity. Tolkien continues to dominate the genre in prose and film, setting the standard not only in fiction with The Lord of the Rings, but also in critical commentary with his 1939 lecture ‘On fairy-stories’, which remains a definitive piece of criticism.

In this course we will examine Tolkien’s life, his literary influences and source materials, the major works of fantasy, and selected critical responses, both positive and negative. For example, though Middle-earth was his attempt to create an authentic mythology for England, it has been criticized for its seeming lack of ethnic and gender diversity. Tolkien was shaped by his education, his traumatic experiences in the First World War, and a life spent in what was then the predominantly white, upper-class, male environment of Oxford. Sessions will therefore include discussion of the biographical, historical, and cultural contexts of his writings and their effect on the racial, gendered, regional, and socio-economic elements in his characterization and created world.

Notwithstanding, why does the Middle-earth legendarium continue to fascinate readers and to inspire new generations of fantasy writers? Are the wildly successful film adaptations of these books a testament to Tolkien’s vision or is Christopher Tolkien correct when he claims that the ‘commercialisation has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing’? These are some of the questions we will consider.

Since the publication in 1811 of a novel called Sense and Sensibility, ‘by a lady’, the works of Jane Austen have enjoyed both popularity and critical acclaim, and scholarly interest shows no sign of waning.

Nor does what can be described as a popular mania for all things Austen, especially in film and television: the so-called ‘Austen brand’ is thriving. In this course will find out why, examining Austen’s life and writings to assess her novelistic technique and development and her place among women writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In addition to studying the major novels, we will look at Austen’s juvenilia and place each text in its literary and historical context, examining, for example, the eighteenth-century cult of sensibility when we discuss Sense and Sensibility and the contemporary vogue for gothic novels when we study Austen’s burlesque of the gothic genre, Northanger Abbey.

Other themes that will be covered include Austen’s treatment of class, economics, education, female friendship, courtship, and politics. Finally, students will be given the opportunity to assess selected screen adaptations of the novels to decide if they testify to the timelessness of Austen’s wit and the ongoing relevance of her social satire, or damage her reputation as a writer with the addition of romantic elements that distract from the commentary and limit Austen’s appeal to a female audience.

Two of the greatest Victorian art theorists, John Ruskin and Walter Pater, studied and taught at Oxford, and their influence both in the city and further afield was immense. While Ruskin sought to link the visual arts to a serious moral vision of society, based in his evangelical upbringing, Pater preached the gospel of Aestheticism, pursuing beauty as an end in itself and advocating art for art’s sake. Their writings are theoretically challenging and controversial, as well as being masterpieces of prose, and we will examine their ideas and put them in their wider context.

We will examine the influence of these ideas as well. Ruskin’s love of medieval society and gothic architecture influenced buildings and painting in Oxford, where the battle between the classical and gothic styles was seriously and bitterly pursued. His ideas spurred revolutionary young painters: the original PreRaphaelites; and subsequently William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, both undergraduates at Oxford, whose work laid down the foundations of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Walter Pater’s elevation of beauty made him a pariah in conservative Oxford, but his shocking ideas enraptured young people looking to break free from stuffy social expectations. Oscar Wilde, another Oxford undergraduate, was captured by his spell, and worked out his philosophy in masterpieces of creative literature.

We will study at the buildings in Oxford whose design reflects competing ideologies about art: the Martyrs’ Memorial, the Ashmolean Museum, the University Museum, and Keble College, among others. We will examine the artists who worked in Oxford, from professionals such as Dante Gabriel Rosetti to amateurs such as the passionate photographer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (otherwise known as Lewis Carroll). We will also consider patrons, such as Thomas Combe, printer to the university, whose love of PreRaphaelite art combined with his commitment to the High Church and whose prize painting, Holman Hunt’s “Light of the World”, hangs today in Keble Chapel.

In this seminar we will look at revolutionary texts about the place of visual art in society: texts which propose opposing views about what is valuable in art and which still have an impact on the way we look at art today. We will also look at the art that inspired and was inspired by these writings, aiming to enjoy it, understand it, and place it in its historical context.

A hundred years ago, British philosophy was dominated by a group of male scholars who would be later referred to as ‘analytic philosophers’; more specifically, they were associated with ‘ordinary language philosophy’, because of their focus on logic and ordinary language. Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein in Cambridge, and Gilbert Ryle, JL Austin and AJ Ayer in Oxford, defined the remit and methods of philosophy, for the better part of the 20th century. One would have to dig deep into the footnotes of an elaborate history of British philosophy, to find any reference to female intellectuals, like GEM Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, or Philippa Foot. And yet, it was these women who redefined moral philosophy, when it mattered most – in the post-war period. For them, defending the objectivity of morality was more than a matter of language, or argumentation. It was a matter of life and death.

In this course, you will have the opportunity to explore how each of these women solved the problem of good and evil; how they defended the rational roots of morality; and what their relationship with God was. You will learn that, although they had different religious commitments (or none), they all took the notion of metaphysical goodness seriously. For Anscombe, the anchor was always her Roman Catholic faith; for Murdoch – it was a belief in metaphysical values; similarly, for Foot – it was a conviction that one ought to be able to make ethical pronouncements, because there were such things as fundamentally good, bad, right, or wrong behaviour. In addition, we will explore the practical consequences of their philosophy on the public scene, for each of these women engaged with applied ethics in her own way, whether helping refugees (Murdoch), supporting Oxfam and writing on euthanasia (Foot), abortion and contraception (Anscombe).

While in Oxford, you might find yourself walking down the road between St Hugh’s (where Anscombe studied Classics) and Sommerville – the home of Foot and Murdoch; as you do, you might notice the Radcliffe Humanities building on your right, nowadays home to the Faculty of Philosophy. Walk in, and you will see pictures of all three women up on the wall, alongside those of more ‘representative’ figures of mainstream analytic philosophy.

It has often been said that there is a fine line between genius and insanity and the relationship between literature and mental health has been of intense interest to both literary scholars and psychologists.

This seminar will explore mental illness and instability in several major authors, focusing on Margery Kempe, a medieval housewife and mystic who became the first autobiographer in English; John Bunyan, the seventeenth-century author of Pilgrim’s Progress; John Clare, a nineteenth century nature poet who became incarcerated in an asylum; and two key twentieth-century female authors, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath. Both iconic figures in the history of women’s writing, Woolf and Plath each struggled with extremes of mood and ultimately committed suicide. We will read their writings in the light of psychological theory and of cultural and feminist contexts.

Complex questions will emerge as we study these authors; what is the true nature of ‘mental illness’? To what extent is it valid or helpful to apply modern psychology to writers from a very different age? How is emotional disorder expressed within the texts themselves? To what extent can other modern theories, especially feminism, help us in encountering these key authors, their lives and their legacies? Led by a literary scholar who is also a psychologist and psychiatrist, this seminar will bring unusual insights to the study of these distinctive texts.

Science and religion are two of the most powerful forces that shape contemporary life. Yet, a popular perception persists that these disciplines are necessarily in conflict with one another. As Alister McGrath notes, some scientists and religious believers view science and religion as ‘locked in mortal combat’. Those who subscribe to this ‘conflict model’ to depict the relationship between scientific and religious modes of thought often reference historical events such as the persecution of Galileo by the church, the debate in 1860 between Thomas Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, (which took place in Oxford!), or the Scopes trial of 1925 as evidence to support their position. Some vocal dogmatic scientists today call for the cessation of religion in light of the developments of modern science.

There are complicated questions to address here: must science and religion be viewed as necessarily in conflict with one another? Are there other models to help us understand how these disciplines ought to relate to one another? Does science raise questions that point beyond itself? Can theological questions be informed by scientific disciplines?

This course draws on historical and theological scholarship to investigate key issues in science and religion. We begin the course by examining the historical events often used to support the notion that science and religion are in conflict—Galileo, Darwin, and the Scopes trial. As we will see, studying these events in more detail makes it more difficult to interpret them as straightforward examples of science and religion at war with one another. The course will also provide an opportunity to examine more recent questions at the intersection of science and religion: does evolution undermine the biblical notion that humans are ‘made in the image of God’? Does the concept of original sin need to be reformulated in light of developments in evolutionary biology? Can God act in a world increasingly predictable to science?

Our planet is small, beautiful, and crowded. We might expect that Christians, with their duty to be good neighbours, would be at the forefront of efforts to keep it beautiful and share it generously with neighbours. Yet in a famous polemic in 1967 Lynn White Jr declared that, as ‘the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen… Christianity bears a huge burden of guilt’ for the present environmental crisis.

The article became received wisdom in environmental studies, leading to Christianity’s being considered the problem, not part of the solution, and to a focus on the work of those who found in nature itself the prospect of peace, fulfilment, and even salvation.

Yet the roots of nature conservation, particularly in the old world, were often Christian: the UK’s foremost conservation charity, the National Trust, for example, was founded by three devout Anglicans. Moreover conservation was impelled not thwarted by anthropocentrism: the Commons Preservation Trust, for example, the UK’s oldest preservation society with many Christians among its founders, campaigned to save commons for, not from, people. Can White’s argument and empirical research about early naturalists be reconciled? Can attentiveness to Christian motivation enrich our understanding of nature conservation? Can the experience of Christian nature conservationists give us a language for discussing the relationship between Christianity and ecology, and a basis for constructing our own authentic ethics of ecology and conservation? By close reading of nature texts we move the discussion back in time to consider a new starting point, to recover a Christian environmental ethics recover from conservation’s roots and adapt it for today’s purposes.

The Vines has been adapted to accommodate students with physical disabilities. This includes the following ground floor facilities: accessible single and double occupancy rooms, an accessible bathroom, all common rooms, kitchen, and both main entrances are equipped with ramps for wheelchair access. SCIO is committed to making reasonable arrangements to enable students to participate as fully as possible in all areas of the programme. Further information about accessibility accommodations are available upon request. Please send any queries to globaled@cccu.org.

The Vines is mixed gender housing, with both single and shared rooms available.  Students are only assigned roommates of the same gender and, likewise, bathrooms facilities are only shared with students of the same gender.

Bedrooms

Students are placed in rooms based on their answers to a housing questionnaire that is part of the application process. Rooms range in capacity from singles to quadruples. Below are some examples of typical rooms in the Vines:

Common rooms

In addition to students bedrooms, there are many common rooms that are shared with everyone living at the Vines. At the Vines offers areas for students cook, study, and relax together in a tight knit community.

Kitchen

Dining room

The grounds

Students have full access to the grounds at The Vines. This includes a large back garden with tables and chairs for studying and eating and plenty of space for sporting activities and relaxing.

Internet Access

Free high speed broadband internet is available throughout the Vines. The Vines has an average download speeds of 50mbps and an upload speed of 18mbps. Login information for the Vines will be provided to you when you move in and is posted throughout the property. The wireless network is checked regularly to ensure there is proper coverage throughout the property.

Environmental Sustainability at the Vines

SCIO is committed to reducing our environmental impact and we encourage our students to follow sustainable practices. We do this through:

• Providing recycling and composting bins and guidance on how to properly recycle at our student housing. Instructions for what can be recycled and composted is posted on the notice board by the main kitchen. An orientation about recycling and composting will be provided by the Junior Dean during the start of the programme.
• Encouraging students to walk and cycle while travelling around Oxford and to take mass public transit while traveling greater distances. Bicycles are provided free of charge to all residents of the Vines to use throughout the programme term.

• The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology houses the University’s extensive collections of art and antiquities. Established in 1683, it is the oldest museum in the U.K. and one of the oldest in the world. It also houses an exceptional collection of prints which can be viewed by any member of the public upon special arrangement. Free admission.
• The University Museum of Natural History houses the University’s scientific collections. With 4.5 million specimens it is the largest collection of its type outside the national collections. Free admission.
• The Pitt Rivers Museum holds one of the finest collections of anthropology and archaeology. Free admission.
• The Museum of the History of Science is housed in the world’s oldest surviving purpose-built museum building. It contains an excellent collection of historic scientific instruments from around the world. Free admission.
• The Bate Collection of Musical Instruments celebrates the development of musical instruments in the western classical tradition from the medieval period to the present.
• The University of Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in Britain. It contains the most compact yet diverse collection of plants in the world.
• The Harcourt Arboretum is an informal garden, where the public can enjoy walks and riding their bicycles. It is six miles south of Oxford and forms an integral part of the Botanic Garden’s plant collection.
• The Christ Church Picture Gallery houses an important collection of Old Master paintings and almost 2,000 drawings in a gallery of considerable architectural interest.
• Modern Art Oxford is the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in the Southeast region of Britain. Admission free.

Oxford

Oxford is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. While in Oxford you will have access to libraries that have been established for over 800 years, as well as the city’s its museums, bookshops, and entertainment venues. Discover some of the amazing art available on view in Oxford with an art-walk: explore Christ Church Picture Gallery, see the Pre-Raphaelite murals in the Oxford Union, and visit the famous “Light of the World” by Edward Burne-Jones hidden away in the chapel at Keble College. Over your time at Oxford, various plays are put on in the evenings, which are fun to attend as a group.

Blenheim Palace

Spend the day wandering the grounds of Blenheim Palace: a world heritage site, home of the eleventh duke of Marlborough, and the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill. The palace dates from 1705 and is set in a park designed by Capability Brown. Next to the grounds is the village of Bladon, where we visit Winston Churchill’s grave. Complete the afternoon with tea at the wonderful Bladon Tea Rooms in Woodstock.

Port Meadow

Enjoy a beautiful afternoon stroll (weather permitting) through Oxford’s Port Meadow—frequented by grazing horses—and end at the famous Trout Inn for a meal of fish and chips.

Bath

Stroll through the Roman streets of Bath, taking in all of its architectural beauty. Visit the Roman Baths and the great Abbey, and follow in the footsteps of one of Bath’s most famous inhabitants, Jane Austen. End the day with tea at Sally Lunn’s tea-room in the oldest house in Bath.

C.S. Lewis’s Home

Enjoy an afternoon visit to The Kilns, C.S. Lewis’s home in Headington. After touring the house and grounds, visit his parish church, Holy Trinity, where he is buried and commemorated with beautifully etched Narnia windows.

Burford

Burford is a small historic village with one of the most prized parish churches in the country, dating from the 1100s (although the site has been a place of Christian worship since the 600s). Walk through the countryside to visit the deserted medieval village of Widford, a once-thriving community that was wiped out by the plague during the 14th century and never recovered. The 12th-century church is all that remains, and is situated in the middle of a field without any access except by foot.

Dorchester

Once a major political and ecclesiastical centre, Dorchester is now a sleepy town with one of the most fascinating churches (once an abbey) in the country. Walk through the woods and up an Iron Age hill fort (dating from the 4th century BC) with some of the most spectacular views in Oxfordshire. Plus another 14th-century church to explore along the way! Cross the Little Wittenham Bridge, used for the official World Poohsticks Championships.

London

Over the semester many students find themselves drawn to sites and attractions in London, which is less than an hour by train, or 90 minutes by bus. In one day, students often manage to explore aristocratic London and the royal parks, and go past Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster, and Downing Street before stopping to spend some time in the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery at Trafalger Square. After lunch, you can walk around some of the older part of the City of London, including an optional climb up the Monument (a large Corinthian column with panoramic views over London from its top) and a walk past the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. Then go to St Paul’s Cathedral for evensong, where you can hear one of the finest all-boys choirs in the world. Don’t forget to have dinner before heading back home. Phew! And that is only a minute selection of the many opportunities there are to explore whatever might be your heart’s desire in this remarkable city. Some students have chosen to supplement their research by taking advantage of their free access to the holdings of the British Library in London and the National Archives at Kew, near London.

The programme is located in Oxford, one of the oldest and most prestigious university cities in the world. You will study in and enjoy all the benefits of the great city of Oxford. The SCIO offices are in North Oxford, a 15 min walk to the city centre. The Vines is located in the Headington neighborhood, a 30 min walk to the city centre.

Oxford is located 60 to 90 minutes from the centre of London by train or bus.

For tutorials, students may meet with their tutors at their college or department, while others meet at SCIO’s offices, museums, coffee shops, and other places in Oxford.

For the British Culture courses and Research Prohect meetings, most of these will take place at SCIO’s offices, which has teaching room space.

You will be in four courses throughout the semester. The heart of the Oxford Semester Programme is the tutorial. During the full eight-week Oxford term, you will be enrolled in a primary (6 credits) and a secondary (3 credits) tutorial, which meet every week and every other week, respectively.

The British Culture course (4 credits) examines aspects of past and present day Britain. Students attend discussion and gobbets (gobbet is Oxford’s word for a small mouthful of text for close reading or translation and then discussion) classes in the tutorial seminar of their choice and participate in field trips, but spend most of their time doing independent study to produce detailed, scholarly essays. The Research Project (4 credits) allows for independent research on a topic of students’ choosing. Most of the work for the Research Project is independent research, but each student is assigned an advisor to guide them in their research.

Throughout the semester we have weekly tea on Tuesdays in the SCIO offices. This is a time for students and staff to come together, take a break from study, and get to know each other better. These teas are often a highlight of the semester for both students and staff. During the tutorial period we also have weekly gatherings as part of our Vocation and Scholarship series. The aim of this series is to provide a platform for exploring the idea of vocation within a culture of research and scholarship. These meetings take the form of either an academic lecture or chapel service. 

During the tutorial period, you will only meet once or twice with your tutor each week and the rest of your week is spent preparing for your upcoming tutorials. Some students prefer to study at the Vines, either in their room or the common areas, some prefer to study in one of the Bodleian libraries, and others enjoy studying in the student lounge of the SCIO offices. Regardless of your preferred place of study, the tutorial sytyle of learning is very self-directed and emphasizes individual study over classroom time.

During the Selected Topics in British Culture period, you will have more frequent small group, discussion based classes. We will also have weekly filed trips to various sites around England.

You will also be working on your research project throughout the term, so will need to make sure you allocate time to work on that alongside your other coursework.

In addition to your academics, you may choose to get involved in the numerious clubs and societies on offer in Oxford. Theses are a great way to get to know other students in the city and engage with those in the local community.

The Vines, a modest mansion with a beautiful view, is a 35-minute walk to the city centre of Oxford. It also has a common room, dining room, large kitchen, and laundry facilities.

If you are accepted to the programme, you will be asked to fill out a housing form in which you may indicate any rooming preferences you have. However, please bear in mind that SCIO will not always be able to accommodate housing preferences.

You will get plenty of invites to tea times throughout the week. Many students acquire such a taste for tea, and for the social rejuvenation of these respites, that they bring the custom back home at the programme’s end.

For travel outside of Oxford, the UK has an extensive network of trains and buses that can get you to most anyplace you will want to visit.

If your phone is unlocked and compatible with overseas SIM cards, you can purchase this card upon arrival. Many students choose this option as it is often much more cost effective than paying to use your US provider’s service in the UK.