Oxford Student PEN

Starting out strong 🖐️

The stories of Maram al-Masri and Bejan Matur, two poets driven from their countries of Turkey and Syrian...

"this is war poetry from the diaspora, from those who are not
there, scattered into limbo. There is a poem about how
'We are the exiles/ we live on the pills of sedation/ ... We sleep
embracing our mobile phones/ To the light from our screens.' "

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/04/female-poets-of-syrian-war-turkey-middle-east

Voices above the chaos: female war poets from the Middle East The carnage in Turkey and Syria has led to a blossoming of poetry – with women at the forefront. Here, two of them tell their stories

English PEN is once again running its annual prison writing competition, giving prisoners a chance for self-reflection and more connection with the outside world through contact with the well-known authors that judge the competition.

If you would like to read anthologies of the diverse texts - short stories, poems, and letters - from past anthologies, have a look here!

https://www.scribd.com/collections/7694289/English-PEN-Prison-Writing-Competition

http://eepurl.com/casAur

'British NHS worker, Faziah Shaheen, was detained under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act on 25 July, following suspicions about the book she was reading. Ms Shaheen was reading the PEN-supported anthology Syria Speaks on her honeymoon flight with Thomson Airways.

Jo Glanville, director of English PEN, said:
The freedom to read any book, no matter the subject, is a fundamental cornerstone of our liberty.'

English PEN condemns detention of reader under Terrorism Act No one should ever be detained by the police on the basis of the literature they’re reading

If you missed the recent BBC series 'Exodus: Our Journey to Europe' it can be strongly recommended as an intimate insight into the human aspect of a refugee crisis that is often presented in terms of numbers and statistics.

Catch up on the three part series here! The page also gives links to research done by the Open University about asylum and immigration, exploring questions such as the importance or danger of smartphones to those fleeing conflict...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07ky6ft

Exodus: Our Journey to Europe - BBC Two Documentary series filmed using camera phones by people smuggling themselves into Europe.

Take action! http://www.pen-international.org/newsitems/turkey-cumhuriyet-journalists-can-dundar-and-erdem-gul-facing-life-imprisonment/

Turkey: Cumhuriyet journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül facing life imprisonment PEN International Erdem Gül (left) and Can Dündar speak to the media outside court in Istanbul, Turkey. Photograph: Vedat Arik/AP RAN 03/15 Update #4 28 January 2016 – PEN International is deeply concerned by news that the İstanbul Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor is seeking an aggravated life sentence against Cumhu…

Take action against mass surveillance! Sign the petition to call for reform of UK surveillance laws

https://www.dontspyonus.org.uk/englishpen

Don't Spy on Us - English PEN Don't Spy On Us is campaigning for fundamental reform of Internet surveillance by GCHQ. Join the campaign today!

A few practical tips from Edward Snowden for strengthening personal privacy and Internet freedom

Edward Snowden Explains How To Reclaim Your Privacy The NSA whistleblower sat down with The Intercept’s Micah Lee in Moscow for an interview about strengthening security and privacy.

This is our , which we held in various locations around Oxford to express our solidarity with Ayotzinapa and to raise awareness of the 43 missing students who were disappeared by the state in Mexico just over a year ago in September.

Join in the continuous action by downloading the portraits, photographing them in the streets of your city, and posting them on social media. For more information, follow the link below:
http://studentpenforayotzinapa.tumblr.com/photoactionformexico

Read Roger Scruton on free speech

Why we should defend the right to be offensive

**Only a few places left**

Sign up now for 'Dignity and the Novel since 1948', a one-day interdisciplinary symposium marking the launch of the ‘Fiction and Human Rights’ network at TORCH (http://torch.ox.ac.uk/dignity-and-novel).

This exciting event, which takes place on Saturday, November 7, will involve lawyers, literary scholars, philosophers and political theorists discussing the relationship between the modern novel and the concept of 'dignity' in legal theory and practice, and the ways in which the genre of fiction might or might not contribute to debates about the nature and role of dignity in human rights.

New network to explore interaction between law and literature | University of Oxford How can lawyers draw on literature to make their case? Can English professors benefit from a legal perspective? These are among the questions to be tackled by a new network set up by TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities.

Welcome drinks now at the Kings Arms - all welcome!