With the stereotypes of each college dominating prejudices and expectations around how a person will act and behave, I think it would be interesting to guess what type of things you read based on your college.
Josephine Butler – Dystopians and Political Literature
I may be biased, but those in Josephine Butler seem like they read political texts, but more specifically dystopians. Josephine Butler has a really close community of people who are very aware of not only the political climate, but mostly have a sense of emotional intelligence, which is developed from reading this type of literature. Further, the suffragist background of Josephine Butler herself and her calls for reform are very on-theme with these types of texts and promotes the college values. Books like The Handmaid’s Tale (as I warned, I’m biased), Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 really pique your interest and you are interested in the different ideas and concepts society and politics can adopt.
Stephenson – Travel fiction and stories
Since George Stephenson was the first locomotive builder, I expect that travel fiction perfectly suits the interests of those at Stephenson. Whether it be Gulliver’s Travels, Heart of Darkness, or even Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation, you enjoy learning about not only the world, but the different cultures it has to offer. You are interested in how we socialise and build bridges across differences, but are equally invested in how social structures like ideology can determine how we interact with each other across borders and throughout time. Either that, or you just use reading as a form of holiday escapism from your degree.
Collingwood – Modernist
If you attend Collingwood, you strike me as someone that enjoys modernist fiction. For those of you that don’t know, modernism was a literary movement that broke from tradition due to the change in societal forces, creating a more experimental way of writing.
Conventions and tropes include using a stream-of-consciousness, rejecting aspects of realism, and often has a surreal and/or psychological exploration of a character or theme. People at Collingwood strike me as people that are into those experimental aspects of the texts, especially with the vibrant and confident reputation it is given from sports. I’d imagine Virginia Woolf’s novels are devoured in one sitting within Collingwood.
South – Sci-fi
Given its grey exterior and the neon pink signs in the bar, if your college is South, I’m assuming that you love to read sci-fi. The surreal and technological aspects of the Capitol in The Hunger Games and the general design of different worlds and settings are what interest you the most.
With the motto also translating to “Freedom, Equality and Global Citizenship”, I’d also imagine that many of you have some interest in the political themes of these books, but I think the technological and futuristic aesthetic of the books you read separates your taste from the speculative fiction that defines the taste of those at Butler.
John Snow – Fantasy or Non-fiction
Sorry to be cliché, but if you’re at John Snow, the mistaken connection to Game of Thrones means you either love reading fantasy, or you read non-fiction (considering John Snow made progress within the medical world through discovering the link between cholera transmission and water). You either sit on the one extreme of using your free time to enjoy Lord of the Rings or Fourth Wing, or you sit on the other extreme and peruse the science and psychology sections in Waterstones. Either way, the conflict must create a diverse community of readers and overlapping themes between them.
St Mary’s – Victorian or Young adult
Like John Snow, I perceive the readers of St Mary’s to be in two separate categories. Some of you chose Mary’s for its gothic charm and gorgeous architecture, which is an aesthetic and joy you can only derive from the descriptions found within the acclaimed literature of the Victorian period. You enjoy Arthur Conan Doyle’s descriptions of London as Sherlock and Watson run around trying to solve a case, or you love the beautiful depictions of the rural Yorkshire Moors within Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and the mystery behind the setting. However, this does falsely give some of you a superiority complex when it comes to your reading tastes, seeing them as a higher body of literature.
The rest of Mary’s, however, is unafraid to see all literature as equal, enjoying the odd escapism into young adult literature. Recent texts like A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, Sally Rooney’s Normal People, and The Hunger Games books (including The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Sunrise on the Reaping) and the emotional investment within them are what develop your emotional intelligence and create the difference from your Mary’s counterparts.
St John’s – Theology and philosophy or bildungsroman
With John’s being the religious college with strong connections to the CU, I perceive you as either reading theology and philosophy, or really enjoying texts within the bildungsroman genre. Bildungsroman books feature stories in which the protagonist matures and there is very clear character development. This is because whilst this genre works in a personal and domestic sphere within a text, morals and the study of humanity is at its centre, reflecting how we change as people and the adaptability of human nature. With religious and philosophical texts also teaching morals through stories, these correlating themes resonate with Johns.
St Chads – Gothic
If you’re at St Chads, you most likely chose it for its small community and the older charm of the building on the Bailey. With the aesthetics matching, I perceive you as really enjoying gothic literature for both the descriptive elements and also the excitement and thrill of the mystery within its conventions. With one convention being a house setting, the smaller college of Chad’s is perfect for trying to romanticise and invent this within real life. Further, the supernatural elements would also be easier to hallucinate in such an environment and romanticise your own life as the protagonist within the college. Texts like Frankenstein interest you for the plot, but the luxury and class elements of some of the Brontës’ works also resonates with you, and you live through this vicariously with the glamour and beauty of the upstairs bar.
St Cuthbert’s society – Psychological
If you’re at Cuths, I see you as loving psychological books. The reputation of Cuths is that some see it as quite alternative, whereas some see it as an “all rounder” college with a diverse group of people. The exploration of psychology within different characters and works of fiction has so many diverse opportunities and I think this perfectly matches Cuths and the type of people you’d meet there. Whether it is Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, a modernist piece by Virginia Woolf, or Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, all these texts have so much to be explored on a social and a personal level and create the diversity and attempts at breaking tradition that Cuths offers.
Grey – Romantics
This may be because I have met a lot of people from Grey studying English Literature, but I honestly feel like the emotional intelligence that many people from Grey have is from a love of the Romantics. Whether it is political like William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, or from the incredibly loving or creepy works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, the people at Grey have a variety of interests that can be met and explored within this literary period, with many focusing on the movement’s rejection of reason and industrialisation. The imagination and sometimes supernatural aspects of these texts are what pique the interests of those at Grey, creating interesting ideas and really nice people.
Castle – Dark academia
Be honest with yourself, you chose Castle to live through your Harry Potter dreams. You grew up reading these texts and realised you didn’t get your letter from Hogwarts, and so now go to the Lowe Library to try romanticise your reality of muggle life.
However, as you have grown up, your literary tastes have stayed mostly similar and you now read books with the dark academia aesthetic. You love The Picture of Dorian Gray as a classic, but you devour the BookTok dark academia books that are recommended to you.
St Aidan’s – Descriptive fiction
Aidan’s is most notable for its beautiful view of Durham and the Cathedral once you conquer the stairs, and because of this I believe you are into descriptive writing. Rather than the character focus of psychological texts, you enjoy a third person narrator that pays attention to detail and setting. You enjoy Tolkien’s infamously lengthy writing style and the descriptive qualities of Keats in Lamia.
Hatfield – Autobiographies
With Hatfield’s weird traditions and infamous stereotypes, I believe that Hatfielders indulge in autobiographies. Because they are reading real stories and real accounts from this that experienced them, they see it as a higher body of literature in choosing fact over fiction. However, this is what they tell themselves and autobiographies are also subjective, as is how we experience reality. I also feel like autobiographies provide enough scope for the different interests and subjects of those within the college, whether they act in a stereotypical way or not. It encompasses everything from comedians to politicians, reflecting the dichotomy of people you meet within Hatfield.
Trevelyan – Murder mysteries and detective fiction
With there being a certain eerie element to the college bar and the various twists and turns of the Hexagons, I expect that those at Trevelyan read murder mysteries and detective fiction. I expect that many grew up reading the Murder Most Unladylike series of books, or Horowitz Horror when growing up, but now Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle seems to scratch the desire for suspense and suspicion.
Van Mildert – Historical fiction
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I don’t know what it is about Van Mildert, but I get the vibe that people there enjoy a good piece of historical fiction. There is a sense of glamorisation from the various aesthetics of different historical eras that they can live through vicariously, and without the actual disadvantages of living within the past. Texts like Hamnet, Song of Achilles, and various other mythology retellings stimulate and fascinate the readers of Van Mildert.
Hild and Bede – Plays
Given that Hild and Bede has the biggest college theatre company, I’d expect that those within the college enjoy reading a good play. When they have a small amount of spare time amongst their degree, rehearsals, going out and other societies, they love to fly through a short play in one sitting. Whether it be The Wasp (contemporary and psychological), Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (stylised and symbolic) which was adapted by Simon Stephens from Mark Haddon’s novel, or Shakespeare and something more classical, there’s a diverse range in which this college dips into.
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