Contra Mundum

Drawn together initially by our mutual love of Evelyn's Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, the Oxford novel, a fabulous group of eight friends was formed. We started gathering to watch the amazing TV mini series adaptation of the novel starring Jeremy Irons, and the friendships grew from there. Our fine society was christened the Contra Mundum Society, the phrase taken from Brideshead, at a trip to the Trout (a lovely pub overlooking the Godstow River roughly an hour's walk from the city center) over the Easter vacation. At our last gathering of the year before we went our separate ways (Chris and Rob both left Oxford for good this year) I surprised the group with t-shirts that Glenn and I designed using Glenn's very handy photo-shop skills.

Here the t-shirts are unveiled:

The front: our own version of the Oxford University crest. It normally says "DOMINUS ILLUMINATIO MEA" inside the book, which we changed to "CONTRA MUNDUM" and added the year in Roman numerals at the bottom.
The back: a quote from Brideshead and all of our names and 'titles' taken from a Facebook group that we created.


And here is the whole motley crew. All Classicists except Chris who studies Modern Theology. Standing: me, Glenn, Sam, Laura, Evert, and Alan. Kneeling: Chris and Rob (the two leavers - oh, how sad it was to see them go).

We are confident that there will be many reuinions, even with two of our members now based in the States.