The Pelican Record Corpus Christi College Vol. LV1 December 2020 The Pelican Record The President’s Report 4 Features 10 Isaiah Berlin, Corpuscle by Henry Hardy 10 D.W. Carmalt Jones (CCC 1893–1900) by Harriet Patrick 22 Bede’s Ecclesiastical History by Colleen Curran 30 A Commemoration Sermon by Peter McCullough 45 Motivated by Mindfulness by Gediminas Pažėra 51 Book Reviews 54 Feeling and Classical Philology: Knowing Antiquity in German Scholarship, 1770–1920 by Constanze Güthenke; reviewed by Jaś Elsner 54 Orphans of the Storm by Struan Murray; reviewed by Beatrice Stevens 56 The Philosophy of Isaiah Berlinby Johnny Lyons; reviewed by David Miller 57 Renaissance College edited by John Watts; reviewed by Thomas Charles-Edwards 60 Brontë’s Mistress by Finola Austin; reviewed by Emily Rutherford 64 Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins; reviewed by Val Cunningham 66 Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce; reviewed by Val Cunningham 69 News of Corpuscles 71 News of Old Members 71 Summer Eights 1963 74 The Clock Match 2020 78 Deaths 80 Obituaries 82 The Record 120 The Chaplain’s Report 120 The Library 123 Acquisitions and Gifts to the Library 125 The College Archives 130 The Junior Common Room 132 The Middle Common Room 134 The Chapel Choir 137 Clubs and Societies 141 The Fellows 158 Scholarships and Prizes 2019–2020 172 Graduate Examination Results 174 Undergraduate Examination Results 177 New Members of the College 180 Corpus Christi College The Pelican Record 2020 3 The President’s Report This “syncopated” academic year, as our former MCR President aptly describes it (p.134), began straightforwardly enough. We welcomed new colleagues: Professor Marion Durand as Fellow in Ancient Philosophy, and as JRFs Dr. Yusen Yu (the first holder of the James Legge Memorial JRF in Comparative Aesthetics and Art History), Dr. Vidya Narayanan and Dr Méadbh Brosnan (Cullen JRF). Dr. Bernardo Ballesteros joined us as Research Fellow in Classics. It was a pleasure to have the company of our Visiting Fellows (the Hon. Justice Brian Preston and Professor Elzbieta Witkowska-Zaremba) along with that of our Visiting Scholars (Dr. Colin King, Dr. Amelia Worsley and Professor Sidney Shapiro). Katherine Baysan joined the College as Outreach and Admissions Officer in December 2019, and our outreach work was further enhanced by the arrival of Laura Jackson during the summer of 2020 in the new role of Assistant Outreach Officer. Other new members of staff were Mandi Sutton (Head Housekeeper), George Danescu (Kitchen Assistant), Fidelia DaConceiao and Azzizat Abolade (Scouts) and Chris Ede (Yardman). Significant Corpus anniversaries were also celebrated for two valued members of the College community: David Leake, College Gardener, completed 40 years at Corpus, and Rachel Clifford, Academic Registrar, passed the 25-year milestone. Amongst our departures and retirements were some longstanding members of the College community. The Development Office saw the near-simultaneous retirements of Nick Thorn and Sarah Salter, after nineteen and ten years of service respectively. Nick was the first ever Development Director at Corpus: he read history here (1988), and returned to the College in 2001; Sarah joined in 2010 as Head of Alumni Relations. Between them they have built up and I ended last year’s President’s Report meditating on the process of “re-thinking” as an intellectual sustained a warm and close-knit community of Corpus alumni and they will be much missed. and institutional obligation. Little did I know how extensively we as individuals and as a We also bade farewell to Carole Rayner (Accounts Assistant), after 18 years at the College. Suzie collegiate community were going to have to re-think our teaching, learning and socialising Jackson (Outreach and Admissions Officer) also moved to pastures new this year; to all of them during 2019–2020. A new lexicon has grown up around us, one that has changed the ways in we extend our grateful thanks and best wishes for the future. which we describe and manage our lives. A word as previously light-hearted as “bubble”, for Amongst the Fellows, we said goodbye to Professor Nikolaos Papazarkadas, Fellow in Ancient example, has transmuted from something that is blown with children on a sunny afternoon History, who returned to the US, to Dr. Nigel Bowles and to Dr. Anna Marmodoro. Nigel joined in the garden to a powerful mechanism of social organisation and state control of a kind Corpus in 2011 as Director of the Rothermere Institute and from 2015 was a Senior Research previously unknown in our times. Such has been the impact of the pandemic on English that Fellow. He was a generous and involved member of Governing Body, sitting on Investment the Oxford Languages team has, for the first time, chosen a list of “Words of an Unprecedented Committee and latterly serving as Keeper of the Cellar. The wine-tastings he organised together Year” rather than just one.1 Technical terms from medicine and public health have been rapidly with Anna Marmodoro, Master of Common Room, were much enjoyed and appreciated by all. accepted into common parlance, and the new, context-specific meanings of words such as Anna is another of our 2020 leavers who will be much missed in the SCR, where she was always “mute” and “social distancing” will be forever connected with 2020. As the Oxford Languages an energetic and welcoming host as Master. Anna has been a familiar face in Corpus since 2007 report observes, one of the strangest aspects to the pandemic has been the need to make explicit as a JRF, Official Fellow and most recently Research Fellow; she holds the Chair in Metaphysics in words assumptions that were previously inherent, the most poignant example being “in- at Durham University and will we hope remain in close touch with the life of the Corpus SCR. person”. This is a change that has resonated strongly and painfully in educational settings such as ours that were designed around the principles of an emphatically “in-person” collegiate life, Former President Sir Steven Cowley and Professor Jonathan Glover were elected to Honorary as explored in Renaissance College, one of the Corpus books published this year, which is edited Fellowships, Mr. William Morris was elected to a Claymond Fellowship in recognition of by John Watts and reviewed here by his predecessor as Fellow in History, Thomas Charles- his long service to the Corpus Association, and Professor Richard Cornall was elected to an Edwards. Emeritus Fellowship. We were greatly saddened by news of the deaths of Honorary Fellows Eldred Jones and Arthur Scace, Emeritus Fellow Professor Jim Griffin and Foundation Fellow 1 See https://languages.oup.com/word-of-the-year/2020/. 4 The Pelican Record 2020 Corpus Christi College Corpus Christi College The Pelican Record 2020 5 Gordon Aldrick. We congratulate former President Sir Keith Thomas on being appointed Across the whole College, there was a tangible determination not to let the pandemic diminish Companion of Honour for services to the study of history in the New Year Honours List 2020, our core purposes of teaching and research, and with the generous support of Old Members we and Paul Ramsbottom (1994), who was awarded an OBE for services to charity. There was put in place a Remote Working Fund to aid our students in the purchase of essentials for home- much rejoicing at the news that Professor Pete Nellist, Fellow in Materials, has been elected a based online study, such as desks and noise-cancelling headphones. The first ever virtual Open Fellow of the Royal Society. Days were held, and the new pilot collaboration with the University of Derby (Derby Scholars) proceeded remotely, as did the North West Science Network Summer School. Our recent trend Michaelmas and Hilary terms saw Corpus host a number of memorable and highly topical of admitting a higher than University average of state school students continued, and we still events. In November, Professor Jonathan Prag (1994, now of Merton College) reflected on the have the second highest share amongst Oxford colleges of students from postcodes indicating digital humanities at the Scholars’ Dinner, and Hassan Damluji (2001) of the Gates Foundation areas of low progression to university. The first ever Opportunity Oxford offers (for candidates spoke on globalism and nationalism at the President’s Seminar. Rowena Chiu (1993) made a from disadvantaged or under-represented backgrounds who might not otherwise have received welcome return to Corpus to meet members of the JCR and MCR, accompanied by Jodi an offer) were made across the University; at Corpus we look forward to welcoming four Kantor and Megan Twohey, the journalists who broke the Harvey Weinstein story, who were Opportunity Oxford students in October. speaking at the Oxford Union about their book She Said. In January, we were delighted to host the premiere of a film by Johnny Lyons, Discovering Isaiah Berlin, which was followed Although the pandemic and its associated financial tribulations restricted our on-site renovation by a roundtable discussion of Berlin’s continuing legacy. The Bateson Lecture was given by activities to the refurbishment of student accommodation at Kybald Twychen, digitally the Professor Mark Ford (UCL), under the title “Woman Much Missed: Thomas Hardy, Emma public face of the College received a complete overhaul with the launch of our new website. Hardy and Poetry”. It was, as ever, a pleasure to host the triennial Lowe Lectures, given this This year-long project, the fruit of collaboration between the JCR, MCR, Governing Body and year by Corpus Fellow Professor Judith Olszowy-Schlanger on the subject of “The Hebrew- College staff, was ready just in time for our pivot into an online existence. The next stage of our Latin Manuscripts of the Library of Corpus Christi College”.