Corpus Christi College the Pelican Record
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CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE THE PELICAN RECORD Vol. LIII December 2017 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE THE PELICAN RECORD Vol. LIII December 2017 i The Pelican Record Editor: Mark Whittow Acting Editor: Neil McLynn Assistant Editors: Sara Watson, David Wilson Design and Printing: Mayfield Press Published by Corpus Christi College, Oxford 2017 Website: http://www.ccc.ox.ac.uk Email: [email protected] Front cover: Detail from the Oglethorpe Bible, bequeathed to Corpus Christi by James Oglethorpe (d. 1785), founder of the American colony of Georgia. Back cover: Corpus Christi College from an original oil painting by Ceri Allen, featured in the 2017 edition of the Oxford Almanack. ii The Pelican Record CONTENTS President’s Report .................................................................................. 3 Dr. Mark Whittow – A Tribute Neil McLynn ............................................................................................. 7 Rededication of the College Chapel Judith Maltby ............................................................................................ 14 Foundation Dinner 2017 Keith Thomas ............................................................................................ 18 Creating the Corpus Christi Quincentenary Salt Angela Cork .............................................................................................. 26 A Year of Celebration: Corpus Turns 500 Sarah Salter ............................................................................................... 29 Review: As You Like It Robert Jackson ........................................................................................... 36 A Conservator’s Perspective on 500 Years: Treasures from the Library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford Celia Withycombe ..................................................................................... 39 Abraham Lincoln’s Sense of Humour Richard Carwardine .................................................................................. 42 Imagining the Divine: Art and the Rise of World Religions Jaś Elsner ................................................................................................... 48 Ludovicus Vives and the College of Bees Alexandra Marracini ................................................................................ 54 A Corpuscle in Crete Robert Rendel ............................................................................................ 63 An American Abroad in Literature Kathryn Hoven .......................................................................................... 71 Improving Access to Justice in Panama: Sharpston Travel Grant Report Jack Beadsworth ........................................................................................ 74 Reviews ‘The Great Little College’: Corpuscles on Corpus Christi College Oxford, 1945–2017, edited by Stephen Hickey Brian Harrison .......................................................................................... 82 1 The Pelican Record Corpus Christi College, Oxford: a History, by Thomas Charles-Edwards and Julian Reid Jeremy Catto ............................................................................................ 92 Stolen Legacy: Nazi Theft and the Quest for Justice at Krausenstrasse 17/18, Berlin by Dina Gold Nick Thorn .............................................................................................. 96 Poetry and Thinking of the Chagga: Contributions to East African Ethnology by Bruno Gutmann. Translated from the German by Ilona Gruber Drivdal and Shelby Tucker Matthew Dyson ...................................................................................... 98 Obituaries Tony Bamford ................................................................................... 101 David Behrend .................................................................................. 103 Brian Edwards .................................................................................. 104 Jack Fillingham ................................................................................. 106 Michael Hager ................................................................................... 108 Denis McQuail .................................................................................. 110 Joshua Parsons .................................................................................. 114 Stewart Platts ..................................................................................... 116 Jon Underwood ................................................................................. 118 Jim Waterhouse ................................................................................. 120 The Record The Chaplain ..................................................................................... 123 The Library ........................................................................................ 126 Gifts to the Library ........................................................................... 131 The College Archives ....................................................................... 148 The Junior Common Room ............................................................. 151 The Middle Common Room ........................................................... 153 Expanding Horizons Reports ......................................................... 155 Travel Grant Reports ........................................................................ 162 Chapel Choir and Tour 2017 ........................................................... 169 Clubs and Societies ............................................................................. 176 The Fellows .......................................................................................... 203 News of Corpuscles ............................................................................ 217 Scholarships and Prizes 2016–2017 .................................................... 223 Graduate Examination Results ........................................................... 226 Undergraduate Examination Results ................................................ 228 New Members of the College ............................................................. 235 2 The Pelican Record PRESIDENT’S REPORT Nicholas Read AS I SIT IN the Presidential office, with its unique view across the Meadows, my desk is strewn with my rough notes summarising the year’s human balance sheet. They contain the fulfilment of hopes and the realisation of some expected disappointments; the cycle of promising arrivals and fond departures; the prizes and the punishments. Inevitably the pluses outweigh the minuses, and you see that you will come to the same rough judgement as that made by your many predecessors, that all these micro-calculations, this tally of the good and the not-so-good, point to the fact that that the College remains on the same long path to progress that it has followed since it was founded almost 501 years ago. I find it very difficult to look back to this moment in the calendar last year with the same sense of cheerful optimism, when we announced our plans for our Quincentenary celebrations to our Old Members. For just as the festivities finally drew to a close, as we started to roll up our banners, the last few items of merchandise were packaged up and the remaining bottles of champagne were poured, we were rocked by news of the deaths of two close members of the Corpus family. In mid-December, Chris Foster, a porter here for ten years and a friend to hundreds of students in that time, died after a very short illness. Just two weeks later, on the night before Christmas 3 The Pelican Record Eve, Dr. Mark Whittow, Fellow in Byzantine History since 2009, was killed in a road accident on his way to spend the holidays with his family at their home in Northamptonshire. At the last Governing Body meeting of 2017, I had been able to announce the joyous news that Mark had been elected to be Provost of Oriel from next September – it had been a matter of great pride to us. Chris and Mark leave an enormous gap here and we begin the new calendar year with heavy hearts. Having been part of our celebrations, I know that both Chris and Mark would want us to hold on to our many happy memories from 2017. And many glorious moments there were. “Little Corpus” made its presence known around the world, with two remarkable exhibitions of some of its library treasures in Washington DC and New York, attended by 40,000 visitors. There was an alumni ball attended by 500 guests, which took us back to Tudor times, with music and dancing, jugglers and an array of Henrician peasantry, presided over by Bishop Fox himself. The positioning of a mounted knight in battle-armour by the main gate was an experiment I was tempted to continue for next year’s Corpus Challenge. In all over fifty events were held worldwide, an endeavour that drew on every last drop of energy from our development team, especially Sarah Salter, our Head of Alumni Relations, who had returned from long-term absence with serious health issues to lead the charge on our activities programme. Some of the ways we marked the anniversary were rather more cerebral in tone. The summer saw the publication by the University Press of a new College history by Emeritus Fellow Thomas Charles- Edwards and our archivist Julian Reid. This followed the launch earlier in the year of ‘The Great Little College’, a collection of reminiscences by Corpuscles, edited by Old Member Stephen Hickey. Both have been selling very