Outward Thinking

ISSUE 19 MICHAELMAS 2004 Outward Thinking From the Master Our academic year As part of its commitment to supporting world-class research started sadly with the and scholarship, Univ is reinforcing its longstanding connection death of Clare Drury, with philosophical thinking about law. our Senior Tutor since Thanks to the generous support of Univ Old Members, the College 2000. I have written is launching a programme of graduate studentships and visiting elsewhere about Clare fellowships in the field, and will soon be providing a physical home to and my address at her the Oxford Centre for Ethics and Philosophy of Law (CEPL). CEPL was funeral will be printed Professor John Gardner in next year’s Record. founded in 2002 as a collaboration between the three “Merton So suffice it to say here Street” colleges: Univ, Corpus, and Merton. It is jointly directed by John Broome of Corpus Lord Butler that her death was a of Brockwell (Professor of Moral Philosophy) and Univ’s own John Gardner (Professor of Jurisprudence). huge loss and major CEPL brings together moral and legal philosophers from all over the world. In addition to source of sadness in our College family. weekly speaker meetings, this year’s special events include a workshop on the philosophy of We were fortunate in recruiting as human rights at UNESCO in Paris, a conference at Univ on the law and ethics of complicity, Clare’s successor Dr Anne Knowland, and a colloquium on ‘aggregation’ (how to count people’s interests) to be led by Univ’s previously Divisional Secretary of the Donnelley JRF, Iwao Hirose. University’s Maths and Physical Sciences CEPL differs from some similarly-named centres around the world in that its main collective Division. Anne and I have taken the aim is not to tackle topical policy problems, but the timeless philosophical problems that opportunity of discussing with all our underlie them. For instance: Should judges ignore immoral laws? Is there any independent tutorial teams what lessons we can learn value in equality? Can anyone be complicit in a wrong to which they made no causal from Univ’s disappointing results in Finals contribution? this year. Univ’s renewed commitment will enable CEPL to share facilities with other Univ research One lesson is that the Norrington table projects (such as the Global Economic Governance Programme) at 12 Merton Street. is hyper-sensitive to a few results going The new visiting fellows will have dedicated office space there, and there will be open plan the wrong (or the right) way. We have space for the use of research students, as well as high quality seminar rooms. long known this but it is as difficult to Among lawyers and philosophers all over the world, Univ is known as the home of two accept when we do well as when we do of the most important figures of twentieth-century jurisprudence: H.L.A. Hart and badly. So this year may have been the R.M. Dworkin. The College’s involvement with CEPL will ensure that many other major statistical blip we must expect every thirty figures of the subject, present and future, have a Univ association. years or so, but it has still been a good opportunity for some reflection. These and several other ambitious developments along Meanwhile the new Vice-Chancellor’s Merton Street signify a bright future for Univ’s start has impressed us all. Refreshingly postgraduate students and researchers. direct and brisk, he has been remarkably Last year the College was granted planning permission to accessible and has been seen several develop 15 and 17 Merton Street into extra accommodation, times in Univ. His first preoccupation will predominantly for graduates. All 14 new rooms were be Oxford’s bid to the new Government converted in time to be occupied by students at the regulator for access arrangements which beginning of Michaelmas term. The conversion of three of extend fair opportunity in return for top- these rooms was made possible by a generous gift from an up fees. More in future Newsletters. Old Member. Finally, local news, as reported more The next step is already under way, with 12 Merton Street fully in the adjacent column. Adaptation View overlooking Merton College back in College ownership after a long spell as the European of houses on Merton Street has enabled from one of the newly converted School of Management. Extensive refurbishments have begun us to house all this year’s fresher rooms in 17 Merton Street to make space available for the College-based research projects graduates (as well as the first two years of described above. A generous gift from the Swire Foundation is also making possible a first-rate undergraduates) on or next to the main Seminar Room in this building. This should be completed in the early summer. site. Recovery of the European The College has additionally been granted planning permission to remove three walls behind Management School building also on the houses along Merton Street, which will permit the creation of a quiet outside study area Merton Street will give us more seminar for graduate students. The Garden-Master, Bob Thomas (Fellow in Chemistry), is currently and research rooms. We are on the way putting together proposals for this extra “quad” inside Univ; the newly created space will also to creating as much extra space for allow us to allocate further much needed car-parking spaces at the rear of the College. College use in Merton Street as we would Some further exciting news is that several University departments and faculties are being have gained by acquiring the Old Bank – relocated to the Radcliffe Infirmary site, and the University has agreed that Univ should be and at lower cost! offered the opportunity to purchase the Philosophy Building on Merton Street. Providing we We are sad to report, as the Newsletter can negotiate an acceptable price for the building, it will allow us to facilitate first-class goes to press, the death of Norman Dix, graduate research activity at Univ in collaboration with the other Merton Street Colleges. scout and long-time College boatman, The acquisition of this building would go a long way towards easing the disappointment at the age of 92. Through the support of felt at the loss of the Old Bank site. Together with the 2004/5 launch of postgraduate a group of Old Members, Norman was scholarships and bursaries in the Annual Fund Appeal, it will help Univ in its goal of attracting able to live the last years of his life in his the best graduates to the College. own house with the care he needed. College News The Master’s Sunday evening guests this term evening were a speech by the Poet Laureate, contact Dr Holmes have included Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Boris Andrew Motion (1971), and an exhibition ([email protected]) directly. Johnson MP (freshly returned from Liverpool) organised by Robin Darwall-Smith (1982), the Professor Chris Pelling (now at Christ Church) and Sir Simon Jenkins. All spoke to large College Archivist, which included a letter would also like to alert Newsletter readers to audiences. written by Shelley that was presented to the the imminent publication of Margaret Pelling’s College in 1940 but has only recently re- first novel: Work for Four Hands. emerged from storage; the battered remains of Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann (Professor of the laurel wreath that were used to adorn the Modern History) has recently published Ins statue in the Shelley memorial; and perhaps tiefste Afrika. Paul Pogge und seine präkolonialen most pleasingly a picture of the proposed Reisen ins südliche Kongobecken (Into Deepest Master’s Lodgings which were designed by Africa. Paul Pogge and his Pre-Colonial James Griffith (who presided over Shelley’s Journeys into the Southern Congo Basin) expulsion) and whose intended site is now (Berlin 2004). Jon Mee (Margaret Candfield occupied by the Shelley Memorial itself. Fellow in English) meanwhile has co-edited Univ welcomes Dr Anne Knowland as the (with Thomas Keymer) The Cambridge College’s new Senior Tutor. Dr Knowland first Companion to English Literature, 1740-1830 Catherine and Hugh Stevenson (1961) met with the came to Oxford to undertake doctoral studies (Cambridge Companions to Literature, CUP two current Stevenson Junior Research Fellows, in the interpretation of the symbolist vision in 2004). In between writing a book on epiphany Jacinta O'Shea (Neuropsychology, centre-left) and Verity Platt (Classics). English and Anglo-Irish literature. Since then and representation in Graeco-Roman culture she has enjoyed a very active career in and organising Hilary Term’s Archaeology We have had notable additions to the University administration, in both the Seminar, Dr Verity Platt (Stevenson JRF in College’s portraits. John Norton (1958) has Humanities and the Sciences, including a Classics) is training for the London Marathon generously given us limited edition period at the Oriental Institute and most in April. She will be running and raising money lithographs of Lucien Freud’s Lord Goodman recently in the Mathematical and Physical for the charity ‘One World Action’. Sciences Division. in his yellow pyjamas and of Kitaj’s sketch for Tickets are now on sale the portrait of President Clinton. Daphne Dr Thomas Povey arrived this autumn, from for the University Todd, former President of the Royal Society of St Catherine’s College, as a new Fellow in College White Nights Portrait Painters and artist of the Hall portrait Engineering. His research interests include Ball 2005. Come and of Master Albery, has given us her portrait of unsteady interactions in gas turbines and revel in the streets of four Fellows – Mr George Cawkwell, Professor turbine aero-thermal interactions.

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