KING’S Winter 2003 P ARADE The Big Freeze 2 Editor’s letter 2 Graduation 2003 3 Parade Profile: Peter Lipton 4–5 Reunion Weekend 6–8 Feminism and Anti-feminism 9 Books by Members 10 Books by Fellows 11 Orientalism and Modernism 12–13 KCA Lunch 14 In Short 15 College News 16 Letters 17 Development Summer Party 17 Development News 18–19 Events & Crossword 20 BRIAN PICKARD (1960) Winter 1963 Editor’s Letter The Big Freeze King’s is a College with a history of making news, and in this issue we republish a photograph of the first – forty years ago women at King’s from The Observer of 1972. To coincide with the 1971–1974 reunion dinner this autumn we have sought comments about that period A conversation with Brian Pickard (1960) from some of those first women. Since nearly a tenth of all King’s members live in the USA and Canada, and at the Development Summer Party in July several came over for the reunion, we also pick up resulted in him digging out his forty year their news and perspectives on King’s in the 70s. The Research Centre in King’s is a powerhouse and old transparencies of the big freeze of 1963 there are two research features in this issue, one relating to Feminism and Anti-Feminism in the and having prints made. Edwardian period, and the other promoting a conference next year on Orientalism and Modernism. (1960) Members who enjoy coming back to the College for the KCA Lunch may like to know that there are plans for next year’s lunch on 11 July to include a talk on E.M. Forster, together with an accompanying archive BRIAN PICKARD exhibition. How to fund Higher Education is a hot topic and The Provost’s Seminar, rescheduled for 13 February 2004, will bring in top speakers to debate the issues. Members wishing to attend should contact Angela Reeves in the Development Office – she co-ordinates events for members. Members donating books to the College may not realise that the current practice is to acknowledge Full term had begun a week he spent twenty minutes or so such gifts on the Library section of the website, and late for me as I was stranded, explaining the organ to me and not, as previously, in the Annual Report. The College snowbound in Cheltenham, until then left me totally alone in the aims to secure a complete collection of the books, snowploughs eventually succeeded organ loft and placed a single, pamphlets and musical compositions of members. in opening an escape road over lit candle on a table by the The Library can also catalogue material on DVD the Cotswolds. I can still see the South West door to guide me and CD, but the Librarian tries to dissuade members solid wall of snow, as high as the through the darkness when from sending in their offprints because space is coach itself on the top of the hills. I’d finished. There I was alone in at a premium. I certainly recall the intensity this unique, awe-inspiring silence. of the cold that spread over And into that silence came the News about King’s reaches members via a range of the whole term. My room on sound of the piece I began channels. The College website: J staircase had no central heating, playing, the sound coming back www.kings.cam.ac.uk has up-to-date information the rooms were 15’6” high, and to me a second or so later when about admissions policy, finances and the I had to supplement the heat it had barrelled through that Development Programme. from the gas fire with a paraffin expanse, a sound that was so stove. “Walking on the water” was distinctive and so recognizable, The Editor can be contacted by email or telephone a unique and amazing experience. the sound of King’s organ, and welcomes letters, feedback and contributions The frozen Cam was of course in the growing darkness and from members. Copy deadline for the next issue is the quickest way from one college under that irreplaceable 1 March 2004. [email protected] to another along the Backs; it fan-vaulting, lit by one single Alison Carter also provided for the duration candle. Quite unforgettable, of that period an additional even forty years later. ingenious way of entering College Development Office Brian Pickard (1960) King’s College after midnight. Cambridge CB2 1ST Another highlight was the day I plucked up courage to ask David Tel: 01223 331313 Willcocks if I could play the King’s organ. That same evening, the big freeze | 2 ALL PHOTOS ALISON CARTER Graduation 2003 A C B A. New graduates, their parents C. LLM graduates Henry Mares (2002) and friends relax at the graduation and Sean Crosky (2002) party – a barbecue on the Back Lawn D. Maria de la Riva, Admissions and Graduate Tutor’s B. Will Rubens (1999) Assistant, helping Paul Hoegger (2000) and Willow Murton (1999) aduation 2003 aduation D gr | 3 Parade Profile: Peter Lipton The Peter Lipton I am familiar with is a friendly, clean- telling me a story, in stand-up comedian mode. “I’m cut New Yorker; unusually for a King’s Fellow, he walking with my mother on 88th Street from Fifth to always wears a suit, usually a dark blue suit. He has a Madison – we lived a block away from the Guggenheim wonderful knack of chairing Provost’s Seminar groups Museum – and I ask a why-question. And my mother so the participants feel they all have good points to answers it … And then I ask ‘why?’ about that; and she contribute. But, in a lesson straight out of the answers.” Pause. “She’s a very patient woman!” He philosophy text book – the one about it not being continues, with accelerating delivery. “And then the possible to know whether the past will be a reliable penny dropped and I made the great discovery that pretty much whatever answer “… philosophers of science ask whether scientific she gave I could COB LIPTON always ask why JA methods can be justified, and if so, what those about that. So I just methods can be taken to produce. Do they produce kept on going …” the truth about the world, accurate predictions, To cut a long story short, he’s now a reliable technology, or what?” philosopher of Peter Lipton (1994) is the Hans Rausing Professor science, with a special interest in and Head of the Department of History and the nature of Philosophy of Science. He talks to Alison Carter. explanation, fascinated by the regress of whys. guide to the future, Admitting at a cocktail party (however proverbial) about ravens not that one does philosophy can stall a conversation, he always being black – says; admitting to philosophy of science can kill off the when we meet, in his conversation altogether. Many people, some scientists orderly office, I am included, think that philosophy and science have disconcerted to see him dressed in jeans and a nothing to do with each other. One connection goes as sweatshirt. But he is basking in his sartorial sabbatical, follows. Science is in the business of knowledge and the dark blue suit’s on holiday. acquisition, and as someone interested in the theory of Peter is the Hans Rausing Professor and Head of the knowledge, it is Peter’s job to ask what knowledge is, Department of History and Philosophy of Science. He how much of it we have, and how we acquire it. What has recently chaired the Nuffield Council working distinguishes justified belief in science from mere group on Pharmacogenetics, which reported in opinion? “The history of science is a graveyard of September on the ethical and policy issues that new ambitious claims now rejected,” he writes in his developments in ‘personalised medicine’ will raise. chapter for Cambridge Contributions. (The report can be found at www.nuffieldbioethics.org.) “So philosophers of science ask whether scientific And next June he will give the Royal Society’s Medawar methods can be justified, and if so, what those methods Lecture – previous speakers include Karl Popper and can be taken to produce. Do they produce the truth Max Perutz. His title will be ‘The Truth about Science’. about the world, accurate predictions, reliable Philosophically, his special interest is explanation, technology, or what?” and you don’t get an explanation unless you ask a why- “What drives a lot of my research, like many people question, so I start by asking him whether he was the who work on the theory of knowledge, is the enormous sort of child who asked why – a lot. And suddenly he’s contrast between the tiny portions of the world with parade profile parade | 4 which each of us is in direct causal contact and the Peter went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, much much larger portions we take a view on. I’ve Connecticut. It’s a “nondescript New England mill town only had any kind of direct contact with what has with a very good liberal arts college” about a hundred happened during a few years of the history of the miles northeast of New York City. Although in the US universe,” he laughs, “and mostly in the precincts of you don’t apply to university in a particular subject, Manhattan and Cambridge! But I’ve got all sorts of Peter knew he wanted to do a double major in physics beliefs about what happened before I was born, and and philosophy.