Catzeye (Michaelmas 2011) [f]_Layout 1 - St. Catherine's College

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8 Catz Fellows Diana Jeater Returns to St Catherine’s The College is delighted to welcome back Professor Diana Jeater (1978, PPE). Returning as a Visiting Fellow in History, she has described her time as an undergraduate at Catz as ‘undoubtedly one of the happiest times of my life’. Recalling an ‘insatiable intellectual curiosity’ in College, Jeater’s favourite moments were those immediately after lunch when friends would gather in her room to discuss, debate and challenge each other. She studied great thinkers like Marx and Hegel, and remembers tutorials on Kant with John Simopoulos being amongst the most inspiring. Experimenting with ideas has remained a cornerstone of Professor Jeater’s work. After leaving Catz, she hit upon a new interest: the role of women in Zimbabwe’s independence struggle. Conducting field work in Zimbabwe, she found a country ‘exploding with ideas’, giving her ‘the desire to seek answers to major philosophical questions about culture and identity in a continent grappling with the legacy of its colonised past’. Professor Jeater is ‘extremely excited’ to be engaging, once again, with intellectually challenging Catz undergraduates, and will be examining political violence and human rights in southern Africa. ■ Elizabeth Thomas-Hope – Christensen Visiting Fellow 2011 Professor Thomas-Hope is Professor of Environmental Management at the University of the West Indies, in Jamaica, and Director of the University’s Environmental Management Unit. With varied research interests, Professor Thomas- Hope is a respected adviser to governments across the world. She recently wrote a report for the Ramphal Commission, which examined migration issues and their impact on Commonwealth countries, which was to be submitted at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth, Australia, in October 2011. In addition, she is working with the Planning Institute of Jamaica to support the integration of migration in Jamaica’s development programme. At Oxford, she will work on social integration characteristics, particularly among Caribbean populations in the UK. In doing so, Professor Thomas-Hope wishes to extend our current understanding of the dynamics of these migrant L Professor Diana Jeater L Professor Elizabeth Thomas-Hope L Professor Mark Lewis Other College Fellows have also published works this term - full coverage of the following titles will appear in The Year: Seeing Through Music: Gender and Modernism in Classical Hollywood Film Scores by Professor Peter Franklin Bourgeois Liberty and the Politics of Fear: State, Class and Revolution from Absolutism to Neoconservatism by Dr Marc Mulholland The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages, Volume One by J.C. Smith communities and widen our comprehension of the trends underpinning their movement. ■ Professor Mark Lewis (1987, Mathematics) This term Catz also welcomes back Professor Mark Lewis (1987, Mathematics), who joins us on sabbatical from the University of Alberta, in Canada, where he holds a Research Chair in Mathematical Biology. His work includes constructing models of animal movement (ranging from butterflies to polar bears), quantitative analysis of territorial behaviour in animals, and developing dynamical equations for wildlife diseases. Professor Lewis will be engaging in new research at Oxford, involving collaborative modelling of the growth and territorial behaviour of plant roots – an exciting and emerging area in Mathematical Biology. In addition to his post at Catz, Professor Lewis is also looking forward to his Research Fellowship at the new Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics, directed by Catz’s own Professor Alain Goriely. ■ Richard Parish publishes Catholic Particularity in Seventeenth Century French Writing: Christianity is Strange Richard Parish, Professor of French and a College Tutorial Fellow, has published his latest work: an analysis of the rich and varied Christian doctrines, which were brought to light by the Catholic Reformation in France. Drawing upon a wide array of genres, from sermons to martyr tragedies, lyric poetry to spiritual autobiography, Richard highlights the exceptional fertility which hallmarked seventeenth-century French Christian discourse. Catholic Particularity seeks to demonstrate the ways in which Christian doctrine was interpreted as ‘strange’ by illuminating the paradoxical, divisive, carnal and inexpressible tensions which were released during the Catholic Reformation. This challenging and exciting account, which is based on the Bampton Lectures delivered at the University Church in 2009, was published by OUP in July 2011. ■
Alumni news9 9 Emilia Fox: Who Do You Think You Are? Catz alumnus Emilia Fox (1993, English) became one of the latest celebrities to trace her ancestral roots for the BBC’s highly-popular documentary series, Who Do You Think You Are? She appeared in this autumn’s 8 th series. Alumni news Sixty-Six Books As the College prepares to celebrate its 50 th anniversary, three Catz alumni and an Honorary Fellow are helping the King James Bible to celebrate its own important milestone. Sixty-Six Books premiered at the Bush Theatre this October to celebrate the 400 th anniversary of the translation. Comprising the contributions of sixtysix talented writers from a wide array of countries, backgrounds and disciplines, Sixty-Six Books is an attempt to ‘produce a variety of individual and contemporary responses to an ancient text’. Each author was invited to write a piece inspired by a particular book of the Bible. Broadcast on BBC1 in September, Fox’s journey through her family’s past encompassed the fascinating tale of her great-great grandfather, Samson Fox, one of the 19 th Century’s most innovative inventors – uncovering a remarkable dynasty. ■ Catz Alumni scoop RARE Awards Former JCR President Femi Fadugba (2006, Materials Science) has been honoured for his outstanding social entrepreneurship by a panel that included David Lammy MP and Trevor Philips, the Chair of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights. Recognised by RARE (an organisation that promotes diversity in job recruitment) in a House of Commons ceremony, Femi was commended for his visionary efforts in assisting businesses developing solar energy across Africa. Femi paid tribute to the black community and his fellow award-winners for their ‘desire to be greater than what society has told [them] to be’ and for their ‘courage to take on seemingly impossible challenges’. Femi is currently a Master’s student in Public Administration at the University of Pennsylvania. Melba Mwanje (2007, Human Sciences) was also recognised as the third Star on a list of ten; her third consecutive appearance on the annual shortlist. This year she was commended for her ground-breaking research in Angola. ■ L Emilia Fox (1993, English) L Complete and return this edition’s termly Crossword by Wednesday, 4 January 2012 for a chance to win the Who Do You Think You Are?: Series One DVD Boxset which includes an episode by our Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor, Meera Syal. K David Lammy MP (left), Jean Tomlin (centre left), Human Resources Director for the London 2012 Olympic Games, and Trevor Philips (right), present Femi Fadugba (centre right) with his Rare Rising Stars Award Distinguished lyricist Sir Tim Rice, who was our Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre in 2003-04, acclaimed novelists Jeanette Winterson (1978, English) and Adam Foulds (1994, English), and poet Caroline Bird (2007, English), feature among a diverse list of contributors that includes the Archbishop of Canterbury and Carol Ann Duffy. Adam Foulds, whose short monologue is inspired by the Old Testament book of Micah, explained how his piece seeks to highlight his ‘contradictory feelings about the Bible’– a work he described as containing ‘sections of great literary art and moments of profound moral and human insight’. ■
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