The Queen's College Record 2020

More documents

Info

Obituaries the River Cherwell, and his Peking duck with Mandarin pancakes, which he always prepared meticulously. His Philippine-born wife, Dr Zielfa B. Maslin, and his daughter, Dr Philippa Z. Maslin, have these (and many more!) fond and vibrant memories of him to counter the debilitating pain that he suffered towards the end of his life. They feel extremely fortunate to have been part of his life. Zielfa B. Maslin and Philippa Z. Maslin BRIAN MCGUINNESS Brian McGuinness, who died aged 92, was a distinguished philosopher who held academic posts in four different countries and was internationally recognised as one of the world authorities on Ludwig Wittgenstein. The son of a Nottingham civil servant, he was born at Wrexham on 22 October 1927. He was christened Bernard Francis, but changed his forenames to ‘Brian’ in youth. Brian was educated at Mount St Mary’s College in Chesterfield and won an exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford, in 1945. There he was tutored in Philosophy by the renowned ethicist Richard Hare, and quickly displayed a great talent for the subject. Having obtained a First in Classical Moderations he went on to win a First in Literae Humaniores in 1949. McGuinness’s philosophical studies were interrupted at this point by the need to do National Service. From 1949-51 he served in the Royal Artillery. On returning to Balliol he enrolled for the BPhil, a graduate degree in philosophy, supported by a War Memorial Studentship. In 1959 he was the prize-winner of the John Locke scholarship. No sooner had he obtained his BPhil than he was elected a tutorial fellow of The Queen’s College. A year after joining Queen’s McGuinness took leave to spend a year as a junior fellow in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton. While in the United States he met a Vassar graduate, Rosamond Ziegler (known to all her friends as ‘Corky’). They were married in 1957, and went on to have a son and three daughters. In 1964-65 McGuinness served Oxford University as Junior Proctor. It was a difficult time. Indeed, it was the very year in which student radicalism got underway in Oxford. The main issues were connected with apartheid: some students were disciplined by the proctors for an insult to the South African ambassador. The official history of the University states: ‘In the summer, angry undergraduates pioneered an unsavoury tactic by telephoning proctors in their homes.’ Worse than that, the McGuinnesses’ telephone number was posted up in a nearby US Air Force base as the contact number for a brothel. 130 The Queen’s College | College Record 2020
As a tutor at Queen’s, McGuinness was responsible for teaching ancient philosophy to the classical students, and in conjunction with Lorenzo Minio-Paluello he conducted a University seminar on the legacy of Aristotle. This was much appreciated by the more erudite connoisseurs. But his own research interests came to focus more and more on Ludwig Wittgenstein and the circles to which he belonged. In 1959 he published, jointly with David Pears, a translation of Wittgenstein’s early work Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus. This was designed to replace the 1921 translation by C K Ogden, though some readers continued to prefer the earlier, less accurate but more florid version. Obituaries McGuinness was a fluent linguist, and the next major publication he edited was published in German, Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis (1967). This appeared in English two years later as Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle. Later he was responsible for the publication of an extensive series of volumes of writings of the major figures of the Vienna Circle. Wittgenstein’s own major writings appeared posthumously in the decades after his death in 1951: they were edited, and sometimes translated, by the literary executors he had named in his will, Elizabeth Anscombe, Georg Henrik von Wright and Rush Rhees. But the executors gave McGuinness permission to publish minor elements from the Nachlass, in particular items of correspondence. Thus, in 1968 there appeared an edition of Paul Engelmann’s correspondence with Wittgenstein, along with a memoir. This was followed in 1971 by Prototractatus, an edition and translation of an earlier version of the Tractatus that McGuinness had previously translated with Pears. By this time McGuinness’s first marriage had broken up. In 1970 he was married a second time, to Elizabeth Groag of Brno in Czechoslovakia. By her he had a second son. However, the marriage did not last until the end of the decade, and finally ended in divorce in 2008. Throughout his life McGuinness collected material for a biography of Wittgenstein. The first volume of this appeared in 1988 under the title Wittgenstein, a Life: Vol. 1. Young Ludwig. This was widely admired; it was reissued as a Penguin and translated into French and German, but no further volumes ever appeared. Perhaps McGuinness felt that he had been upstaged by the less philosophical but more popular biography of Wittgenstein published by Ray Monk in 1990. None the less, McGuinness continued to publish volumes of Wittgensteinian correspondence. In 1995 he produced a volume of Cambridge Letters, including some of great philosophical interest from Russell, Keynes, Moore and Ramsey. This appeared in a much amplified fourth edition in 2012, under the title Wittgenstein in Cambridge: Letters and Documents 1911-1951. While an Oxford tutor McGuinness held visiting professorships in Seattle, Beijing, Leyden, Rome, Graz and Stanford. In 1988 he left Queen’s and Oxford, and for the next two years held a post at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. In College Record 2020 | The Queen’s College 131
Page 1 and 2:
THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE COLLEGE RECOR
Page 3 and 4:
Kets, Willemien, BSc MSc Nijmegen,
Page 5 and 6:
CONTENTS From the Provost 6 Reports
Page 7 and 8:
From the Provost As well as dealing
Page 9 and 10:
SENIOR TUTOR’S REPORT The College
Page 11 and 12:
In association with the Department
Page 13 and 14:
seminar series held in College. Soo
Page 15 and 16:
and earlier Indo-European and Mesop
Page 17 and 18:
in Japan will also be postponed to
Page 19 and 20:
Bernhard Kasberger (Economics) This
Page 21 and 22:
and was published in June: Rilke: T
Page 23 and 24:
them if they are admitted to hospit
Page 25 and 26:
Alex Robertson (Materials) I’m no
Page 27 and 28:
In January I gave a plenary outreac
Page 29 and 30:
ACADEMIC DISTINCTIONS (* denotes di
Page 31 and 32:
FINAL PUBLIC EXAMINATIONS Biologica
Page 33 and 34:
Oriental Studies First Class Hugo C
Page 35 and 36:
COLLEGE PRIZES Alan Webster Prize:
Page 37 and 38:
Reports and College Activities The
Page 39 and 40:
the scenes with colleagues at Corpu
Page 41 and 42:
ADMISSIONS Jon Doye Tutor for Admis
Page 43 and 44:
Reports and College Activities The
Page 45 and 46:
Reports and College Activities A ma
Page 47 and 48:
Regular services have been a differ
Page 49 and 50:
Reports and College Activities A de
Page 51 and 52:
Reports and College Activities Howe
Page 53 and 54:
Reports and College Activities Defe
Page 55 and 56:
On behalf of the College, I would l
Page 57 and 58:
Since we launched the Centre it has
Page 59 and 60:
The first issue contains eight arti
Page 61 and 62:
Our International Book Club gathere
Page 63 and 64:
A YEAR IN THE MCR President Nadia H
Page 65 and 66:
A YEAR IN THE JCR Hattie Bates JCR
Page 67 and 68:
Later that term, Dr Jennifer Cassid
Page 69 and 70:
During Michaelmas, due to high wate
Page 71 and 72:
concerts are free, open to the publ
Page 73 and 74:
QCAFC Captain: Matt Suter Following
Page 75 and 76:
It is difficult not to wonder what
Page 77 and 78:
Gemma quickly established herself a
Page 79 and 80: netball for only 20 minutes, typica
Page 81 and 82: But I am far more excited about the
Page 83 and 84: ATHLETIC DISTINCTIONS Blues Fred Ne
Page 85 and 86: One of the highlights of the Colleg
Page 87 and 88: Old Members’ Activities cancelled
Page 89 and 90: 40 YEARS OF CO-EDUCATION AT QUEEN
Page 91 and 92: Celebrate 40 years of women at Quee
Page 93 and 94: The first priority was to look at t
Page 95 and 96: The Network’s first online event
Page 97 and 98: 1977 Giles Orton Appointed Priest-i
Page 99 and 100: PUBLICATIONS Bettison, Norman (1983
Page 101 and 102: Teague, Anthony known as Brother An
Page 103 and 104: Comparative Literature at Columbia
Page 105 and 106: Bridging the gap between science an
Page 107 and 108: Years Name Subject 1965-1966 Robert
Page 109 and 110: College Servants and Vacation Emplo
Page 111 and 112: paid a small retaining wage, some o
Page 113 and 114: year-round employment alongside fru
Page 115 and 116: 1967 Dr B P Gardner 1968 Dr D M Lit
Page 117 and 118: of 1952. On retirement to the Engad
Page 119 and 120: introduced the notion of ‘disrupt
Page 121 and 122: The dedication he showed to his wif
Page 123 and 124: insect, a study which resulted in a
Page 125 and 126: JOHN GRAY John Michael Campbell Gra
Page 127 and 128: Martin was unusual in his sense of
Page 129: KEITH MASLIN Dr Keith Thomas Maslin
Page 133 and 134: Not one for a small town existence,
Page 135 and 136: DICK STEWART Richard E. Stewart die
Page 137 and 138: PIETER ZWART Pieter loved his time
Page 139 and 140: Old Members Anonymous x23 Prof Geof
Page 141 and 142: Mr Anthony Prosser (1969) His Honou
Page 143 and 144: Major (Retd) Matthew Christmas (198
Page 145 and 146: Dr Robert Lepenies (2004) Mr Paul O
Page 148 and 149: INFOR MATION Information College Re
Page 152: The Queen’s College High Street O
show all

The Queen's College Record 2020

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?