College Record 2019

Sir Tim Hitchens and Ambassador Tsuruoka
for the Diplomacy for the 21st Century lecture
series. Photo by John Cairns
Sir Tim Hitchens in conversation with Dr David Passarelli, UNU Executive Officer, at the Meeting Minds
weekend in Tokyo, Spring 2019. Photo: United Nations University, Tokyo.
many conversations and lectures to list, but
among those I enjoyed in particular were an
examination, in the Brexit context, of who
the British actually are; a talk about Populism
and Brexit; and Anne Deighton dared to talk
about ‘Can we still bear to talk about Brexit?’
We tried to bridge the divide between
humanities and scientific method with a
seminar on how far diversity might be a
central principle in both. We welcomed the
author Philip Pullman and quantum physicist
Michael Niemann to talk about fantasising
in fiction and physics. (This took place in
the week when Emeritus Fellow David
Deutsch was both honoured by the Chinese
Micius prize for quantum computing, and
his eponymous and sadly non-existent
‘Deutsch proposition’ on time-travel was
cited during the blockbuster film ‘Avengers:
Endgame’. Wolfson gets everywhere.) We
enjoyed several major speakers talking
about diplomacy in its variety of forms.
Our Creative Arts Fellow Carey Young
gave a sparkling presentation on her back
catalogue. And of our major named lectures,
I would pick out Sir Venki Ramakrishnan’s,
President of the Royal Society, on both how he
mapped ribosomes and the quirks of success
in science; Kathleen Coleman’s presentation
on ‘Spectacular Diplomacy: Nero and the
Reception of Tiridates of Armenia on the Bay
of Naples’; and the talk by Paul Gilroy in Trinity
Term on racism and liberalism – that last
particularly significant because he has not often
been invited to Oxford platforms.
Our clusters continue to thrive. There has been
so much this year that it is impossible to do
it all justice. The Ancient World Cluster ran a
special day in October showcasing its work,
including a presentation by the Professor of
Medieval Chinese History at Fudan University,
Shanghai. The Digital Research Cluster has
been working with other clusters on a ‘Lives
in Medicine’ project, and is planning a launch
event in Michaelmas Term to mark the new
relationship with the Voltaire Foundation, on
the development of a new digital archive of
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