Regent's Now Magazine 2019 WEB

Principal’s
Foreword
Dr
Dr Robert Ellis
Another year, and once again Regent’s Now magazine gives a
glimpse into the life and achievements of members of the College
community. In this issue you will see profiles of the new Fellow
and Director of our new Centre for Baptist Studies, Dr Chris
Joynes, and also of Dr Lynn Robson, who was elected to a Tutorial
Fellowship during the year. Features include Iris Murdoch’s
contribution to theological enquiry following a symposium
that we hosted this year, and our ancient historian Dr Alison
Rosenblitt’s new book, Rome after Sulla.
I have mentioned our newly re-shaped Centre for Baptist Studies,
and we are also re-launching our other research centre as the
Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture. We were delighted to
welcome Dr Anthony Reddie to our staff team as he took up his
post as part-time director of the OCRC on 1 January 2020.
We are also very pleased to announce that Dr Kate Kirkpatrick
will be joining Regent’s in the Trinity term as our new Fellow
in Philosophy and Christian Ethics. Dr Kirkpatrick is currently
Lecturer in Religion, Philosophy and Culture at King’s College
London and her publications include the new ground-breaking
biography of Simone de Beauvoir, Becoming Beauvoir: A Life
(Bloomsbury, 2019).
An ambitious programme of upgrades to the College site has
been made possible recently thanks to our improved and stable
financial position, as our treasurer Tony Harris and Director of
Operations Dr Stephen McGlynn explain. Some of this work in
refurbishment is supported by gifts and donations, and a cause for
considerable gratitude in College is the support we receive from
friends and former students which makes so much of our work
possible. As well as upgrading our facilities, you can read in this
issue about how gifts support such initiatives as two new Junior
Research Fellowships, and the graduate studentship in memory of
Pamela Sue Anderson.
Part of the great richness of the Oxford experience is in the
many visitors who pass through and leave their mark. Among
a number of visiting academics to Regent’s this year we were
delighted to welcome back Dr Mo Yan, the first Chinese winner of
the Nobel Prize for Literature. Mo Yan is collaborating with our
Oxford Prospects and Global Development Institute, which has a
Robert Ellis with new Honorary Fellow, Dr Mo Yan
special focus on academic links with China of various kinds, in a
new writing competition open to students in Oxford and Beijing
that we will launch next year. We elected Mo Yan to an Honorary
Fellowship of the College, and we recognised his Fellowship at an
event in June attended by members of the academic and diplomatic
communities. Indeed, the celebrations continued for several days,
with Mo Yan also participating in a conversation about literature
with other leading authors, Yu Hua and Su Tong, hosted by former
Literary Editor of The Independent, Boyd Tonkin.
They say that ‘every picture tells a story,’ and one of the ways in
which Oxford colleges tell their stories is through collections
of portraiture. This year we unveiled a new collection of new
portraits featuring four significant figures in the life of the
College and indicating our increasingly diverse community. Two
charcoal portraits by James Findlay depict the aforementioned
new Honorary Fellow Dr Mo Yan; and also the College’s first
female ministerial student, Violet Hedger
– the centenary of whose arrival in College
we marked in 2019. Alongside these are two
photographic portraits by David Tolley, who
leads the University’s photographic society
which meets in Regent’s every week. The
first features the College’s first female Fellow
(now also an Honorary Fellow), the Revd
Professor Jane Shaw – who is also the first
Regent’s alumna to be appointed a Head of
House in Oxford, at Harris Manchester; and
the other features HRH Prince Ghazi bin
Muhammad of Jordan, the Honorary Fellow
who has done so much to support and make
possible the Project for the Study of Love in
Religion. These four permanent portraits
will be joined by another set of portraits
for which we hope our Regent’s community
will make nominations, a set of smaller
photographic portraits which we envisage
will change every few years and will celebrate
the achievements of Regent’s alumni in a
wide range of careers and activities. Watch
out for the call for nominations!
Thank you so much for your continuing
interest and support – it means a great deal
to us all here.
New portraits unveiled
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