The Queen's College Newsletter - Trinity Term 2020

Newsletter
Issue thirty-TWO trinity Term 2020 07/20
LOCKDOWN IN OXFORD

THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE
Contents
pages 2-3
Letter from the provost
Pages 4-5
QUEEN’S RESPONSE TO CORONAVIRUS
Pages 6-7 ADAPTING: TRINITY 2020
pages 8-10
NEWS IN BRIEF
Page 11
Consent or Why Saying is (not) Doing
pages 12–13 AN INTERVIEW WITH NICOLAS PASTERNAK SLATER
pages 14
Hydrogen as an Energy Source
Page 15
HAWKSMOOR DRAWINGS
back cover
calendar
PAGE 7
Cover photographs: an unusually deserted High Street, in April 2020 © David Olds (IT Manager)
and by night, in May 2020 © Suzanne Engelen (DPhil in Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, 2019).
Letter from the Provost
Dr Claire Craig
To say the year has been surprising would be, of course, an
understatement of the most British kind.
As a newcomer to Queen’s, back at the start of Michaelmas
term, I was going through a series of “firsts” like any other
Fresher. First meal in Hall, first time in Chapel in the Provost’s
stall with its red velvet cushions. First Governing Body meeting
and first set of Provost’s Handshakes, to meet the real Freshers.
First Provost’s Academic Collections, to discuss progress with
students and their tutors. First full suite of committee meetings
(the main committees are every Wednesday during term, for
those who are interested!). First Conference of Colleges to
meet the other Heads of House and realise
the full variety of college models and
characters. First handwritten letters from
Old Members around the world, and first
personal accounts of the College from the
1940s onwards. First College guest in the
Lodgings (the Visitor, the then Archbishop of
York, Dr John Sentamu and his wonderful
wife Margaret). First Boar’s Head Gaudy,
Loving Cup, and first Baked Alaska pudding.
First realisation that I needed to exercise
strong self-discipline around the cellar and
the desserts.
Then just as things were becoming familiar,
some of them changed completely. As many
of you will recall or experienced firsthand,
the College was initially affected by
the pandemic during Hilary term. Over a
period of days in March, staff, students and Fellows faced the
challenges and fears of the onset of COVID-19. As I reported
then, Queen’s had a confirmed case. Like the rest of the
world we were scrambling to respond and to adapt to each
Dr John Sentamu in the College Chapel
new development and to the evolving government advice.
Our approach, then as now, was to focus on what Queen’s is
here for: teaching, learning and researching – and to be safe.
We have tried to do that in ways that have been characteristic
of the best of Queen’s throughout time: resilient, brave and
kind, and I would like to pay particular tribute to the current
generations at the College for the ways in which they have
responded throughout.
The undergraduates completed Hilary term and, from the
Easter vacation onwards, the main site has been closed.
Many of the scouts, kitchen and other staff are on furlough,
and the High Street and Queen’s Lane are
eerily deserted. In homes across the UK
and abroad, however, tutors and lecturers
worked incredibly hard to move teaching
and assessment online for Trinity term.
They achieved this feat and the first ever
cohort of students will graduate virtually
this summer. It has been very difficult for
many, in practical and personal ways. The
uncertainty and new challenges will continue
during the Long Vacation as Queen’s and
the rest of Oxford plan for a wide range of
scenarios for Michaelmas 2020 and beyond.
We continue determined to provide the
best possible teaching and learning, with
tutorials – and the contact between students
and world-leading academics – as the core
of what makes Oxford special.
Queen’s is a strongly independent place, which is part of what
helps it provide space to think and time to learn. Its willingness
to stick to the course it believes is right both for current and
future generations is also reflected in its financial prudence.
2

www.queens.ox.ac.uk
Photo © David Fisher
That prudence has in turn built solid foundations that should
help the College weather the next few months and years but,
like everyone else, we cannot avoid the difficult economic
consequences of the pandemic and we do not know what
will be asked of us.
During my time in the Civil Service, I worked both on
emergencies – supporting SAGE 1 , which was much less well
known in the UK then than it is now – and on informing policies
for the very long term in areas such as climate change, energy
and Artificial Intelligence. Time and again studies of the histories
of major change reinforce the notion that disruption often
provides opportunity. We need to build that knowledge into our
anticipations of the future. A small immediate illustration of the
opportunities is a virtual lunch I held recently with a group of
women who have played a large part in establishing the Queen’s
Women’s Network, founded as part of the celebration of the
40th anniversary of women undergraduates first matriculating
at Queen’s. The lunch included one person in Stirling and one
in Luxembourg. Neither would have attended if it had been,
as originally planned, in the Lodgings (lovely as they are with
the scent of roses coming in from the gardens in the summer).
The companionship and the conversation were the richer for
their presence.
That lunch highlighted how we are only just beginning fully to
let ourselves explore the new opportunities. Many changes are
being forced on us, but these changes sometimes open up new
spaces, creating new choices to build for the future. One of my
ambitions for the College is to make it slightly more “porous”:
1
SAGE is the UK Government’s Scientific Advisory Group in Emergencies,
which has been playing a significant role in informing policy on COVID-19
to do more to support its exceptional people, and to increase
the flow of ideas and the range of opportunities for people to
meet, across disciplines and across generations. Moving some
of what we do online – drawing more people in, changing
formats and creating new futures, histories and records will,
over time, be one of the ways of doing that. And when we
are able to gather again for gaudies and garden parties, for
tutorials and symposia, they will be richer because they will be
embedded in these wider practices and networks.
Finally, I do not think this account of the year would be complete
without a mention of the late Dr Bill Frankland MBE, DM, FRCP,
Queen’s Old Member (Physiological Sciences, 1930) and
Honorary Fellow who died, aged 108, in April. Bill was attending
Queen’s Old Members events in 2019, and publishing academic
articles right up to the end of his life. His legacy includes the
introduction of the pollen count, which helps asthma sufferers
and others stay healthier.
Many of today’s academics are working on COVID-19-
related matters, from ventilator and vaccine technologies,
to using economic history to inform debate about the longterm
economic impacts. For them, and for all of the Queen’s
communities, it has been a surprising year. Next year will
undoubtedly be a surprising one for us all too and throughout it
the College will remain a place – physical and virtual – to think,
learn and to meet friends.
3

THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE
Queen’s Response to Coronavirus
Read more on our website: www.queens.ox.ac.uk/news
Disabling the Protein involved in
Coronavirus
Tristan Johnston-Wood (MSc in Theoretical and Computational
Chemistry, 2018; current DPhil in Chemistry) models proteins
using computational methods and has, since March, been
focusing on the main protein involved in SARS-CoV-2, named
Main Protease.
Mathematical Modelling to Control
the COVID-19 Spread
Dr Jasmina Panovska-Griffiths (Maths, 1996 & DPhil in Maths),
Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, applies mathematical models
to COVID-19 transmission. Her focus is on better understanding
the role of asymptomatic carriers in spreading the infection and
modelling different lockdown relaxation scenarios. Jasmina is
collaborating with the Wolfson Centre for Mathematical Biology at
Oxford and also contributes her expertise to working groups that
advise policy decision makers on how to guide us safely out of
this pandemic.
‘This protein has the ability to cut up other proteins which
it then uses in its mechanism for hijacking a host’s cells,’
explained Tristan. ‘There has therefore been great interest in
developing an anti-viral drug to target this protein and inhibit
its function. My research group’s role has mainly been to
understand how it binds to other proteins. This understanding
will hopefully help other researchers in choosing or developing
anti-viral drugs that will bind to the protein and stop it from
performing its job.’
Since the emergence of coronavirus, Jasmina has written a
number of scientific papers, has been regularly featured in
the media and been commissioned to write several articles
for The Conversation and the BMJ on this subject.
COVID-19 Drug Trial
Prof. Peter Robbins (Fellow in Medicine)
is Lead Researcher on a clinical drug
trial running as a collaboration between
academics from several different
Oxford departments and NHS hospital
consultants, funded by LifeArc. The trial
will test an old drug first developed in
France called almitrine bismesylate, which
could raise oxygen levels in the blood in
COVID-19 patients in order to improve
their chances of recovery.
‘We know that almitrine can increase
oxygen levels in patients with acute
respiratory distress syndrome by
constricting the blood vessels in regions
4
of the lung where the oxygen is low,’
said Peter. ‘If almitrine can add to the
overall effectiveness of respiratory
support, then the hope is that clinicians
will need to mechanically ventilate fewer
COVID-19 patients.
‘People can recover from COVID-19
by fighting off the virus with the body’s
normal defence mechanisms. But if the
lung becomes so damaged that blood
just doesn’t pick up enough oxygen, then
the body never gets the chance to finish
the job and the patient dies from the low
level of oxygen. So, what we are really
trying to do with supportive therapy is help
the patient to continue to function whilst
their body fights off the infection in the
normal way.’
Cartoon © Keith Dorrington

www.queens.ox.ac.uk
There is a palpable absence of sub fusc and
celebration on the streets of Oxford this Trinity term.
Colleges are empty, exams are online, and graduations
are cancelled.
For us, the final-year medical students from Queen’s,
being part of the ‘Class of COVID’ has meant
abandoned placements, early graduation and starting
on the wards a few months earlier than planned. While
it has been an invaluable learning opportunity and
a great privilege to help during this unprecedented
scenario, becoming a doctor has brought its
challenges. We each wanted to give a little insight into
an on-the-ward view of the coronavirus pandemic.
“
Final-year medical students usually
complete their exams in January, followed
by a period of clinical assistantship in
Oxford and elective medical placements
overseas. My plan was to join a hospital
surgical team in Blantyre, Malawi – but
from mid-February, I was having to
reconsider. Fast-forward one month, I was
one of 20 final-year medical students
volunteering in the A&E department of
the John Radcliffe Hospital as it was
gearing up for the peak of the pandemic.
I felt privileged to be able to help with
triaging patients into respiratory and nonrespiratory
areas, working as a healthcare
assistant and a receptionist.
At the beginning of April, I completed
my medical degree. I must be one
of the very few people to have ever
graduated in their sleep – a cheerful email
with congratulations from our Director
of Clinical Studies landed in my inbox
not long after I completed a night shift in
the hospital.
In May, I became an Interim Foundation
Doctor (or FiY1) in the Geriatrics
Department of Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
While Malawi would’ve been an incredible
experience, so was (and is) being part of
the NHS in this unique situation.
Mark Zorman
“
Initially, I spent time in the Community
COVID Hub, essentially a drive-through
GP practice for suspected COVID
patients, which gave me an insight into
the rapid restructuring of primary care to
cope with the pandemic. I then began
work in the Complex Medicine Unit in the
John Radcliffe. I was initially surprised
by how quiet the hospital seemed but
work soon stepped up and with it came
a steep learning curve. It is incredibly
rewarding to work alongside a great
team to overcome the barriers created
by COVID. Communicating via telephone
or video calls can make a world of
difference for our patients, and reducing
the distress for them and their relatives is
hugely meaningful.
Molly Nichols
“
I volunteered for six weeks in
Cardiology at the John Radcliffe,
helping with ward jobs, and connecting
COVID-19 patients to their families via
video calls. The team in Oxford were
incredibly supportive as we received our
email graduation congratulations and
transitioned from medical students to
doctors. I’m now working in Cardiology at
Wycombe Hospital. I’m lucky that I was
given a job in the same specialty to carry
skills and knowledge to my new hospital,
and look forward to continuing my
development as a (very!) junior doctor.
Emma Roberts
“
Since graduating early, I’ve become
an FiY1 in Geriatrics at the John Radcliffe,
working with older non-COVID patients.
I quickly realised how different the job of
doctor is to being a student. Though I feel
like I’ve been somewhat “thrown in”, it has
been such a valuable experience and I feel
my confidence growing with every task
I complete.
Celebrations after second-year exams. Photo © Molly Nichols
It’s strange to think that right now I should
be in Malaysia after a month in New
Zealand – part of my medical elective that
never happened. Even as late as March,
I assumed that was my plan, and had
started packing. However, being able to
work as a doctor and lend an extra hand in
this crisis has been very rewarding and I’m
glad to have had this experience.
Sarah Ahmed
“
In February, I was in Malawi, listening
to a hospital Public Health Director giving
a lecture on coronavirus preparedness.
I was much more interested in exploring
Malawi, and learning about exciting
tropical diseases, than concentrating on
the spread of COVID. I naively assumed it
wouldn’t affect my medical training.
I now work in General Medicine at Stoke
Mandeville Hospital, seeing adults with
COVID and with other medical problems.
Having the title of ‘Dr’ has been daunting
but exciting. I am really grateful to all of
our tutors at Queen’s for their bedside
teaching, which I didn’t expect to be
putting to use so quickly, and particularly
to Dr Sarah Millette, Assistant Clinical Tutor
at Queen’s, for her ongoing support to all
of us as we navigate the trials of being the
most junior of doctors. Although it wasn’t
what we were expecting when celebrating
the end of our Finals in January, I think
we’re all grateful to be able to support
the national effort to combat this
devastating disease.
Zachary Tait
5

THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE
Adapting: Trinity 2020
Small group, close, interactive teaching is the Oxford tutorial
model. “Remoteness” and “social distancing” are pretty much its
opposite. So remote learning – moving the whole of our teaching
online – has been one of the largest challenges Queen’s has faced
this term. It’s good to be able to relate how swiftly and flexibly the
changes have been made. Hundreds of tutorials and classes have
been using video-conferencing each week. The College Office
arranged Collections to resemble the new “open book” system
that applied in Finals this year. It has also been doing what it can
to help students whose home environment isn’t suitable for study.
The Library has been providing access to hard-to-obtain books
online. Tutors like me have even been taking the opportunity to
update their reading lists.
It was very encouraging to see how everyone did their best to
adapt. Things that are essential to tutorial teaching – ways to
explain things, or to lead discussions – turn out to be do-able in
new ways. Things that seemed incidental – the quick, unplanned
exchanges when you bump into those you teach in Front Quad –
turn out to be things you miss.
In certain ways we are less close. It’s easy to imagine that
everyone else is still there on site, and it is only we who are
located remotely. Somehow, imagining the deserted buildings is
a mental step too far. We have had to learn patience: not easy for
some of us. Normally, it’s the sign of a good tutorial if everyone
tries to speak at once. But the technology isn’t quite good enough
yet to cope with the energy of so many people who all want to
share their opinions at the same time. We have had to get used
to webcams revealing more of our colleagues’ domestic lives,
whether it is cats and children wandering plaintively into shot, or
some startling home décor choices.
So, it isn’t really Queen’s. How could it be, given who we are,
and what we like to do? But, in other ways – especially in the
inventiveness, the good humour, and the resourcefulness people
have shown in coping with this dreadful change to our lives – it
does feel familiar, and, in that sense, not remote at all.
Dr Nicholas Owen, Fellow in Politics and Senior Tutor
Here’s what some other people think...
Lewis Wales, 1st year, DPhil in Inorganic Chemistry
‘I’m in the Oxford Inorganic Chemistry for Future
Manufacturing Centre, which means we started with
six months of taught courses. Practical work will,
hopefully, form the majority of my DPhil research, but
the lab being shut has allowed me to learn some basic
computational chemistry techniques which should aid
my research in the long run. Thankfully, even though
I’m back home, I can still connect to the University
servers so have access to all the resources I need to
keep (somewhat) productive.’
Henry Gray, 3rd year, Chemistry
‘Online tutorials have been surprisingly
similar to normal tutorials, albeit with some
Wi-Fi connection issues. I have found
however, that these can often be used
to one’s advantage to avoid answering a
difficult question. A tactic quickly mastered
by students and tutors alike. The thing I’m
most missing about Oxford is definitely my
own space, and not having to be around
my family all the time.’
Klara Zhao, 1st year, French and Linguistics
‘Deprived of the golden afternoons of a classic Trinity term
in Oxford, the pandemic has thrown us into an surreal world
of misplaced pixels and buffering dialogues. Exams were
cancelled, but at least this meant that we could learn for the
sake of learning. The JCR are keeping everyone up to date
with virtual meet-ups diluted to digital media. It seems that
now, we can only rely to some extent on sharing photos and
videos of the places
where we find ourselves
indefinitely in lockdown,
in order to retain some
sense of community.’
Triya Chakravorty,
1st year, Clinical Medicine
(Second BM)
‘First-year clinical students like
myself are faced with a dilemma:
our relatively limited clinical
exposure restricts our ability to
make a meaningful contribution on the wards, but we still feel
a responsibility to contribute where we can. Currently, all clinical
teaching is suspended. This is unfortunate, but unavoidable,
given the unnecessary risk our presence would be on the wards.
The whole world will be playing catch-up in the aftermath of the
pandemic and, as a medical student, I will have to do the same.’
6

www.queens.ox.ac.uk
Tessa Shaw, Acting Librarian
‘We were quick to adapt to lockdown and IT were fantastic in preparing us to be able to work
from home. One of the team goes in to physically check on the collections once a week and
carry out other duties. We gave ourselves the brief of identifying the stout lily pads, and then
landing on them! Plans were drawn up to ensure that the service offer was manageable,
sustainable and met expectations. We have facilitated access to e-resources, checked
numerous reading lists and then edited them to include electronic links, and have also
provided an on-demand scanning service. The opportunity to work more collaboratively with
other college libraries and the Bodleian has been welcomed and it would be my hope that
this is a model which is sustained and developed beyond the immediate times.
‘It’s a team effort, there’s more work going on in the background. At the time of writing
we meet once a day for a catch-up/are-you-doing-okay on MS Teams. Staff wellbeing is
important at all times but even more so now. Topics range from frozen courgette flowers,
Eurovision and the wonders of oatmeal, through to the details of copyright law – the latter is
a bit like discussing your pension: really important but so dull, and often more confusing the
more you think about it. Thanks to Sarah and Dom for being such agile lily pad jumpers!’
Photo © David Fisher
Prof. Owen Rees, Fellow in Music
and Director of the Chapel Choir
‘The Choir has felt the impact of the COVID crisis on the
performing arts: very sadly, our planned concert and recording
with the Academy of Ancient Music and this summer’s tour
to Belgium – during which we were due to give the opening
concert of a major music festival – have been postponed.
Likewise, as churches closed their doors our Chapel has fallen
musically silent for the first time in decades. But music-making
and the social side of the Choir have moved online, with weekly
“pub” Zoom meetings – we even managed our annual black-tie
Choir dinner (pictured) – and “virtual choir” recordings.’
Dr Lindsay Turnbull, Fellow in Plant Sciences
‘I decided to make a series of videos about
biology from my back garden when the
lockdown started and I realised that the
students wouldn’t be returning to Oxford.
I thought the videos might replace the parts
of the tutorial where I bring things in to show
them, which they often enjoy. I’d never made
videos before, but thought it would be a good time to learn
something new. It’s also proved a useful way of providing material to
replace our residential field course for first-years.’ Watch Lindsay’s
Back Garden Biology series at bit.ly/backgardenbiology.
Katharine Wiggell, Schools Liaison,
Outreach and Recruitment Officer
‘Being in lockdown has meant I’ve had
the chance to try new things as part of
our Outreach provision, from delivering
admissions support sessions over
Zoom, to researching educational
podcasts and documentaries that
might help prospective applicants
widen their subject knowledge.
Delivering sessions online does come
with challenges – it’s especially hard
to read a room and see how well your presentation is being
received on a Zoom call when most students don’t choose to
share their video! I miss being able to visit our link schools and
chat to students in person. I’m even missing those six-hour train
journeys to the North West and trying to navigate my way round
the Cumbrian countryside to different schools… the trips might
have been tiring but the views (as pictured) were well worth it!’
The Revd Katherine Price, Chaplain
‘In my introduction on the
Queen’s website, I used
to say that members of
College would see me
around, and were always
welcome to drop in for
a cup of tea. Being a
Chaplain is about being there, often in an informal and serendipitous
way. So working from home has been a bit of an existential
challenge. Tea just doesn’t taste the same over Wi-Fi! But I have
enjoyed learning to produce YouTube videos – not a skill taught
in ministry training! – for our Virtual Chapel Sunday e-vensong.
Services feature music from the Choir’s impressive back catalogue,
glorious photos of the Chapel interior, and even bells recorded by
our bell ringers. So now members of College can “go to Chapel”
without getting out of bed. As our first guest preacher of the term
put it, “God is working from home” – your home!’
7

THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE
News in Brief
Read more on our website: www.queens.ox.ac.uk/news
Queen’s in Minecraft
The College was rebuilt earlier this year, in virtual form, as part of
the Oxford Minecraft Project.
‘During the lockdown, a few of us thought it would be a great idea
to start a community of Minecraft builders to work on a project
hoping to recreate a large part of central Oxford,’ said graduate
student Tristan Johnston-Wood. ‘Initially, building took quite some
time but with the help of a group of us and more experience, we
are now able to build a college in about three days. We use a
combination of Google Maps 3D view and street view, as well as
people’s own knowledge of Oxford.’
Oriel, Brasenose, Lady Margaret Hall and All Souls have also
all been completed, as well as buildings such as the University
Church, Radcliffe Camera and the Sheldonian Theatre.
True Planet
The University ran a campaign in the autumn to showcase
Oxford’s global research on climate, energy, food, water,
waste and biodiversity. Several Queen’s academics and
graduate students were featured, including April Burt
(DPhil in Environmental Research, 2017), Prof. Jane Langdale
(Professorial Fellow and Professor of Plant Development),
Joseph Poore (DPhil in Environmental Research, 2016) and
Dr Lindsay Turnbull (Fellow in Plant Sciences).
Find out more at www.ox.ac.uk/trueplanet.
Junior Research
Fellow Awarded
Prize for Outstanding
Doctoral Dissertation
Dr Anna Seigal, Extraordinary Junior
Research Fellow in Mathematics,
was awarded the 2020 Society for
Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Richard C. DiPrima
Prize. The prize recognises an early career researcher in applied
mathematics and is based on their doctoral dissertation. Anna
obtained her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and
joined Queen’s in 2019.
Fellows’ Publications
Professor Seth Whidden (Fellow in French) won a Choice Reviews
Outstanding Academic Title Award in December for his
book Arthur Rimbaud (Reaktion Books, 2018).
In recent months several of our other academics have also published on
a wide range of topics:
Choir Receives
Accolade for
Taverner CD
The Choir has been awarded a
prestigious Diapason d’or by the
French classical music magazine
Diapason, for its most recent recording
of music by John Taverner.
Russomania: Russian Culture
and the Creation of British
Modernism (Oxford University
Press, 2020) by Dr Rebecca
Beasley (Fellow in English)
8
Meeting under the Integral
Sign?: The Oslo Congress
of Mathematicians on the
Eve of the Second World
War (American Mathematical
Society, 2020), co-authored by
Dr Christopher Hollings (Clifford
Norton Senior Research Fellow
in the History of Mathematics)
The Trials of Thomas Morton:
An Anglican Lawyer, His Puritan
Foes, and the Battle for a New
England (Yale University Press,
2019) by Prof. Peter Mancall
(Harmsworth Visiting Professor
of American History)

Markheim Prize in
French
www.queens.ox.ac.uk
Undergraduate Wins
Biology Award
First-year Biochemistry student
Seren Ford received an award
from the Salters’ Institute for her
performance in A Level Biology.
She was one of five students
recognised for gaining the highest
marks in the Salters-Nuffield
Advanced Biology exam in 2019.
Humanities Light Night –
‘Oxford Research Unwrapped’
The Markheim Prize is awarded annually,
based on the results of a French
translation paper taken by our finalists.
Both this year’s winner, Kanak Shah (right),
and runner-up, Georgina Ramsay, are in
their fourth year studying Joint Honours
English and French. In addition to cash
prizes, Kanak and Georgina were each
sent a bottle of champagne, so they could
celebrate by raising a glass over a Zoom
call with the Provost and French tutors.
‘Usually we invite the winner(s) to a drink
on the gallery and dinner on High Table,’
explained Prof. Seth Whidden (Fellow in
French). ‘The coronavirus version was a
really nice hour-long Zoom celebration.’
As part of the national Being Human Festival, and Oxford’s Christmas Light Festival,
a huge video projection was mapped onto the Radcliffe Humanities building on
15 November. The video projection by Production Studio, entitled ‘SOURCE: CODE’,
was based partly on the research of Professor Richard Bruce Parkinson (Professorial
Fellow in Egyptology). Watch the video at bit.ly/source-code2019.
‘I research Ancient Egyptian poetry and I’m currently writing a commentary on
the classic “Tale of Sinuhe” from 1850 BC. As part of this I’ve worked with actors,
and in particular the actress/author Barbara Ewing, who’s been a regular visitor to
Queen’s for rehearsals and recordings’, explained Richard. ‘Working with texts as
performances can be an inspirational way of breaking down the traditional restraints
of academic practices, and of exploring a poem’s aesthetic and emotional aspects.
We try to get beyond the philology and let people experience the poem as an
intensely felt work of art and not just as a set text.’ A podcast of the reading can be
found at podcasts.ox.ac.uk/life-sinuhe.
Poster Presentation
Prize for Fourth-Year
Biochemist
Alexander Cui (Biochemistry, 2016) won
the Best Poster Presentation award
in February’s Nuffield Department of
Surgical Sciences Research Away Day.
His achievement is all the more impressive
considering he was the only non-PhD/
post-doc entrant.
Photo © Ian Wallman
9

THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE
Dr Bill Frankland’s Final Paper:
‘Fungal Threats: Good and Bad’
We are honoured to be able to remember and pay
tribute to Dr Bill Frankland (Physiological Sciences, 1930
and Honorary Fellow) by publishing his final article, a
fascinating and wide-ranging account of fungi, on our
website. Bill was a truly remarkable man who never really
retired, and completed his final paper with assistance
from Dr Paul Watkins in March 2020, shortly before his
death at the age of 108. He was Oxford’s oldest alumnus
and an internationally renowned allergist, who had worked
with Nobel Laureate Alexander Fleming. The paper can be
read here: bit.ly/bill-frankland
Bill at an event in 2019, in conversation with Peter Richardson (PPE, 1973), whose
father, E.W.M. Richardson (History, 1928) was a contemporary of Bill. ‘It turned out
while we were chatting that Bill remembered him, which was remarkable!’ said Peter.
Photo © Big T Images.
College Medical Society holds
Conference on Medical Innovation
On 16 February the Queen’s College Medical Society hosted a
gathering of medical students and members of the wider University
to hear from a diverse set of speakers at the forefront of healthcare
innovation in several sectors across the globe. Topics included
advances in molecular drug technology; innovation in the NHS;
healthcare technology, including the use of virtual reality and
potential role of artificial intelligence; and “frugal innovation” where
economic and technological resources are sparse.
The day was hugely enjoyable, and each of the speakers brought
much to consider regarding the future of healthcare systems in an
ever advancing but increasingly disparate global arena.
Queen’s College Translation Exchange: an Update
from the Director, Dr Charlotte Ryland
Our second year was full of firsts,
beginning with our inaugural residency for
poetry and translation. This was a perfect
Queen’s collaboration, with the John
Rutherford Centre for Galician Studies
and Modern Poetry in Translation. For the
residency that followed we enjoyed our
first external partnership, with London’s
Pushkin House, and our first exhibition
in the College Library. British-born
translator Helena Kernan flew over from
California and was joined by Russian poet
Galina Rymbu. Helena’s account for our
blog beautifully captures the “visceral”
experience of working with Galina in
person for the first time.
Almost immediately after the residency,
the idea of doing any kind of meeting
“in person” became a distant memory, and
we faced the challenge of shifting into the
virtual realm a programme that is all about
encounter, exchange and collaboration.
Our International Book Club lived up to
its name, with the books’ translators
joining our virtual meetings from New York
and Iceland, and participants tuning in
from numerous time zones. Meanwhile,
our committed and creative student
ambassadors transformed their in-school
sessions into “virtual workshops”, which
therefore enjoyed a much wider reach.
We look forward to launching our national
translation prize for young languagelearners
in the coming year, ensuring that
young people across the country remain
connected to cultures and literatures
beyond these borders.
www.queens.ox.ac.uk/translationexchange
Chus Pato, Alba Cid and Erín Moure at the final
event of our Galician residency.
10

www.queens.ox.ac.uk
Consent or Why Saying is (not) Doing
Dr Maximilian Kiener, Extraordinary Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy
their entitlement to decide how others may permissibly interact
with their body or property. The other face looks at the person
receiving consent: from there, consent shapes responsibility for
wrongdoing and liability to blame. Whether or not a person had
someone else’s consent when performing a certain act, e.g. a
medical procedure or a sexual act, is key to whether that person
acts wrongly and ought to be criticised. I argue that understanding
how the two faces relate to each other not only advances our
understanding of consent but also of autonomy and responsibility
more generally.
Suppose you could complete your weekly to-do list simply by
*saying* that you have done so. Wouldn’t this be marvellous?
Yes, you may say, but it is also impossible. *Saying* is not *doing*.
But wait. There are important moments in our lives when *saying*
is, in fact, *doing.* One example of such a moment concerns
something that you have already done multiple times, maybe even
just before reading this article.
I am talking about consent and how we grant other people the
permission to do what they could not otherwise permissibly do.
Just by *saying* ‘I consent and give you permission to take my
car’ I actually *do* consent and give you permission, thereby
rendering what would otherwise be theft into a permissible act
of borrowing my car. Just by *saying* ‘I permit you to perform
this medical procedure’ I actually *do* permit my physician to
proceed and render what would otherwise be bodily assault into
appropriate medical care. And just by *saying* or communicating
consent I *do* turn what would otherwise be rape into acceptable
sexual intercourse. Heidi Hurd once described this effect of
consent, i.e. transforming an impermissible act into a permissible
one, as ‘moral magic’. *Saying* sometimes really is *doing*.
But why do we have such a power to consent? What are the
conditions of real and valid consent? What mental capacities do
people need to possess in order to consent? What do they need
to know? What does it take to consent voluntarily as opposed
to consenting under coercion or manipulation? How should we
understand consent in the digital age?
In my research, I am focusing on these questions. I argue that
consent is like the Roman god Janus: it has two faces looking in
two different directions. The first face looks at the person giving
consent: from here, consent protects a person’s autonomy and
My research is part of the ERC-sponsored project Roots of
Responsibility, which is based at UCL and Oxford, and led by
John Hyman. One of the core aspects of this project, which is also
particularly relevant to my own research, is the legal distinction
between responsibility, understood as an obligation to explain
one’s conduct to others, and liability, understood as being a
legitimate subject of moral criticism or legal redress. Roots of
Responsibility aims to apply this legal distinction to traditional,
often deadlocked, philosophical debates and thereby reframes
various long-standing disputes. Regarding my own research,
I argue that this distinction is also critical for the Janus-faced
nature of consent.
I am privileged to be collaborating with the other members of
the Roots of Responsibility team. In addition, my role as an
Extraordinary Junior Research Fellow at Queen’s and the affiliation
to the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford have provided a versatile
and fruitful network for exchanging ideas and fostering my
philosophical research.
So, I have now said something about my research, but it is time
for me to return to it and actually do it. Unfortunately, saying is not
always doing.
11

THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE
An Interview with Nicolas Pasternak Slater
Nicolas Pasternak Slater (Russian and
German, 1958), nephew of Boris Pasternak,
is the author of a new translation of Doctor
Zhivago, his uncle’s masterpiece, published by
the Folio Society last year and illustrated with
works by Boris’s father, Leonid Pasternak. He
spoke to us about this very special project, his
time at Queen’s, and the art of translation.
When did you first read Doctor Zhivago,
and what did you make of it then?
I first started reading the novel in 1956, when I
was eighteen. That was a typed carbon copy
that had just been smuggled from Moscow
to Oxford by Isaiah Berlin, a friend of Boris
Pasternak’s and of ours. I had trouble reading
the very faint pages, and didn’t get far because I could only read
it on my limited weekend leaves from National Service. Before
long the two fat volumes disappeared – they were needed by the
translators.
Photo © Philippe Vermes
So I really came to the book three years later, in 1959, when I
was an undergraduate at Queen’s reading Russian and German.
My tutor for modern Russian literature was Max Hayward, then
a fellow at St Anthony’s, whose translation of Doctor Zhivago
(with Manya Harari) had appeared the previous year. Max gave
me several tutorials on the novel, which immensely improved my
understanding of it. But I think I only appreciated it properly the
next time I read it, almost sixty years later, when I translated it for
the Folio Society.
I find it a masterpiece on several levels. It has a sweeping theme
– Russia through the first quarter of the 20th century, when the
country experienced two revolutions, a world war, a civil war and
a famine, and changed its character for ever; but all these events
are seen from a human level, through the lives of brilliantly drawn
individuals, one of whom, Zhivago himself, is very close to the
author. It’s a piece of beautiful writing, with particularly striking and
moving descriptive passages.
You sadly never had the opportunity to meet your uncle.
Can you explain why that was?
included. I was apprehensive enough already
about the treatment I would receive there, as the
nephew of a public pariah; and although I turned
up on the quayside fully expecting to sail with the
rest of the group, it was not a total surprise to be
banned at the last minute.
What did you enjoy most about your time
as an undergraduate and what were your
next steps?
My three years at Queen’s were very happy
ones. Singling out what I enjoyed most is
impossible. I found the work fascinating,
I made many friends and enjoyed the social life,
Queen’s was a beautiful college to live in (I was
particularly fond of my second-year room in
Little Drawda), and I remember the weather as always sunny…
it’s not difficult to be happy in one’s early twenties!
After graduating I spent two years at university in Milan helping
to research automatic translation by computer. I was the
Russian/English specialist in our unit. That was an intellectual
challenge that I felt was just up my street. However, two things
happened in my second year there: the unit ran into problems
with its sponsors, which threatened its survival, and I myself
fell seriously ill with hepatitis. Forcibly confined to hospital in
Milan for six weeks, I became intrigued by my disease and had
many fascinating conversations with my consultant. The upshot
was that I decided to return to England and study medicine.
I became a haematologist, looking after patients with conditions
ranging from leukaemia to sickle cell disease, and ended up as a
consultant at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. I retired from that
position in 1998.
With the gradual easing of the Cold War in 1959, the British Council
organised the first Anglo-Soviet student exchange programme. I
got a place on it, to spend a year at Leningrad University studying
Russian literature. However, by that time Doctor Zhivago had already
been published in the West, flouting the Soviet ban on it; and
Pasternak had been awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature,
which the Soviet government saw as a slap in the face. Not
surprisingly for those years, Boris was in deep disgrace, subjected
to vicious public attack and humiliation; and his entire family was
Lydia and Josephine Pasternak reading. Leonid Pasternak, oil, 1920
12

www.queens.ox.ac.uk
And how did your return to translation work come about?
Languages have always fascinated me, and throughout my life I
have enjoyed acquiring more of them. I made it a principle always
to have a decent working knowledge of the language of any
country I visited, and that amounted to a good many languages
by the end. There could be special challenges about that. When I
married, my wife and I were due to take a cruise from Marseille
to Odessa for our honeymoon. However, once again there
was trouble with our Soviet visas so we had to disembark from
the steamer one stop earlier – in Istanbul. That meant a lot of
intensive study of Turkish on board ship. My new wife was very
understanding.
But my interest in languages has also made me very aware
of prose style in English, and it was a small step from there to
becoming a translator into English when I retired from medicine.
I had done a number of medical translations before that, and
knew that I liked the work. The first major literary work that came
my way was a collection of Boris Pasternak’s letters to his family
in England (his parents and both sisters). Our family held those
letters, and they clearly deserved to be translated. That collection
was published by the Hoover Press at Stanford University, and
after that one thing led to another.
How difficult is it to convey the author’s tone
when translating?
I think that capturing the tone of a work is an integral part of doing
the translation; it should come naturally, so far as it can be done
at all. You have to “listen” to the author’s voice in the original, let it
pervade you, and try to stay faithful to it. That sometimes means
sticking close to the way the author has phrased something,
but sometimes it means the opposite – finding a new way of
saying the same thing, while trying to reproduce the cadences,
the linguistic associations, the music of the original – something
that a literal translation often can’t do. Of course it can be very
frustrating, when the target language just won’t do the things that
the source language has done.
and indeed much of the beauty of the language, tended to get lost
in the process. The translators were well aware of this at the time.
The second translation, published in the USA by Pevear and
Volokhonsky in 2010, takes a different approach. It appears to aim
for maximum fidelity to the vocabulary and sentence structure of
the original – almost a “literal translation”, in fact. The drawback
of this approach is that sentences often become strained
and unnatural in English, with peculiar syntax and recondite
vocabulary.
Is there a particular work or author that you’ve most
enjoyed translating?
The author I have most enjoyed translating is Pasternak,
including not only Doctor Zhivago but also his letters to his family.
Here he writes in a very different vein, mostly free and easy and
conversational, but sometimes agonisingly emotional, or angry,
or bitterly satirical, or heart-rendingly despondent. Apart from
Pasternak, I have greatly enjoyed translating Tolstoy (The Death
of Ivan Ilyich and a number of enchanting short stories). He is a
consummate stylist: every word he chooses is meant to be just
what it is and where it is, and I found myself translating him with
awe and respect.
What skills do you think a good translator needs?
Close familiarity with the source language, the same plus a sense
of style and register in one’s own (target) language, and a lot of
human empathy.
What was the most difficult element of working on
Doctor Zhivago?
The most challenging aspect, perhaps, was the knowledge that I
was translating a poet, and that the language of the English had
to be particularly harmonious, rounded, natural, and free from
stumbling-blocks. I don’t claim to have succeeded, but I certainly
tried my best. And I was very conscious that this was a family
work. Not that I felt under extra pressure, rather the opposite
– I felt very close to the author through his two Oxford sisters,
whom I had known and loved for fifty years. I could hear their
voices in his; there were even family expressions I knew. I was
translating a family member and a friend, and it felt different.
The translation took me about a year and a half, working fairly
flat out. I was very aware of the other two existing translations,
and kept quite a file of notes on how my solutions differed from
theirs. The first English translation, by Hayward and Harari (1958)
was done under enormous time pressure, and the overriding
consideration, as it feels to me, was to produce an English
narrative that ran smoothly. Many nuances of style and meaning,
Pine trees on the Baltic coast. Leonid Pasternak, watercolour
13

THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE
Hydrogen as an Energy Source
Professor Peter Dobson OBE, Emeritus Fellow
The awareness of the need to reduce the burning of hydrocarbons
that emit carbon dioxide has now been apparent for over a
decade and the gradual appearance of battery electric vehicles
on our roads is one indication of public acceptance of this need.
Recently there have been demands to reduce the use of natural
gas for domestic heating and cooking, and there are advocates
who want us to use electrical power for replacing this. Heavy
industry such as steel-making and cement consumes large
quantities of coal and gas resulting in carbon dioxide emissions.
All of which begs the question: what, if any, are the alternatives?
Hydrogen is one of the most obvious replacements because when
it burns it only releases water vapour and if it is used in a fuel cell
it creates “clean” electricity and releases water. Hydrogen can be
distributed via pipelines, using existing gas networks with some
modifications, and it can be used in cookers and boilers with
relatively minor modifications. It is a reducing agent, hence it can
be used in steel making and it can provide heat for most heavy
industry applications. Hydrogen can also be compressed and
carried in pressurised tanks in vehicles. So what are the barriers
to its widespread adoption? As in most things, it is mainly in the
“cost”, but there are also some side issues.
Currently 95% of the world’s hydrogen is made by steam
reforming of natural gas and this releases large quantities of
carbon dioxide! The problem of capturing, and using or storing,
the emitted carbon dioxide has not yet been solved at the sort
of scale that will be needed. The steam reforming produces
hydrogen at a cost of around £1.64 per kg if the CO 2 is released
into the air and estimated to be £1.90 per kg if the CO 2 is
captured and stored. Electrolysis of water using renewable energy
from wind and solar could result in hydrogen at around £4.70 per
kg and there is a lot of effort to drive down this cost by the use of
more efficient and cheaper electrolyser catalysts. Electrolysis to
form hydrogen would be a good way of storing the excess energy
generated by wind and solar generators. There are methods
of generating hydrogen from waste plastics or fossil fuel, being
investigated at Oxford, that could make pure hydrogen and solid
carbon, which could have a high intrinsic value and be stored
easily and safely, but the projected costs are not yet known.
How do these costs compete with fossil fuel? It is difficult to give
direct comparisons because of the differing tax and fuel duty, but
we can take a medium-sized car powered by diesel and compare
it to a similar electric vehicle powered by a fuel cell (FCEV) and
hydrogen. The cost per mile of the diesel vehicle is £0.17 per mile
as against £0.25 per mile for the hydrogen FCEV, but currently
there is no high fuel tax on the hydrogen. The cost of the fuel cell
electric vehicles themselves is also very high compared to diesel
(currently three times and not likely to reduce by much).
FCEVs offer a much longer range than battery EVs and they can
be refilled in minutes rather than the hours needed for recharging
a battery. There may be widespread public concern about filling
stations that use hydrogen, and coupled with the high cost
of FCEVs this might be a significant barrier to their adoption.
However, there are some obvious candidates for FCEVs in the
form of buses, delivery vans, trucks, farm vehicles and possibly
light railways. All of these could have safe self-contained hydrogen
fuelling depots that pose less risk.
Hydrogen is definitely worth serious consideration as the energy
vector in our attempt to achieve zero carbon emissions. If the
Oxford research by Professor Peter Edwards in the Department
of Chemistry can be economically scaled up, it also solves part of
the plastic waste issue.
Peter Dobson is Emeritus Professor of Engineering Science in
Oxford and he collaborates with Professor Peter Edwards on a
range of energy issues. He is also a visiting professor at UCL
and King’s College London where he is engaged in research on
nanotechnology and biosensing.
The Coradia iLint hydrogen fuel cell electric train operates in Lower Saxony, Germany. This could
be an efficient clean alternative to many current diesel trains and it does not require the large
infrastructure of overhead cables, and only emits water.
14

www.queens.ox.ac.uk
Hawksmoor Dr awings
Michael Riordan, College Archivist
Design for the west side of the front quadrangle The west side today – photo © Brian Theng (Literae Humaniores, 2015)
In the early eighteenth century the Provost, William Lancaster,
had a great interest in architecture and played a crucial role in the
College’s decision to demolish its existing buildings and replace
them with something more fashionably classical. Lancaster
turned to Nicholas Hawksmoor, best known today for his London
churches, but then just beginning to emerge from the shadows of
Wren and Vanbrugh, both of whom he had assisted.
Hawksmoor had to include the recently built Library and the
Williamson Building (in the north-east corner of what is now Back
Quad), but otherwise could let his imagination fly in designing
a whole new college. He produced seven different schemes or
‘propositions’ which he laid out in twenty drawings. These are
kept in the College Library and have recently been scanned and
uploaded to the Digital Bodleian site (digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
where they can be viewed for free.
The great architectural historian, Sir Howard Colvin, wrote in
his book on Unbuilt Oxford that they were the ‘fiasco’ of an
‘expensive architect with a penchant for adding extravagant and
functionally unnecessary gestures’. This is somewhat harsh:
although none of the drawings were adopted as what was
actually built, features from all of Hawksmoor’s ‘propositions’ were
incorporated into the Queen’s we know today. The final plans
were probably agreed by Lancaster and the Master Mason William
Towneshend, drawing on Hawksmoor’s ideas and discussions
with other members of the University interested in architecture
like George Clarke of All Souls and the Dean of Christ Church,
Henry Aldrich.
As well as giving a fascinating idea of what Queen’s might have
looked like, the plans provide important evidence of the process
involved in the rebuilding of the College, and an insight into
Hawksmoor himself who a few years later would design the
Clarendon Building and redevelop All Souls.
For more on Hawksmoor and the drawings, see an article by
Dr Eleonora Pistis in the College’s Insight magazine: bit.ly/
insight-2012. There is also a short film on the rebuilding of the
College at bit.ly/queensarchitecture.
Design for the High Street façade
15

Events Calendar 2020–21*
Details for all events can be found at www.queens.ox.ac.uk/events
Saturday 12 September 2020 Old Members’ Dinner & AGM Ticketed
Thursday 24 September 2020 Queen’s Women’s Network in London Ticketed
Saturday 26 September 2020 Benefactors’ Dinner (rescheduled from June) Ticketed (by invitation only)
Saturday 17 October 2020 Jubilee Gaudy Lunch (1950, 1960 and 1970) Ticketed (by invitation only)
Saturday 21 November 2020 ‘Ten Years Later’ Lunch (2010) Ticketed (by invitation only)
Saturday 19 December 2020 Boar’s Head Gaudy (1986 and 1987) Ticketed (by invitation only)
Saturday 9 January 2021 Needle & Thread Gaudy (1976 and 1977) Ticketed (by invitation only)
Thursday 15 April 2021 Queen’s College Old Members’ Dinner in Washington DC (tentative date) Ticketed
Saturday 17 April 2021 Queen’s College Old Members’ Dinner in New York
(part of the 2021 Oxford North America Reunion weekend) Ticketed
Saturday 15 May 2021 Taberdars’ Society Lunch Ticketed (by invitation only)
Saturday 19 June 2021 PPE Centenary Celebrations Ticketed (by invitation only)
Saturday 3 July 2021
Benefactors’ Dinner including an exclusive performance of The Changeling,
written by Old Member Thomas Middleton (1598) Ticketed (by invitation only)
Sunday 4 July 2021 Performance of The Changeling, written by Old Member Thomas Middleton (1598)
Ticketed
*In the current circumstances, please note that these dates may be subject to change. We will keep you informed and issue ticket
refunds for any event cancelled by Queen’s.
In addition to the above, there are also several other events in the pipeline including a Provost’s Lecture in London, as well as regional
UK and continental Europe events. We will also be looking at how we can make our events more open to online participation and
viewing. For up-to-date information and for booking, please visit www.queens.ox.ac.uk/OMevents.
West Cloister
© Jemma Hayward
Old Members’ Dinner and AGM 2020: Saturday 12 September, 6:30 for 7:00pm.
Booking now open online at: www.queens.ox.ac.uk/OMD2020. RSVP by Friday 28 August.
All Old Members are welcome to attend.
QUEEN’S PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION
We are starting a new photo competition this year,
open to all Queen’s students, Old Members, Fellows
and staff. There are two categories – ‘Queen’s Life’
and ‘Oxford’ – with cash prizes for the top three
entries in each. Please enter your photos (old or
new) by 31 August 2020. See the full rules and how
to enter here:
www.queens.ox.ac.uk/photo-competition COLLEGE RECORD 2020
Your communication preferences
If you wish to update your contact details or communication preferences,
you can do so online at
www.queens.ox.ac.uk/update-my-details;
by email to oldmembers@queens.ox.ac.uk;
or by returning any of the forms enclosed with our hard copy publications.
Call for Venues –
The Queen’s Women’s Network
Thanks to all our contributors and to Emily Downing and the Old Members’ Office team
Editor: Claire Hooper
Design & printing: Holywell Press Ltd
Please let us know by emailing oldmembers@queens.
ox.ac.uk if you might be able to provide a large meeting
space (for around 50 to 100 people) as a venue for a
future event, in or around the London area.
You can submit your news for inclusion in the College
Record by 1 September 2020, via our website
(www.queens.ox.ac.uk/college-record-2020)
or by post to the Old Members’ Office.
Old Members’ Office, The Queen’s College, High Street, Oxford, OX1 4AW
www.queens.ox.ac.uk
Email: oldmembers@queens.ox.ac.uk | Telephone: 01865 279217 Registered Charity 1142553
@queenscollegeoxford @queenscollegeoxford @QueensCollegeOx www.youtube.com/queenscollegeox