University College Oxford Record 2020

PROFESSOR TREVOR SHARP,
Tutorial Fellow in Neuroscience, became a
member of a newly formed 11-partner Horizon
2020 EU Training Network focused on brain
development research. He was also awarded
a three year research grant by the Medical
Research Council to investigate effects of early
life exposure to antidepressants on neural
circuit formation. He gave a plenary lecture on a
repurposed lithium-mimetic at the 6th Congress
of Asian College of Neuropsychopharmacology
in Fukuoka. He also completed one of the world’s
longest cross-country ski events (Vasaloppet) in
northern Sweden in March, the ninth time he
had participated.
DR SOPHIE SMITH,
Tutorial Fellow in Political Theory, was awarded
the annual Selma V Forkosch Prize by The Journal
of the History of Ideas for the best article published
in the University of Pennsylvania Press journal
in 2019. The article, “The Language of ‘Political
Science’ in Early Modern Europe” explores
what it meant to speak of “political science” in
Aristotle’s key writings on politics and ethics, in
medieval Latin commentaries on them, in early
modern works on the theme, and in the views
that Hobbes constructed in response.
PROFESSOR TIAN YUAN TAN,
Professorial Fellow and Shaw Professor of Chinese,
joined the Board of Advisors for Renaissance
Studies: Journal of the Society for Renaissance
Studies. In January, Professor Tan organised a twoday
training workshop on “Digital Approaches to
Pre-Modern Chinese Texts: Theory and Practice”,
held at Univ and at the University of Oxford
China Centre.
SUPERNUMERARY FELLOWS
DR RICHARD ASHDOWNE,
Assistant Senior Tutor, Supernumerary Fellow
and Stipendiary Lecturer in Classics and
Linguistics, has been continuing his work on the
Latin of medieval Britain, publishing a chapter
that examines some examples of English words
ending in -man that are known of either earlier or
only from texts in medieval Latin. In September
2019, he took on the role of assistant senior
tutor, with responsibility for the academic
welfare of on-course undergraduate students.
DR RAJENDRA CHITNIS,
Ivana and Pavel Tykač Fellow in Czech, published
Translating the Literatures of Small European
Nations (Liverpool UP, 2020), co-edited with
Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen, Rhian Atkin and Zoran
Milutinović. The book, arising from an AHRCfunded
research project he led, explores the
strategies used by literatures from less well-known
European cultures to reach the wider world.
He and DR POLLY JONES, Schrecker Barbour
Tutorial Fellow in Slavonic and East European
Studies, hosted the visit of Jonathan Bolton,
Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures
at Harvard. As well as joining Czech tutorials,
Professor Bolton delivered the annual Taylor
Lecture at the University on the political novel in
Eastern Europe and led a round-table discussion
in College on late Socialism in Czechoslovakia
and the USSR.
PROFESSOR JOHN DEWEY FRS,
Supernumerary Fellow, received two Honorary
degrees in 2019: Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa)
from Saint Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia in
January and Doctor of Engineering (Honoris Causa)
from Istanbul Technical University in October.
20 University College Record | October 2020