College News - Archive for academic year 08-09

• New Middle East Centre Building - Oxford City Council has granted planning permission for the Middle East Centre's new building, the Softbridge, designed by the renowned architect Zaha Hadid. See the Softbridge page for a range of artist's impressions of the new building.

• Ice Hockey - the Oxford Blues featuring three St Antony's students have just won the National Championship for the first time since 1933. This comes just a few weeks after they also completed a memorable victory over Cambridge in the annual varsity match in March. Congratulations to Dan Koldyk, Cal Nicholson and Johanas Sjostrand.

• Journalism award - Maria Repnikova, currently studying for an MPhil in Comparative Government, has been awarded the $2,000 Alexander Kendrick Scholarship by the Overseas Press Club Foundation at its 2009 Annual Scholarship Luncheon held at the Yale Club in New York City. She has also won an OPC Foundation internship and will spend the summer in the Reuters bureau in Beijing.       
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• Award for Sarah Washbrook - Dr Sarah Washbrook, British Academy Post-doctoral Research Fellow working within the Latin American Centre, has been awarded a publishing contract in the British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Monograph series.

• Dictionary of National Biography - Sir William Deakin, historian and founder Warden of St Antony's, is amongst the latest additions to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
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• Honours for Emeritus Fellows - St Antony's was delighted to learn of awards for two emeritus fellows. Mrs Rosemary Thorp, Reader Emeritus in the Economics of Latin America and Director of Queen Elizabeth House, the University's Department of International Development, in 2003-2004, is made a CBE. The founding Director of the Nissan Institute for Japanese Studies, Professor Arthur Stockwin, receives an OBE for services to academic excellence and the promotion of UK-Japanese understanding.
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• Grant for the MEC Archive - The Anglo Omani Society has awarded the Middle East Centre Archive a grant for the Charles Butt Project. This aims to preserve and digitise the outstanding photographic collection acquired by Charles Butt during his service in the Middle East, notably in Oman.
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• Appointments for Paul Collier - Professor Paul Collier, Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies, has been appointed co-director of a new International Growth Centre, which has been launched by International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander MP with the aim of providing practical help to promote economic growth in developing countries. A recording of the launch event is available as a podcast. Professor Collier has also joined the new senior advisory board of Critical Resource, an advisory firm specialising in sustainability and stakeholder issues.  
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• Award for Paul Collier - Professor Paul Collier, Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies, has won the Corine International Book Award 2008, business section, for his book The Bottom Billion. This award recognises books published in German.
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• New Chair in Contemporary Islamic Studies - The Qatar Foundation has announced the endowment of the HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani Chair in Contemporary Islamic Studies. The post-holder will be a fellow of St Antony's and a member of the Middle East Centre based in the College as well as being a member of the Faculty of Oriental Studies. Funding will also be provided for conferences, lecture series, seminars and joint publications. The announcement was made during the visit of Prime Minister Gordon Brown to Doha. Press coverage includes The Gulf Times.
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• Honorary Doctorate - Mrs Rosemary Thorp, Emeritus Fellow, has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the Catholic University of Peru. She has no thoughts of retirement as yet, with a research grant to continue her work at Queen Elizabeth House until at least 2010.
• British Academy elections - Professor Vivienne Shue (right), Director of the Contemporary China Studies Programme, has been elected a Fellow of the British Academy. Professor Sir Adam Roberts, Honorary Fellow of St Antony's, was elected for a four-year term as President starting in 2009.
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• EU 'Group of Wise Men' - Professor Kalypso Nicolaïdis, Director of the European Studies Centre, has been invited to join a 12-member group headed by former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez tasked with reflecting on how best to deal with Europe's future challenges. Further details are in the press release from the EU Observer, Brussels. 
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• Professor William Beinart, Rhodes Professor of Race Relations, has become President of the African Studies Association of the UK. During his two-year tenure, Oxford will host the Association's biennial conference in September 2010.      

• David Tsui (Xu Zerong) - The College is very pleased to learn that former student Dr David Tsui (Xu Zerong) has recently received a sentence reduction of 10 months. The College will continue to maintain its benevolent interest in the welfare of Dr Tsui. For details and historical background of his case please see the David Tsui web page in the Antonians section.  

• Award for Honorary Fellow - Professor Gerhard Ritter, alumnus and Honorary Fellow, has received the most prestigious honour awarded to a Historian in Germany, der Preis des Historischen Kollegs.

• Proctor at Oxford - Philip Robins was admitted as Junior Proctor on Wednesday 18th March 2009. More images and details available here.

• University Challenge - St Antony's has been invited to submit a team for this summer's University Challenge on BBC2. An intra-college competition to select the team was held on Saturday 28 February with the Warden playing the part of Jeremy Paxman.  

• The European Studies Centre Annual Lecture - Joseph "Joschka" Fischer, former German Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor in the government of Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005 and a leading figure in the German Green Party, spoke on "Dreams, Myth, Realities: Transatlantic Relations in the Obama Era" on 25 February 2009. The event was reported in The Financial Times.

• STAIR launches its latest issue - STAIR launched its latest issue, The Politics of Nuclear Technology in the 21st Century, at Blackwell's in Broad Street on 24 February. A drinks reception was followed by a panel discussion on 'Nuclear Energy and Climate Change: an old solution to a new problem?' The speakers were Dr Ian Goldin (Director of the 21st Century School and former Vice-President of the World Bank), Mark Lynas (writer on climate change and energy), Norman Harrison (Chief Executive of the UKAEA), and David Broughton (Committee of Radioactive Waste Management).   

• The Chancellor's Seminar - Lord Patten, Chancellor of Oxford University, discussed his book, What Next? Surviving the Twenty-First Century, on 6 February 2009. The discussants were Oxford students: Christopher Bickerton (DPIR), Lee Jones (DPIR), Tobias Lenz (St Antony's College) and Anna Oldmeadow (University College), and the convenor Professor Kalypso Nicolaidis of the European Studies Centre.

• St Antony's Day Service - This year's service was held on Friday 16 January in the Fellows' Dining Room, with College members past and present attending. Supper was provided afterwards for all the attendees. The date for the 2010 service is yet to be decided.
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• STAIR launches a blog - The St Antony's International Review (STAIR), a peer-reviewed journal based at Oxford, is launching a blog-based forum for professors and students to discuss recent publications in world affairs as well as current affairs issues. Students are invited to respond to scholars' publications, and scholars themselves can respond. The idea was trialled in the Summer with UCLA Professor Michael Ross's article on 'Oil, Islam, and Women'. Responses are now invited to a new article on 'Wishful Thinking or Buying Time'. An online discussion is also planned on 'What should Barack Obama do in his first 24 hours in the Oval Office?'. If you would like to contribute to that, please email Dan or Victoria.  

• Honour for Timothy Garton Ash - Professor Timothy Garton Ash became an Officer of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques at a ceremony on 16 December 2008.

• Rosie Hilliard, the College Nurse, retires at the end of December. She has been with the College since July 2004. Her leaving party was held on 9 December. 

• The Warden's Seminar - The seminar was entitled The Next American Administration: Change or Continuity? and featured Professor Philip Bobbitt, University of Texas; Dr Scott Blinder, Nuffield College, Oxford; and Professor Sir Adam Roberts, Balliol College, Oxford. It was held in on 24 November 2008.
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• The Astor Lecture - Professor Akira Iriye delivered the 2008 Astor Lecture on Transnational Moments on 21 November 2008.
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• Lecture by Minister Franco Frattini - Franco Frattini, the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs, visited St Antony's on 17 November 2008 and spoke on Europe’s role in the reform of the global governance.

• Sergio Vieira de Mello Lecture - Professor Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former President of Brazil, spoke on Reframing human rights in the global era: a tribute to Sergio Vieira de Mello on Monday 10 November. The video podcast is now also available on the University of Oxford's i-tunes website: http://itunes.ox.ac.uk/ 
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• STAIR conference on the Russian Georgian conflict - STAIR, the St Antony's International Review, organised this conference, which was held on 24 October. Discussants included Dr Alex Pravda, Professor Sir Adam Roberts, Professor Kalypso Nicolaidis, Dr Alex Betts, Professor Edmund Herzig and George Khelashvili.

• Class of '98 Reunion - More than 20 Antonians celebrated the tenth anniversary of the class of '98's matriculation over the weekend of 17-19 October. The event is enthusiastically and nostalgically reported in the current St Antony's newsletter.

• Oxford Teaching Awards 2007-8 - Dr Nandini Gooptu, who teaches in the Centre for International Development,  received an individual award from the Oxford Learning Institute at a ceremony on 16th October. This is in recognition of her outstanding teaching and commitment to teaching. Student testimonials have in particular praised her academic rigour, her ability to push their intellectual boundaries, and her timely and apposite feedback on their work.
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• The former President of Mexico, Carlos Salinas de Gortari visited St Antony's as the guest of the JCR and the Mexican Society on October 15, 2008. He spoke about his new book La Década Perdida (The Lost Decade) then joined students at a wine reception.

•  New Santander Abbey Visiting Fellowship - St Antony’s College and Abbey National plc, Santander’s UK subsidiary, signed a three-year agreement on 14 October under the ‘Santander Universities’ Global Division banner that will create a new visiting fellowship in Iberian Studies. The Santander Visiting Fellow will undertake research related to contemporary Spain and Portugal including their roles in the EU and their relations with Latin America and global politics.
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• Modern History of Greece Conference - On 10 October a conference was held in Athens. It was organized by the Greek foreign ministry's Department of Information and Public Diplomacy, in association with South East European Studies at Oxford - SEESOX - based at St Antony's College, and the British Embassy in Athens. The many distinguished speakers included Greek Foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis and Margaret MacMillan, Warden of St Antony's. Fuller details can be found in a report by the Athens News Agency.

• Recognition of distinction - Dr Ian Neary and Dr Kalypso Nicolaïdis have each been awarded the title 'professor' under the recognition of distinction exercise. Dr David Johnson and Dr Philip Robins became Readers. These changes took effect on 1 October 2008.

• Professor Richard J Evans, alumnus, has been appointed Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge with effect from 1 October 2008.

• Mongol Rally 2008 - Thomas Hedegard, who started his MPhil in October, spent the summer driving from London to Mongolia to raise money for Mercy Corps. Read the team's blog or see their flyer for further details.