Section 2: Reports on the Year

2

Reports on the Year

From the Principal

When future generations of Aularians, fellows, staff and students look back at the College archives, I wonder what their assessment will be of how we coped with the Covid pandemic? It has certainly been one of the most challenging times in the Hall’s history for many years and has tested the College’s resilience, and the personal and professional strength of everyone involved in it. But I hope they will also see a Hall that pulled together in extraordinary ways to make the most out of our every challenge. The staff, fellows and students have been an incredible group of people to work with over this time – and I am personally deeply grateful for all of their support. Coming third (out of thirty-nine colleges) in this year’s student satisfaction survey is a testament to the dedication of those in the College to keep the place functioning as ‘normally’ as possible. To me, it also indicates that on the whole, we probably got it about right; that our focus on the teaching and care of our students and maintenance of the buildings and historic fabric of the Hall’s estate, was correct. If there was a survey the other way around and the tutors and staff had to assess the students, I am sure we would have come first! It has been a two-way support process throughout and the student body has been superb, with outstanding leadership from our JCR Presidents Benjy Penny and then Julien Kress, and MCR Presidents Freddie Sørensen and then Ben White. Despite the challenges of Covid, or in some cases because of it, there have been many events, papers, books, and talks emerging from our Fellowship over the past year. This has included a newly formed Friday Fellowship lunchtime seminar series (by Zoom of course!) where every other week during term, a Fellow has talked about their research and the inspiration behind it. We have gone from the story of Alexander Radishchev’s Journey from St Petersburg to Moscow and ritual and politics in Rus and Early Muscovy, to living with the Inquisition in Venice, and letter writing and lobbying by nuns in Late Medieval Germany. Legal complexities have also been discussed from judicial review to ‘Snakes and Ladders: Forty years of trying to make sense of the law’. We have heard about genes, genetics and epigenetics, and joining the dots in memory via neural networks in the brain. Tales from Medieval Ireland have featured along with spiders in ancient amber and half-billion-yearold worms (more on worms below!). If you get a moment to ever listen in to a Friday lunchtime seminar (they are accessible via YouTube), I urge you to do so. For me, they demonstrate the incredible scholarly community that we have within our Fellowship – and without exception a group of people that can communicate the most complicated issues to a general audience with ease. We also had the pleasure of hearing Professor Wes Williams talk about his work as the Director of the TORCH network, which is the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities. Other ways to get a small glimpse of the breadth of research going

across our community is to read the numerous blogs on the College website that have been published over the past year. I have just caught up on one of the most recent ones which has a photo of one our Fellows holding a weather balloon over a cow in Kenya – I will leave you to read the details yourself! Moving onto our junior members, they have also been incredibly active and successful both within Oxford and beyond. The weekly Ted-E-News (available on Aularian Connect) has been full of their activities, from prowess in sporting activities with many Cuppers triumphs and blades for crews on the river, to music from sacred to rock, and a plethora of other cultural activities including the wonderful Summer Exhibition by our second year Fine Arts students in the SCR. They have also been winning some notable prizes; two in particular that are worth mentioning here are Lena Fuldauer (2018, DPhil Geography & the Environment) who won first place in the Allianz Climate Risk Research Award, which acknowledges and rewards young scientists whose works shed light on the nexus between climate change and an extreme weather event, and Taf Matika (2020, International Health and Tropical Medicine) who led the team that won Oxford Foundry’s All-Innovate Idea Competition. Thirty-three participating colleges took part in this competition which is targeted at undergraduates, postgraduates, and DPhils, and aims to encourage all students at Oxford, regardless of discipline, to develop an entrepreneurial skill set and generate entrepreneurial ideas. Making the College more environmentally sustainable has also been front and centre of our efforts over the past year. The Besse refurbishment, in particular, has included a whole swathe of features to reduce environmental impact, including enhanced internal insulation which has greatly improved the building’s thermal performance, installing secondary double glazing to the north rooms, and installing new, more energy efficient building services, such as low energy lighting and control. New technology has also been installed which recovers heat from the wastewater produced by the en-suite showers, which in turn reduces the water demand by approximately 25%. We now also have a proper food waste recycling system in our kitchens, with the waste being turned into energy and biofertilizer at a local biogas facility. Many other small changes are occurring throughout our estate but possibly one of the most exciting developments is thanks to our Finance Bursar and Estate Manager, who successfully applied for a government grant over the summer to employ a team of consultants to review all of our Estate, provide a carbon emissions baseline and detailed plans for how we can become net zero emissions. This level of detail is critical before we can set any meaningful targets or approaches to achieve this ultimate goal that we outlined in our strategy. Finally, some of our students, staff and Fellows undertook a baseline biodiversity assessment of all of our Estate over two weeks in June. This involved measurements of the extent of different landcover types (e.g. herbaceous borders, grass, meadows), species of trees, their height and stem basal diameter, birds, insects and worms. This audit was developed by the Conference of Colleges working group (which I chair) and 22 colleges took part to enable them to create a baseline of their college’s biodiversity. The outputs are currently being collated but will, again, give us an important understanding, for example, of the carbon storage and sequestration currently provided by trees and other

vegetation on site, the abundance and diversity of different species of birds, insects that provide important pollination services, and the health of our soils (as indicated by the abundance and diversity of worms). Importantly this will also inform us whether we are achieving net biodiversity gain in years to come. We have some excellent data emerging and will display this on the website when finished. So, in summary, as I look forward, I am personally full of optimism. As I hope you will glean from the pages of this year’s Magazine, the Hall is thriving. There is much to look forward to – not least we are about to launch our campaign for the exciting new building at Norham Gardens, which will finally allow us not just to accommodate all second-year undergraduates in modern, purposebuilt rooms, but to do so in an exemplary environmentally sustainable building. Thank you for all your support, please do keep in touch and, importantly, come back and visit in person as soon as you are able to do so. Floreat Aula! Professor Katherine J. Willis CBE, Principal

News from the Senior Common Room

Dr Christopher Armitage, St Edmund Fellow, is now a University of North Carolina Professor Emeritus, polishing the MS of Unlocking My Wordhoard: Poems and Prose with Illustrations. It’s scheduled for publication late this year.

In addition to her teaching as College Lecturer in Physics at Teddy Hall, during this past year Dr Jo Ashbourn has continued as the Director of the St Cross Centre for the History and Philosophy of Physics, which aims to not just focus on chronicling the history of the discipline as a retrospective exercise but to also critically engage with the philosophy and methodologies which inform how current research in physics is undertaken. Despite the pandemic with the associated social distancing restrictions, the Centre has nonetheless gone from strength to strength with its online events which now regularly convene over 1000 attendees from across the world. Online lectures have included ‘Physics of the Impossible Revisited’ by Professor Michio Kaku, ‘Scientific Thinking Across the Centuries and the Foundations of Physics’ by Professor Carlo Rovelii and ‘The Martian - Science Fiction and Science Fact’ by Dr Jim Green, NASA’s Chief Scientist. There was also an online discussion panel on ‘Space Travel Across the Decades and Beyond’ which featured key scientists from the major global space agencies with former astronauts as discussants. Details of these events with videos of all the talks plus forthcoming events for 20212022 can be seen at: https://www.stx. ox.ac.uk/the-happ-centre

During the past academic year, Emeritus Fellow Alistair Borthwick was elected Emeritus Professor at the University of Edinburgh, and appointed part-time Professor of Applied Hydrodynamics at the University of Plymouth.

In December 2020, Alistair received the YanYuan Friendship Award of Peking University, only the second time such an award has been made. The award reflects his more than 20-year collaboration with scholars at Peking University on environmental engineering, in particular long-term human and climate change effects on the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, and pollution remediation. In December 2020, Alistair chaired the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Centre for Marine and Renewable Energy Ireland (MaREI). In early 2021, he was appointed Visiting Professor at Peking University and at China University of Geosciences (Beijing), and reappointed to Visiting Distinguished Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. During the year, he gave invited virtual lectures on ‘flotsam, jetsam, and lagan’, and on a ‘landslide-induced barrier lake at Jinsha River, China’ at universities in England, Wales, and Ireland. In March 2021, Alistair became grandfather to Henry Borthwick, who is already becoming an expert in bath-splash dynamics from his test facility (an outdoor paddling pool) in Cowley! It only seems fair and fitting to allow Professor Adrian Briggs, Sir Richard Gozney Fellow and Tutor in Law, to describe his year in his own words: “The hope that the 41st and final year of service to the College would be unforgettable came true in the sense that a long and expensive course of therapy would be needed to overcome the trauma of an entire year blighted by this horrid plague. As if that were not enough, the calamity which struck Burma in February, and for which no cure has been found, destroyed a sizeable part of the plans made for the future. So what to remember and carry away (along with the motley contents of Staircase 4, room 3)? The answers must be: the heroic efforts, made across the College with energy and resourcefulness and on all fronts at once, to make the best of a terrible job; the amazing fortitude of the students who stuck to their task while deprivation and loss was all around; the achingly, heartbreakingly, beautiful sight of the Front Quad in its springtime finery but with no person to be seen; and a liber amicorum, organised in secrecy by my colleagues in the conflict of laws, presented to me at the end of Trinity term. That made the year unimaginable; and perhaps that’s the best way to remember it.” The first chapter of A Conflict Of Laws Companion: Essays in Honour of Adrian Briggs which describes Adrian’s contributions to the study of Law in Oxford as well as the authors’ recollections of time spent with him can be read in full on the OUP Website: https://bit.ly/3l0iD89

St Edmund Fellow Philip Broadley is Senior Independent Director on the boards of Legal & General and AstraZeneca. He is proud of the partnership between Oxford University and Astra Zeneca to manufacture the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine, Vaxzevria, and distribute it at no profit during the pandemic. At the end of July 2021 over one billion vaccine doses had been provided in little over a year.

Honorary Fellow Sir Ian Byatt’s work this year has led to him reflect on the success and failures of privatisation:

“I have written a chapter on water in an international Harvard book on infrastructure due to be published in December. A copy will be donated to the Hall Library. This has led me to think about the UK experience on the privatisation and regulation that took place some thirty years ago. Suppliers of telecoms, water, gas and electricity were privatised in stages, from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s with the objective that they subject to market forces, not government decisions. The privatisation of the telecoms, part of the Post Office, scores as a success. Benefitting from technological developments, competition developed from mobile phones and access to the internet. The privatisation of water services has survived. Water quality (both drinking water and waste water discharged to rivers and coastal waters) has been significantly improved and water companies have become much more efficient. In electricity and gas, however, key decisions are now taken by the Parliamentary that has been set up to implement the legislation passed to reduce carbon emissions. After initial reductions in customer prices, electricity prices have surged and are likely to surge further as generation is increasingly from off-shore wind turbines. In railways, the track operator is now back in government ownership and the train operating companies have become agents of the public sector Great British Railways. And an expensive government project, HS2, dominates investment in railways. The part-privatisation of London Transport soon collapsed and investment is now in the hands of the public sector Transport for London. There are doubtless many reasons for the disappointing results of privatisation, but two factors stand out, namely overemphasis on a public sector/market economy dichotomy and the failure to integrate the public interest in the decision making process. As the water regulator, I took account of water quality obligation, but was always concerned that these obligations had been imposed without sufficient thought and consultation with paying customers. Unfortunately, political decisions, such as to build HS2, and to transform electricity generation from steam turbine to offshore wind turbines, can be extremely expensive. Fully to meet the public interest requires greater transparency, and open consultation with customers, in particular the proper costing of projects driven by political objectives.” This year Professor Maia Chankseliani, Fellow by Special Election in Comparative and International Education has launched Global Public Seminars in Comparative and International Education. These are jointly organised by Comparative and International Education Research Group (https://bit.ly/3A4xcM5 ) at the Department of Education and St Edmund Hall. The seminars have attracted a lot of attention from educational researchers and practitioners from all around the world, as well as Teddy Hall alumni interested in education. Recordings of the seminars are available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/ UC1FekBTG8XDi_k4ky6U2X-Q Online events like these seminars have made it possible to engage with those communities of academics and practitioners who would have been

unlikely to physically attend such events at Oxford. In fact, Maia’s recent edited volume Higher Education and the Sustainable Development Goals focuses exactly on this topic – how higher education can contribute to sustainable development globally. Many universities are strongly committed to sustainable development but encounter an increasingly compressed space in which to contribute to it. While the pandemic has been exacerbating these constraints, it can also offer a unique opportunity to reimagine higher education as a common good. The understanding of higher education as a common good carries the promise of reinforcing the humanistic vision of higher education that is collectively produced and shared and that contributes to just, equitable, and sustainable development. Read more about Higher Education and the Sustainable Development Goals on the publisher’s website: https://link.springer. com/journal/10734/volumes-andissues/81-1

Building on his longstanding interest in financial decisionmaking, over the past year Professor Gordon Clark, Fellow by Special Election, has continued his research on cross-country patterns of risk aversion and precautionary behaviour in relation to the impact of automation on employment with colleagues through the OxfordZurich Insurance research programme. This has resulted in a number of reports, working papers and presentations that have claimed international attention. Recent publications have included a paper on the role of competence in financial decision-making, the performance of the UK’s Pensions Regulator, and the role of technology in the organisation and performance of financial institutions. He continues as the Chair of the IP Group’s Ethics and ESG committee, is a board member and/or Advisor to a number of FinTech start-ups in the UK and the USA, and is an employer-nominated representative on the Oxford Staff Pension Plan.

Emeritus Fellow Dr Peter Collins will satisfy the curiosity of Hall mathematicians as to his retirement activities by an enquiry he placed with the NHS about the Pandemic rules, an answer to which would have been aided by an understanding of the difference between ‘sufficient’ and ‘necessary and sufficient’. He was referred to the World Health Organisation in Geneva and, ten months on, is still awaiting a response. Other enquiries during the last year failing to gain adequate response include an ongoing discussion, on behalf of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, with Minister for Housing Robert Jenrick on matters relating to the forthcoming Planning Bill in which democracy and the involvement of local people appear to be at a premium. Having just completed his maximum nine years as a Trustee of CPRE’s Oxfordshire Branch, he has been kicked upstairs from the Chair into a Vice-Presidency, with an expectation that he will continue dealing with national matters on the Branch’s behalf. Otherwise, he has a new career, recently appointed by the County Council as a ‘Super User’. If the reduction in the number of pot-holes in the roads of the village of Letcombe Regis is achieved by his application of Council-provided white spray paint whilst wearing a vizjacket plus private access to his boss via FixMyStreet, that will be a measure of success.

Otherwise it cannot be otherwise than mathematics, music, Europa Nostra and attempts at cooking that keep the silences of isolation at bay. Kevin Crossley-Holland, Honorary Fellow, published Gravity for Beginners, his first volume of poems for six years, and a collection of Norse Tales illustrated by Jeffrey Alan Love. He has been appointed an ambassador for the Almshouse Association, and has written a commissioned poem for their 75th birthday celebrations. Kevin’s cantata The Girl from Aleppo and anthem As Each Leaf Dances (written at the invitation of Barnardo’s), both composed by Cecilia McDowall, have been performed and broadcast by the BBC Singers, while The Sixteen have recorded Bob Chilcott’s setting of his carol, ‘Pilgrim Jesus’. But confined to north Norfolk, where he celebrated his 80th birthday, he will remember the past year above all for the loss of several old friends and the making of a new wildlife pond. Honorary Fellow Sir John Daniel continues in his role as Chancellor of the Acsenda School of Management in Vancouver. His recent publications have focussed on the impact of Covid-19 on education and universities and include: • Daniel, J. S. (2020) Education and the COVID-19 pandemic. Prospects 49, 91–96 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11125-020-09464-3 • Daniel, J. S. (2021) After COVID-19: Can Quality Teaching be Sustained? Change:

The Magazine of Higher Learning, 53:2, 6-10. https://doi.org/10.1080/000913 83.2021.1883970 • Daniel, J.S. (2021). La formation à distance: dix principes inspirés par son histoire. Médiations et Médiatisations, (6), 78-84. https://doi.org/10.52358/ mm.vi6.195

From Honorary Fellow Dr Andrew Graham: “I feel guilty saying so, but, for me, 2020-21 has proved a most satisfying period. 4th May 2021 marked twenty years since I founded the Oxford Internet Institute. My account of the OII’s creation can be found here: https://bit.ly/2Vrj9Bw. 2020 also marks my move from Executive Chair of the Europaeum to being a Trustee. Behind this sentence lies four years of work; and, if you will forgive the trumpet-blowing, a staggeringly successful four years. The Europaeum is a student-focused network of leading European universities founded by Oxford in 1992. It is a brilliant idea, but, by 2016, despite many outstanding events, it was faltering. I therefore proposed creating 30 Europaeum Scholarships in which students, alongside their doctorates, would work in four multidisciplinary teams on their ideas of how “to make Europe a better place”. I designed the course, persuaded the Trustees and the member universities, found the money, created an admissions process, and the first cohort started in January 2018. It has been so successful that the Europeaum has grown from ten full members in 2016 to eighteen now. Much remains to be done, but I am very pleased to have contributed my bit to fight the idiocy of Brexit.” The Revd Dr Zachary Guiliano, Career Development and Research Fellow and College Chaplain, started a project on the

Venerable Bede’s commentary on Luke, with particular attention to its statements on poverty and the management of wealth. His book, The Homiliary of Paul the Deacon: Religious and Cultural Reform in Carolingian Europe, was published by Brepols in July. Meanwhile, he’s written three contributions this year for edited collections and a journal: on Bede’s understanding of knowledge, on the moral legacy of church property, and on theological models for sustainable living. Zack gave papers at the International Medieval Congress and at a conference on anti-racism at the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture and was invited to lecture on scriptural transmission in the Early Middle Ages at the Logos workshop run by SCIO and the Museum of the Bible. With Professor Henrike Lähnemann and several others, he helped lead the ‘Singing Together — Apart’ workshops on medieval manuscripts and Gregorian chant, sponsored by the Polonsky Foundation. He wrote three short pieces on church fundraising, on the problems of saints’ lives, and on clerical attire for The Living Church magazine. Details on Chapel life may be found in the Chaplain’s Report on pp.35-36.

No man or woman stops for Covid, at least not in Oxford. Teaching continued apace and Andrew Kahn, Professor and Vladimir Potanin Tutorial Fellow of Russian Literature and Modern Languages, is full of gratitude to the undergraduates who, deprived of many forms of freedom and extra-curricular enjoyment, regularly and uncomplainingly produced excellent work. It was also great to have a chance to organise the Fellowship Lunchtime Lectures, as convened by the Principal, and to hear what other colleagues were working on. Andrew also continued to produce work, publishing last summer Mandelstam’s Worlds (Oxford University Press, 2020), a poet to whom all bow down (as the Edinburgh academic and translator Peter France put it). With Irina Reyfman, a long-term collaborator and friend at Columbia, Andrew saw into print a translation of Journey from Petersburg to Moscow by Alexander Radishchev, after a fashion Russia’s Tom Paine. Radishchev’s nemesis was the formidable empress Catherine the Great, also the subject of an ongoing project as Andrew was awarded a substantial grant to continue work on his pilot database of her correspondence. With the help of a co-PI, five research assistants and a digital consultant, CatCor is coming along and should be launched by the end of the year. He was invited by Times Breakfast Radio to talk about the coup that put her on the throne on 28 June 1762 — a lightning 10 minutes hosted by Stig Abell between the football scores. Trips to Russia were deferred till a better day. Having polished off a couple of articles and a short book, he is hoping to have a rest. Re-reading Oblomov would be a good start!

us of her year: “My report seamlessly follows on from last year’s: it was dominated by the challenges and – luckily not too infrequent – joys of conducting research, teaching, and socialising online. In terms of research, it proved fortuitous that for the edition of the letters of the nuns of Lüne we had

The irrepressible Professor Henrike Lähnemann, Professor of German Medieval and Linguistic Studies and Professorial Fellow, tells

conceived the edition as an open access online resource from the start and had also consistently collaborated across

Britain and Germany in digital format. We managed therefore to finish the first volume (450 of the 1800 letters) in time for the dreaded Research Exercise census date, and in June I was able to talk about the parallels of convent and College illustrated through letters at the Fellowship Lunchtime Lecture Series Seminar (available on YouTube: https:// youtu.be/RjgjYtuIJ1s). In terms of teaching, surprisingly enough the seminar most closely linked to objects and the materiality of text developed in the most creative way: History of the Book. Thanks to some phenomenal colleagues in the Taylor Institution Library and the Bodleian Libraries, we were able to discuss palaeography and codicology ‘live’ via camera into the library, allowing us also to invite experts from around the world to special sessions. This produced a new format, the ‘Digital Editions Live’ https://historyofthebook.mml.ox.ac.uk/ digital-editions-live/ where we combined show-and-tell sessions of manuscripts and launching the projects the students had been working on. Finally on the social life online: we were really lucky in the Hall for music making to be in the safe hands of James Whitbourn who found ingenious ways of keeping the singers motivated and Evensong viable throughout the year. For me personally, singing in the Crypt became one of the favourite lockdown activities; it proved attractive to viewers. This even made it into the film commissioned by the Bodleian Library to celebrate the finishing of the 3-year-collaboration with the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel in a short documentary about the journey of manuscripts to digitisation which ended with me and a couple of our Chapel Choir members singing from the digitised manuscripts – and if you watch at minute 8:10 on https://youtu. be/5Gva8JJ8VSQ?t=490 you will even be able to spot a cameo appearance of another Fellow and his wife, zooming in from Germany. While I am looking forward to be able to do most of my teaching and research in person, in the library, in conversation, I hope we will be able to maintain something of the network of solidarity and mutual support built up during the last year.”

This year Dr Alex Lloyd, Fellow by Special Election in German, continued to hold a Knowledge Exchange Fellowship at The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), working in partnership with the White Rose Foundation in Munich. She gave a series of talks on the German resistance throughout the year, including at the Being Human Festival of the Humanities. In November 2020 she received a Public Engagement with Research Seed Fund Award to develop a podcast series on the White Rose with the award-winning vocal ensemble SANSARA, and in May she co-organised a colloquium on the textual and cultural references in the White Rose resistance pamphlets. A publication of the proceedings is in preparation. She also completed work on a new book, scheduled for publication in February 2022: Defying Hitler: The White Rose Pamphlets. This year she has also written for The Conversation website and Metal Hammer magazine. David Manolopoulos, Professor of Theoretical Chemistry and Tutor in Chemistry, has been on sabbatical throughout this academic year. He was due to go to New England in the Fall of 2020 to give seminars at Rochester and Cornell, followed by a road trip up

to Maine with his wife Clare, and then to Berkeley in the spring to enjoy San Francisco and start some new research projects. But sadly, the pandemic has put paid to these plans. Instead, he has spent the year giving talks in some of the most beautiful places in the world (including Lausanne in Switzerland and Telluride in Colorado) from the solitude of his back bedroom in Kidlington. Honorary Fellow Bishop Michael Nazir Alli writes: “As with everyone, my activities have been somewhat circumscribed by the periodic lockdowns but, looking back, it is amazing how much has been possible. Along with a Fellow from All Souls, I have been able to organise a very successful series of lectures at All Souls on the relationship between Eastern Christianity and Sufism (or Islamic Mysticism) during the Michaelmas and Hilary terms. These are set to continue in the next academic year. Concurrently with these, I have also been doing a series of lectures at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies on the missionary history of Ecclesia Anglicana, that is of the English Church before and after the Reformation. There has also been time to write both ‘academic’ and popular articles in a number of journals, periodicals and newspapers on freedom of speech and belief, religious extremism and the importance of the spiritual in the midst of the pandemic”. Professor Paul Skokowski, Fellow by Special Election in Philosophy, has three articles in books published this year, covering philosophical aspects of quantum mechanics, robot cowboys and the idea of the brain as a purely physical object. Quantum mechanics predicts that certain experimental outcomes are superpositions of different states. However, in our world we never directly observe superpositions, because whenever we try to, the system “collapses” to just one of the possible states. This paper considers what it would be like to observe superpositions in a universe where there are no collapses – otherwise known as an ‘Everettian’ universe. What would the observer then believe that she saw? Paul’s paper ‘Observing a Superposition’ (in Synthese, 2021) answers that question. We happily watch fantastic creatures like intelligent androids and ‘undead’ zombies in television and Hollywood shows. But if such creatures really existed, what would they experience, if anything? ‘The Philosophy of Westworld’, in Vernallis, C., Kara, S., Leal, J., and Rogers, H. (eds.), Cybermedia: New Approaches to Sound, Music and Media (Bloomsbury, 2021) looks into the details (and minds) of such creatures. Three classic and powerful arguments against the notion that the mind is a purely physical thing have been given by Thomas Nagel, Saul Kripke, and Frank Jackson, and have always been assumed to apply to all forms of physicalism. Three Dogmas of Internalism, in Information and Mind, (Stanford, CA: CSLI Press, 2020) shows that this assumption is false, and that a type of physicalism – externalism – escapes these arguments altogether.

Dr Linda Yueh, Fellow by Special Election in Economics, was appointed to two UK government bodies. She became Adviser to the Board of Trade, a body that has existed in various forms for nearly 400 years,

whose President is the Secretary of State for International Trade. She was also appointed by HM Treasury to the Independent Review Panel on RingFencing and Proprietary Trading. The six member panel has been conducting a review into proprietary trading and the UK’s ring-fencing regime that was put into place following the recommendations of the Independent Commission on Banking that was chaired by Sir John Vickers, Warden of All Souls College. The third edition of the Oxford Handbook of Medical Sciences, edited by Robert Wilkins, Senior Tutor and American Fellow and Tutor in Physiology, Ian Megson and David Meredith was published in July 2021.

Arrivals in the Senior Common Room

Dr Tom Crawford was elected Early Career Teaching and Outreach Fellow in Mathematics where he will combine his outreach work through ‘Tom Rocks Maths’ with undergraduate teaching. Tom’s videos on YouTube have been viewed over 10 million times and he regularly attends schools and events where he presents maths as the exciting, engaging and entertaining subject that it can be! Tom studied at Oxford for his undergraduate degree before switching to Cambridge for his PhD, where he studied the spread of pollution in the ocean. For the latest updates be sure to follow Tom on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram @tomrocksmaths. Tom’s account of a year spent online can be found on pp. 126-127.

In October 2020, the Revd Dr Zachary Guiliano arrived as Career Development and Research Fellow in Early Medieval History and College Chaplain. Zack completed his BA in Biblical Studies at Evangel University, his MDiv in Theology at Harvard, and his PhD in History at Cambridge, where he was a Gates Cambridge Scholar. His ordination training took place at Westcott House, and he was ordained in the Diocese of Ely, serving a curacy at St Bene’t’s Church, Cambridge, and later as Assistant Chaplain at Jesus College, Cambridge. A former journalist, Zack is the author of popular and scholarly articles, essays, and reviews, and is the co-editor of two volumes in the series Studies in Episcopal and Anglican Theology. His academic research focuses on the history of biblical interpretation, prayer, and preaching. He looks in particular at sources that were read widely in the Middle Ages but are rarely discussed today, such as commentaries and sermon collections.

Dr Ruggero Sciuto, Junior Research Fellow in Modern Languages and previously a Junior Research Fellow at the Voltaire Foundation and Wolfson College, joined the Hall in September 2020. He is the director of Digital d’Holbach, an international project aiming to create a critical edition of the complete works of French philosophe Paul Thiry d’Holbach, and he has just submitted to the Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment a

book manuscript on eighteenth-century French theories of determinism (Diderot and d’Holbach: A Theory of Determinism). Ruggero is a collaborator on both the Oxford edition of the Complete Works of Voltaire and the Edizione Nazionale del Carteggio di Lodovico Antonio Muratori, and he is beginning to work on a second book to understand how d’Holbach’s authorial strategies affected the reception of his ideas at the time of the French Revolution. He has a strong secondary interest in diplomatic history, and his work on Franco-Italian diplomatic and cultural relations has appeared in premier journals, including the Revue d’Histoire Littéraire de la France and Archivio Storico Italiano. With Dr Tracey Sowerby, he directs the TORCH Network on Diplomacy in the Early Modern Period, and with Dr Florian Kühnel he is currently editing a special issue of the International History Review on ‘Gender and Everyday Diplomacy (1500-1800)’. Professor Yuri Slezkine was elected a Senior Research Fellow in May 2020. He is a scholar of Russian and world history, Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Slezkine was born and raised in Moscow, USSR, and worked as a Portuguese interpreter in Mozambique and English instructor in Portugal before moving to Austin, Texas to study Russian history. He has taught at Wake Forest University and, for 27 years, at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been a fellow at the Hoover Institution, the International Institute at the University of Michigan, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. He has served as Distinguished Visiting Professor at Vassar College, Honorary Professor at the University of Nottingham, Visiting Professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, and Sciences Po and EHESS in Paris.

Dr James Whitbourn arrived as Director of Music at the Hall in April 2020. He was elected to a Fellowship by Special Election in July 2021. Dr James Whitbourn is an internationally renowned composer and an awardwinning conductor. Recognised by The Observer as ‘a truly original communicator in modern British choral music’, his career in music began in the BBC, for whom he has worked as composer, conductor, producer and presenter. With four Grammy nominations to his name, among many other international awards, his compositions are admired for their ability to ‘expand the experience of classical music beyond the edges of the traditional map of classical styles’ (NPR). A graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford, he held a Senior Research Fellowship at St Stephen’s House before joining the Hall in 2020. James Whitbourn is exclusively published by Oxford University Press, having previously held a long-term publishing agreement with Chester Music from 2001 to 2019. Across all genres, he has more than ninety published compositions. Among other research interests, he leads the ‘Music Egypt’ project supported by TORCH, holding a Knowledge Exchange Fellowship from 2019-2021. His works have been performed in many prestigious venues, and there are six complete discs of

his choral music, alongside representation on many compilation albums. James’ account of producing the BBC Radio broadcast of the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh can be found on pp. 120-122. SCR obituaries can be in found in Section 10.

From the Domestic Bursar

The team, as ever, have worked hard over the year to deliver an excellent service to the College. Even though many of the staff have been on flexi-furlough, there has been a core of staff who have worked through this period keeping us safe and progressing the improvements to the College that we all want to see happen. Many staff groups have risen to the challenge of caring for, cleaning for and feeding our students, even when we have had periods of Covid infection and isolation, for which we are all very thankful. As the Covid waves have come and gone, restrictions tightened and relaxed and student numbers have cycled, our staff have proven themselves to be dedicated to the College and extremely flexible in rising to the challenge of keeping the College open and functioning.

Projects

The refurbishment of 49 – 56 High Street (Besse Building) is nearing completion with handover of the building, now six large apartments, due in mid-September. We have made significant efforts to improve the sustainable credentials of the building including installing double glazing to the rear, a heat recovery from waste water system and significantly increasing the amounts of insulation in the building. All asbestos has now been stripped from the building, fire separation is much improved and, thanks to many of you, we have a new roof too. A much needed staffroom has now been opened one of our vacant High Street shop units. The window onto the High Street has a display created by our Librarian, James Howarth. We are continuing with our ambitious programme of works to raise up the general standard of our accommodation and the Estate as whole. The upgrading of electrical infrastructure in the College will enable us to work around the College upgrading wiring in individual buildings. The Forum Garden outside the Wolfson Hall is undergoing a major renovation and will be completed in the autumn. We ran an architectural competition early this year to select an architect to develop extra accommodation for undergraduate students at Norham Gardens. Wright and Wright are the chosen architects. They have extensive experience in Oxford Colleges and with delivering highly sustainable buildings (more about the project in a separate article on pages 142-145). This project will not deliver all of the 110 bedroom shortfall, so we are also running a pre-application to see if it would be possible to build the remaining needed

bedrooms at the Tamesis Guest House site on the Iffley Road. Events

Sadly, with Covid restrictions still in place and limited international travel restricted, we have not been able to hold any conferences during Easter and the summer activity is a shadow of its former self, nor have we been able to host commercial dinners, nor have any B&B guests. This activity usually brings in vital additional funding to maintain the College and its loss for a second year will be sorely felt. Our People

During the course of the year, a number of staff have left us including Christine Beesley who retired after 18 years of dedicated service as Senior Common Room Assistant and Magdalena Ostalecka who left after 15 years as a Scout at Norham Gardens. Others who left included: • Luke Bradshaw (Registrar) • Sally Brooks (Head of Development & Alumni Relations) • Andrew Frampton (Graduate Trainee Library Assistant) • Lizzie Fry (Access & Outreach

Coordinator) • Richard Huggins (Manager for Outside

Properties) • Sandeep Kaur (Scout) • Dorota Maciejowska (Scout) • Pilar Mardones (Scout) • John Morrison (Lodge Porter) • Sophie Quantrell (Assistant Librarian) • Emma Steane (Governanace and Projects Assistant) The College is grateful for their contribution whilst they were here. We welcome a number of new staff: • Abhimanyu Arni (William Miller Sub-Dean) • Sarah Bridge (Regular Giving Manager) • Elinor Buys (Sub-Dean NSE) • Elaine Evers (Principal’s Executive Assistant) • Simon Hogarth (Warden [Tamesis and WRM]) • Gerry McGrath (General Maintenance Assistant) • Sophia McMinn (Deputy Accountant) • Eve McMullen (Access & Outreach

Coordinator) • Katie Mellor (Sub-Dean Tamesis) • Shannon Russell (Assistant Junior Dean) • Sharon Stansfield (Purchase Ledger Assistant) • Chloe Knight (Scout)

We hope they will all find the College a happy, exciting and inclusive environment in which to work. After being apart for much of the year, we were able to gather for a staff barbecue in early September and celebrate the long service of the following : • Elaine Kavanagh (Housekeeping Supervisor) – 1 April 1985 – 36 years, 5 months • Cliff Dandridge (Sous Chef) – 6 November 1989 – 31 years, 9 months • Nada Milkovic (Deputy Hall Butler)– 26 April 1995 – 26 years, 4 months • James Ronaldson (Boatman) – 1 September 1995 – 26 years • Paul Solesbury (Scout) – 27 September 1999 – 21 years, 11 months

• Susan Kasper (Gardener) – 29 March 2000 – 21 years, 5 months • Penny Alden (Academic Assistant) – 5 June, 2000 – 21 years, 2 months This year has been very challenging for staff facing repeated lockdowns with varying restrictions. The safety of staff and students alike has been paramount for us, but we have tried to facilitate as much activity as was possible to enable some form of collegiate life to continue. I hope that all staff can recharge over the summer to be ready for whatever the pandemic does next. I would like to thank all our staff for their hard work and dedication without whom the College would not be such a happy and supportive place to work for both staff and students. Dr Charlotte Sweeney, Domestic Bursar

From the Finance Bursar

It will come as no surprise to you that the finances of the Hall have continued to be severely impacted due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The timing of the Magazine’s publication means that the 2020/21 accounts are still three months away from being completed, however, we anticipate that they will show a deficit on normal operations. The new 2020/21 academic year started with the return of the students to the Hall, but unfortunately in Hilary term 2021, due to the third lockdown, the undergraduates were not permitted to return. The Hall has continued to experience cancelled Easter and summer conferences in 2021, but it is pleasing to note that our Conference Manager is now taking bookings and requests for 2022 and we are hopeful that the Hall’s activity will eventually return to normal. Overall, the income of the College has fallen by nearly £2.5m since March 2020. To assist the Hall in mitigating some of the lost income, we furloughed many of the catering and accommodation staff whilst continuing to pay them 100% of their salary, to ensure that they were not detrimentally affected by this process. I am grateful to all department heads who have remained cost conscious over the past twelve months, in a time when we were never quite sure when normality would return and therefore cost control was crucial. Each year the Hall makes an application to the University’s College Contributions Committee (CCC), which distributes income grants to the less wealthy colleges, financed by wealthier colleges. As an exception for 2021 and 2022, there is an emergency Covid scheme whose aim is to enable colleges who suffered financially from the Covid pandemic to achieve a sustainable budget in the financial year 2020/21. I am delighted to confirm that the Hall has been awarded £1m. Due to the impact from the pandemic, the Hall’s endowment funds fell to £62.8m at 31 July 2020, down from £65.1m at 31 July 2019. The final valuation of the endowment funds at 31 July 2021 are

not yet finalised, but pleasingly, the initial indications show that the endowment funds will have increased in value to around £72m, after taking into account the transfer to income of £2.3m under the Hall’s agreed spend rule. The 2020/21 accounts will be published towards the end of the calendar year, when a more detailed analysis will be shown. The Investment Sub-Committee has, again, been particularly active and I am grateful to the members of the committee, especially the external members, for their support. I would like to extend my thanks to Rupert Ruvigny (1977, PPE) and Steve Edwards (1976, Physics), who have supported the Investment Committee for a number of years and have now passed on the baton to two new members. Rathbone Greenbank was appointed as our new investment manager towards the end of 2019/20, managing 40% of the Hall’s investment portfolio, with the balance being held within the Oxford Endowment Fund (OEF). The Hall’s investment policy can be found on our website, with the key aim to manage and invest the entire portfolio in holdings that meet strict environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria. During the year, Rathbone transitioned the Hall’s portfolio from the historic funds previously held into new assets that meet these strict criteria. I am pleased to report that notwithstanding the ups and downs of the financial markets, the loan facility is still paying dividends and has retained its value considerably above the initial £20m investment. The College needs to invest in its Estates, particularly the upgrading of its older buildings, and the surplus on the loan is now being used to serve this purpose and this year it has been put towards the Besse refurbishment. I am delighted to confirm that the Besse project is near completion and will be ready for students in Michaelmas term with fabulous newly refurbished rooms, most of which are now ensuite, and asbestos removal, re-wiring and a new roof adding to the complexity of the project. We are very grateful to those Aularians who answered the call for donations to help fund the roof, once we identified that it needed replacing in its entirety, thus adding a significant additional cost to this project. There will be a campaign launch in March 2022 which will be focused on raising funds to meet the aims prioritised within our ten-year strategy. This includes our aim to fully endow our tutorial fellowships, increase our endowment for student support and will also include raising funds for the new student accommodation at Norham Gardens built to Passivhaus standards. Housing all our undergraduate students remains a priority, and the project at 17 Norham Gardens is now underway, more details of which can be found in this Magazine. Support from our alumni in the form of gifts and legacies are extremely important to the success of this project and your enthusiasm in driving us forward to meet these challenges is equally important. Finally, my thanks go to Stephanie Hanks, our College Accountant, who has continued to improve the state of the finances and significantly improve the financial processes and procedures within the Finance Department and across the Hall. Last summer we welcomed Sophia McMinn and Sharon Stansfield into the team, who have settled in very well, despite joining when they have had to work much of the time from home! I would also like to thank Sumathy Melville and Casey Charlesworth who have remained calm and helpful throughout the year in what has been quite a challenging time. Eleanor Burnett, Finance Bursar

From the Librarian & the Library Fellow

The beginning of September 2020 found the Librarians preparing to re-open the Library to readers after six months of closure. Social distancing measures were put in place: more than a third of the Library’s space had been taped off, masks were compulsory and returned books were to be quarantined for two days or more. Signs everywhere reminded to students to sanitise their hands and clean desks before and after use. The Library showed a very different face to our normal sunny welcome. Nonetheless, we were determined that once the Library reopened, it would be as open as it humanly could be and would not close as long as there were Teddy Hall students in Oxford and services we could offer those students stuck at home. Unlike many other colleges, the Teddy Hall Library remained open 24 hours a day, seven days a week all year. We had no booking systems in place, but maintained free access at any time. In fact, the only day the Library was closed was Christmas Day. In terms of the number of seats available to our students, we became the second largest college library in Oxford. We also offered many other services to students. We posted books, new and old, to students at home in the UK, but also to the US, Turkey, China and Germany. We took books to the doors of students in isolation in Queen’s Lane, in Norham Gardens and in private accommodation throughout Oxford. We delivered books three times a day to pigeonholes for students to collect. We offered advice and support at all hours of the day to help students access the vast cornucopia of electronic resources the University now offers. One popular initiative was the offer of a ‘Blind Date with a Book’ – readers could contact us and request either a fiction or a non-fiction book from the collection, along with a brief outline of their tastes, and we would supply them with a book for recreational reading.

Inevitably, but unfortunately, our ongoing attempts to open up the Old Library to a wider audience have had to pause. However in Trinity term, for the first time in almost a century, we were able to offer the College’s original 17th-century Library as a study space to help compensate for the spaces closed in the main Library. We have also been able to continue to explore and celebrate the treasures of the collection via the Hall blog. The Librarian has identified a previously unidentified and uncatalogued copy of Wenceslaus Hollar’s ‘Quartermaster’s Map’ bound with a copy of John Speed’s A prospect of the most famovs parts of the world (shelfmark CC32). The work, first published in 1644, consists of six folio sheet maps covering England, Wales and southern Scotland. Our copy is incomplete, missing the title page and one of the sheets. However, it does have considerable handwritten annotation and illustration (dating c.1709) on both sides of the sheets. The volume was part of the large bequest of John Berriman in 1765 and the hand of the annotations looks very similar to that in the densely annotated copies of the Koran (shelfmark CC25) and The history of the Saracens (shelfmark 695) from the same donation. Donations to the Library

As ever, we are hugely grateful to everyone who has donated their own works as well as other books to the Libraries. This year, we have received more than 200 books from Aularians, Fellows, current students and other benefactors. In the Aularian collection, this included poetry by Kevin Crossley-Holland (Honorary Fellow), Jim Dening (1958, Modern Languages) and Peter Malin (1970, English Language & Literature). Welcome donations to the working collection came from John Madgwick (1983, English Language & Literature), John Morrison (Porter) and Christopher Gin (2015, Jurisprudence) amongst others. Stephen Leonard (1978, Mathematics) and his wife Luxue Yu have generously continued their multi-year donation for the purchase of the complete 16 volume Cambridge History of China, and the 6 volume Cambridge History of Japan, as well as the purchase of other material relating to the study of East Asia.

This year, for the first time, the Library took part in the Bodleian Library Graduate Trainee Scheme. The initiative allows a recent graduate to work for the Library for a year while also receiving regular training from the Bodleian. The scheme is intended to provide the necessary professional experience to enable the trainees to go on to complete a Masters course in Librarianship. Dr Andrew Frampton, our inaugural recruit, faced an unusual year with all the difficulties of the pandemic, but he rose to the challenge magnificently. Andrew will be attending UCL in the coming year working on a MA in Library and Information Studies. In August we said goodbye to Sophie Quantrell, our much-loved Assistant Librarian. Sophie, who joined the Library in 2018, has gone to work as a Ministry Assistant at Grace Church in Cowley and will be much missed. The Library team will however be reinforced and refreshed in the coming academic year when Emma Carter, who has previously worked at the Garrick Club and at Trinity College Cambridge, joins us as Assistant Librarian and Heather Barr becomes our new one-year trainee. In June we received the sad news that former Librarian Sasha Wernberg-Møller had passed away. Sasha was Librarian at the Hall for 18 years from 1972-1990 and we offer our condolences to her family. As we noted last issue, the academic year 2020-21 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the parish church of St Peter-in-theEast becoming the Hall’s Library. Alas, almost all our plans for celebration were stymied. Still, we were able to renew a tradition dating back to our first occupancy of the church and celebrate the feast of St Peter on 29 June in the wonderful AngloNorman crypt alongside worshippers from the University Church with which the historic parish of St Peter’s is now united. However, we feel the greatest and most fitting celebration of 50 years of our new Library has been the effort we have made to keep it open at the heart of the Hall’s life this year and our endeavours to support all our students’ studies. James Howarth, Librarian Karma Nabulsi, Library Fellow An obituary for Sasha Wernberg- Møller can be found on p.170.

Donations 2020-21

Over the year the Library was the beneficiary of many gifts for the Aularian and Fellows Collections, which are listed below.

BISHOP, Carrie (donor) (daughter of BISHOP, Robert Anthony) Bishop, Robert Anthony Memoirs of the Navy in the Second World War: Arctic Convoys and Coastal Forces in the Eastern Mediterranean Inkly Little Fingers, 2021 BRIGGS, Adrian Civil Jurisdiction and Judgements (7th edition) Informa Law from Routledge, 2021 BROADBRIDGE, David Christensen, Inger (translated by Broadbridge, David) Butterfly Valley David Broadbridge, 2021 CONWAY-GORDON, Giles Shamanomics: A Short Guide to the Failure, Fallacies and Future of Macroeconomics Outskirts Press, 2021 CRANMER, Gordon Southern Exposure Five Seasons Press, 2021 CROSSLEY-HOLLAND, Kevin With Love, Jeffrey Allan (Illustrator) Norse Tales: Stories from Across the Rainbow Bridge Walker Studio, 2020 Gravity for Beginners Arc, 2021 DAVIES, Linda 10 things Everyone Needs to Know About Money Atebol, 2021 DENING, Jim With watercolours by Starling, John Landscape: Word and Image Arcade, 2021 DICKINSON, Andrew and Peel, Edwin (eds.) A Conflict of Laws Companion: Essays in Honour of Adrian Briggs OUP, 2021 FOX, Jeremy Conquest Matador, 2021 GORDON, Keith Schedule 36 Notices: HMRC Information Requests Claritax Books, 2021 Residence: The Definition in Practice Claritax Books, 2021 GULL, Keith (donor)

PATTEN, Chris First Confession, a Sort of Memoir Allen Lane, 2017 KHURSHID, Salman At Home in India: The Muslim Saga Hay House India, 2015 Bansal, Schweta (with contributions by KHURSHID, Salman) Courting Politics EBC, 2017 BRASIER, Martin Secret Chambers: the Inside story of Cells & Complex Life OUP, 2012 HIBBENS, Joy The Suicide Prevention Pocket Guide Book Welbeck Balance, 2021

HOLMES, J. Paul Versuch einer Wahrheitmetaphysik Literareon, 2021 KNIGHT, John ‘A Tale of Two Countries and Two Stages: South Africa, China and the Lewis Model’ in South African Journal of Economics Vol 89, no 2 Economic Society of South Africa, 2021 Knight, John; Shi, Li and Chang, Yuan ‘Minorities in Rural China: Poorer but inherently happier?’ in: Gustafsson, B. Hasmath, R. and Ding, S. ed. Ethnicity and Inequality in China Routledge, 2021 Knight, John; Ding, Sai; Guaraiglia, Allessandra and Yang, Junhing ‘Negative Investment in China: Financing Constraints and Restructuring Versus Growth’ in Economic Development and Cultural Change Vol 69, no 4 University of Calgary, 2021 LAUGHTON, Tony Lord Brackley’s Cricket Tour to the West Indies 1905 Boundary Books, 2020 LEAVER, Keith Microelectronic Devices 2nd ed. Imperial College Press, 1997 Leaver, Keith; Anderson, J.C.; Leevers, P. and Rawlings, R.D. Materials Science for Engineers 5th ed. Nelson Thornes, 1990 MALIN, Peter Spirits of Place and Time Quaint Device, 2021 Revived with Care: John Fletcher’s Plays on the British stage, 1885-2020 Routledge, 2021 METTERS, G. Alan ‘Did Oliver Cromwell Sleep at Iringland Hall, Norfolk?’ in The Norfolk Archaeology Vol xlviii, Part III 2020 ROBERTSON, Ian Cameron ‘Some Archaeology on James Beattie’s The Minstrel (1771 and 1774)’ in Scottish Literary Review Vol 12 No 2 Autumn/Winter 2020 ROSE, Edward P.F. German Military Geology and the Fortification of the British Channel Islands during World War II Springer, 2020 Rose, Edward; Ehlen, J. and Lawrence, U.L. (eds.) Military Aspects of Geology: Fortication, Excavation and Terrain Evaluation Geological Society, 2019 Rose, Edward and Mather J.D. Military Aspects of Hydrology Geological Society, 2012 Rose, Edward and Nathanial, C. Paul Geology and Warfare Geological Society, 2000 Rose, Edward and Rosenbaum, M.S. The Tunnels of Gibraltar The Gibraltar Museum, 1991 Rose, Edward and Rosenbaum, M.S. A Field Guide to the Geology of Gibraltar The Gibraltar Museum, 1991 Rose, Edward and Rosenbaum, M.S. Royal Engineer Geologists and the Geology of Gibraltar The Gibraltar Museum, 1990 Rose, Edward; Willi, Dierk; Heyse, Irénée; Allersmeier, Christoph and Doyle, Peter (eds.) Militärhistorisch-kriegsgeologischer Reiseführer zum Wytschaete-Bogen (Messines Ridge) bei Ypern (Belgien) Geoinformationsdienst der Bundeswehr, 2015

Rose, Edward and Pareyn, Claude Geology of the D-Day Landings in Normandy, 1944 Geologists Association, 2003 SHINGLER, Giles Six CDs of Music and Video

SCOTT-PRESLAND, Peter A Gay Century Volume One: 1900-1962 Conrad Press 2021

SHIPTON, Alyn The Art of Jazz Imagine!, 2020 SKOKOWSKI, Paul Information and Mind: The Philosophy of Fred Dretske CSLI, 2020 TELLER, Neville Trump and the Holy Land 2016-2020: the Deal of the Century Matador, 2020 More Audio Drama: 10 more plays for radio and podcast Matador, 2021 TYTLER, Graeme ‘The Presentation of Mr Kenneth in Wuthering Heights’ in Bronte Studies Vol 43 No 2 pp.147-155 Routledge, 2018 ‘Physiognomy in The Professor’ in Bronte Studies Vol 44 No 4 pp.339-350 Routledge, 2019 ‘The Presentation of Two Housekeepers in Wuthering Heights’ in Bronte Studies Vol 45 No 3 pp.272-281 Rouledge, 2020 WINKLER, Emily, Fitzgerald, Liam and Small, Andrew Designing Norman Sicily Boydell Press, 2020 WINKLER, Emily and Fitzgerald, Liam The Normans in the Mediterranean Brepols, 2021

There were also many gifts of texts for the Undergraduate Library from Fellows, alumni, student members and others. This year particular mention must be made of the donations received from: John Madgwick, John Morrison and Danielle Parkinson. Gifts were also received from: Kristiana Dahl, Philippa Howarth and Christopher Gin. Thanks to everyone who has remembered the Library. We are grateful for the continued support we receive in this way.

From the Chaplain

Sunday’s Choral Evensong is normally a fixed point in a busy college diary. It was that and other things. Each week of Michaelmas was different — amid shifting guidelines, students or staff isolating, and the city coming in and out of tiers and lockdowns. The Choir adapted brilliantly. I was glad to have a core team to respond to every moment: our Director of Music, Dr James Whitbourn, our Chapel Fellow, Professor Jeff Tseng, and our Chapel Clerk, Timothy Powell. We had strong support from Aularians and the Principal and Fellows, with 55 to 100 people tuning in via Zoom each week, as we offered prayer and song in the best sort of Anglican tradition. There was a twist. With social distancing, Choir members were allocated separately to the Chapel, Crypt, and Old Dining Hall. James and I scurried around (with varying levels of dignity and in all weather) to lead, direct, sing, preach, or pray. December’s ‘Carols in the Quad’ offered the rare luxury of being in one place. I was keen to host events that lent a sense of normality, whether it was weekly walks, exhibitions of College treasures, or special services. A popular event was Ghost Stories held in early December, with about 20 in person and two dozen over Zoom. Professors Erica McAlpine and Henrike Lähnemann joined Dr Edmund Wareham and me in reciting some spooky poetry, short stories, and songs, capped off with a reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s famous plague tale, The Masque of the Red Death. Many thanks to Gareth Simpson for hosting! I’d love to make it an annual tradition. The winter lockdown made Hilary term quiet. Few students were around. Chapel services were austere, but marked by exemplary music-making and dedication from two Choral Scholars and our Organ Scholar, who were all in Oxford: Alexandra Burgar, Toby Whitehead, and Connor Wood. Dr Whitbourn arranged pieces that could be performed with three voices and chamber organ, while I was often singer, preacher, sound engineer, and video technician. Trinity was easier in comparison! It was a great gift to see students and colleagues in person, and eventually to gather the whole Choir in Chapel. We had a special Choral Eucharist for Corpus Christi, too, and May Morning saw Prof Lähnemman, Emma Steane, and I play from the tower of St Peter’s-inthe-East as a brass trio, to the delight of Aularians, visitors, and passers-by. We made greater use of the Chapel during the week for Evening Prayer (Monday to Thursday) and a Eucharist on Wednesdays. With our Chapel placed centrally at the heart of the Hall, prayer together can be a daily opportunity and discipline. It has been a solace in these difficult times. Alongside the usual pastoral support, I met with students to prepare them for confirmation and had more intensive

meetings with others who wanted to speak about vocational discernment. I have also been undertaking some reorganisation of the sacristy, cataloguing our historic Chapel vestments and liturgical vessels, as well as doing some small work to restore them for regular use. An architect came in July to inspect the Chapel, alongside the Quinquennial Review of St Peter’s-inthe-East, and we are eagerly awaiting the report. The Choir trip to Pontigny had to be postponed again, but we have in its place a Choir residential in Oxford, along with some singing at Douai Abbey at Upper Woolhampton near Thatcham. It will be an excellent chance to say good-bye again to our leavers, and welcome new singers and Organ Scholars in advance of another great year for Chapel and Choir at Teddy Hall. Revd Dr Zack Guiliano, Chaplain

From the Director of Music

To write a report on the music in St Edmund Hall during the year of a pandemic is to bring to the fore emotions, challenges and opportunities not experienced within living memory. Yet we look back proudly on the achievement of beauty through sound reached during the testing year of 2020-2021 and on the enrichment that music brought to a special community. In spite of the limitations, we can unequivocally say that music flourished in new and unexpected ways and that its true values became freshly defined and appreciated. In September 2020 members of the Choir of St Edmund Hall came excitedly to Oxford to make music again in our cherished spaces after a long period of remote participation. Knowing that singing may not be permitted, we brought in the international percussionist Joby Burgess for a refreshing and exhilarating day on the study of rhythm. In the event, we could migrate to a building that made quiet singing possible, and it was uplifting to hear the formulation of gentle choral sound again. The Hall took part in the university-wide auditions process for organ and choral scholars (online) and we made offers to several excellent candidates (all subsequently fulfilled). At the beginning of term, we welcomed American graduate student Connor Wood as Organ Scholar, a one-year appointment before our two newly-appointed undergraduate organ scholars take up their places in 2021. Michaelmas term saw innovative applications of technology allow three small choral groups (gathered in the Chapel, the Old Dining Hall and the Crypt) to participate jointly in a single live service distributed online. In her survey of Oxford chapel choirs during lockdown1, Isabelle Allan found St Edmund Hall to be the only college in Oxford to prioritise the live element of weekly Evensong as its chief guiding principle and, in whatever format was permitted, our weekly Sunday Evensong remained a live service throughout the year. It enabled continuance of the discipline and regularity of rehearsal and performance, and it gave singers the unexpected opportunity to combine within small vocal groups. It presented a steep learning curve to Choir members who were challenged with new repertoire, and they responded with extraordinary

commitment and skill. ‘Sunday Live’, as it became known, also included short instrumental or vocal concerts prior to Evensong and attracted a substantial online audience each week, including families and alumnae. Gabriele Brasaite (violin) and Gavin Bala (piano) were the first to take to the stage with an emotional performance of Rachmaninov’s Vocalese. The weeks that followed saw excellent contributions from pianists, singer-songwriters and other musicians in College. As students worked with the technology, the broadcasts became cleaner and slicker as the term progressed. Above all, the Hall was ringing with music again. The Advent Carol Service afforded the opportunity for the whole Choir to sing together for the first time in the same building – albeit just for a single piece. The calendar year rounded off with Carols in the Quad, complete with full Choir and a new wind ensemble drawn from the student body – clarinet, saxophones and horns. Carols in the Quad is always a popular event but perhaps it has never been treasured more than in the year when outside events were the only permitted events. The Front Quad twinkled and reverberated with beauty; mulled wine and mince pies reminded everyone of the days that would one day return. Singing lessons for Choral Scholars and Choral Exhibitioners proved one of the great success stories of the academic year. The Hall was delighted to welcome Julie Cooper, a soprano from the internationally-renowned ensemble ‘The Sixteen’ as a singing tutor alongside Jeremy Kenyon. Both teachers were willing to offer online tuition at times when in-person tuition was impossible. Their work, and the opportunity for these young singers to develop and discover their voices with professional guidance, brought immense benefits. In Hilary term, when most undergraduates were required to study away from College, Choral Evensong was sung live from the Chapel each week by two choral scholars, Alex Burgar and Toby Whitehead, together with the Chaplain, accompanied by the organ scholar. Again, these were broadcast live online. During this time, new repertoire was explored, suitable for the reduced forces, and new musical arrangements were tailor-made for the small ensemble. One week, the choral scholars sang Stanford’s setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in G with violin in a newly-arranged scoring. Other repertoire by Philip Moore and others was introduced in the course of the term. Meanwhile, the full Choir continued to meet online weekly for a series of lecturerehearsals, offering context and analysis to works which would be placed before them in person the following term. Trinity term saw the return of the fully residential student body. The Choir re-formed first into two locations – the Chapel and the ODH – and then, for the second half of the term, finally to a single location – the Chapel. Services remained solely as broadcast events until the final two weeks when a few people were allowed to form a small congregation. Members of the Choir were taught new repertoire by Arvo Pärt, James MacMillan, Henryk Górecki, Stanford and Byrd. Meanwhile, the St Edmund Hall Music Society launched its online Trinity term Music concert at the end of term, recorded in the Wolfson Hall, the ODH and the Chapel. Flora Hartz’s own song ‘Rise up against the crowd’ was one of several standout performances in a programme which also included music from vocalists Beth Scott, Alex Burgar, Hiu Suet

Shum and Zirui Zhou, pianists Courtney Stanage and Jake Elliott, and from Joe Ritchie (Guitar), Jasmin Kreutzer (Violin) and Wei Wei Liu (Cello) together with an appearance of the Hall’s lovely harpsichord played by the Organ Scholar. The Choir residential in September 2021 saw the capstone placed on our year of choral development. The residential included a trip to Douai Abbey, with its sumptuous acoustic. Back home in College, we had a display in the Old Library of facsimiles of sixteenth century manuscripts and printed sources, together with a small collection of items pertaining to Sir John Stainer, perhaps the Hall’s most distinguished musical alumnus. We learnt to sing from partbooks and we explored new repertoire. We welcomed incoming choral and organ scholars and worked towards a flourishing year ahead. 2020-2021 has also been one of preparation and planning, and several important improvements have been made to instruments and music facilities in College, especially in the organ loft and Music Room. Thanks are due to many members of College staff, including the Chaplain and Bursars, the accommodation and events teams, IT and communications colleagues and dining room staff for all they have done to nurture musicians in College and create an environment in which our work is valued and encouraged. Above all, though, thanks are due to the wonderful student body, who embraced the challenges and helped create beauty in the most challenging times. Dr James Whitbourn, Director of Music

From the Student Recruitment and Progression Manager

As Trinity term draws to a close and the schools begin to wrap up the summer term, I am afforded a moment to reflect on what has been another unique year in the Admissions Office. The academic year began with an ambitious project to produce a series of YouTube videos that covered the whole gamut of the Oxford application process. Using a green screen and studio lighting we were able to make the videos dynamic and engaging, as well as informative. These have garnered thousands of views on YouTube and we expect them to perform even better during the coming admissions round. We had hoped to be able to expand our green screen studio to deliver live virtual visits, but with school closures, lockdowns and a return to working from home, sadly this was not possible. Amongst the lockdowns and school closures we were, however, able to continue delivering some live sessions for schools, with Lizzie Fry engaging with over 500 students across 21 schools during the

narrow windows where schools were able to facilitate sessions. We have continued to work with the Brilliant Club, contributing to their online programme over the past few months, and ran the second Teddy Rocks Maths essay competition with our Early Career Teaching and Outreach Fellow, Dr Tom Crawford. With school interaction occupying less of our time than usual, we were able to place more focus on the development of the Oxford for East Midlands consortium, in partnership with Lincoln College and Magdalen College. After a period of extensive research and planning, we launched our flagship Oxford NextGen programme in March 2021. This sustained-contact programme works with students from targeted schools with high levels of disadvantage and underrepresentation at Oxford and follows these students from Year 10 through to Year 13. The programme has been designed to target students who are at a greater disadvantage than their peers and will offer a wide range of support from making informed choices at A-level, to introducing the teaching methods and independent study common at university through a research project. With multiple visits to Oxford, frequent opportunities to engage with current students and tutors, and a residential visit to Oxford and an application workshop in Year 13, we hope the programme will raise students’ aspirations, allow them to develop their study skills, and put them in as strong a place as possible to make an application to Oxford, should they choose to do so. During the 2020 Admissions Exercise it was hugely encouraging to see that direct applications to the Hall had increased once again to their highest level, and the proportion of offers made to students from state-educated backgrounds reached 67%, only two offers away from the University average. Despite an atypical admissions round with all interviews taking place remotely, the College is set to admit one its most diverse cohorts later this year. In July we said goodbye to our Access and Outreach Coordinator, Lizzie Fry, who will begin teacher training in the new academic year at a school in East Sussex. It has been fantastic having her as part of the outreach team over the last two years, and I am immensely grateful for the work she has done. Her work in the first six months of the 2019/20 year saw us engage with more students and schools than ever before, and her commitment to projects spanning outreach, equality and diversity have contributed a great deal to the College’s development in these areas. Later in the summer we will welcomed our new Access and Outreach Coordinator, Eve McMullen to the Admissions Office. Eve grew up in Nottinghamshire, attending a local comprehensive school and then studied History and Politics at Magdalen College before joining the Hall. As we expand our work in the East Midlands, it will be hugely valuable having a member of the team from the region, and I look forward to the insight and vision that Eve will bring to our work. With restrictions having eased over the last few months, we hope we are able to move towards a Michaelmas term closer to normal and look forward with much anticipation to hosting schools at the Hall once again. All being well, we hope to resume our outreach roadshow next academic year and are looking to develop further programmes such as taster days and residentials, to run alongside our dayto-day outreach programme and our work across the East Midlands. Luke Maw, Student Recruitment and Progression Manager

From the President of the MCR

Ben is a 3rd year DPhil student from Hampshire studying Nanotechnology and cancer treatment. This is his third year and last year on the MCR Committee, having previously served as Steward, where, alongside Hans Robin Solberg, he organised social events. This past academic year has been a rather different experience compared to my first two years at Teddy Hall. Indeed, it has probably been a more difficult experience than any other in the history of the MCR. Never has the College and the MCR faced such a challenge. I am proud to say the MCR has remained a home away from home for all our students and the Hall Spirit remains as strong as ever.

Freshers’ Week

The year started like never before: a big group of excited and enthusiastic Freshers arrived for a host of Covid friendly events organised over the course of three weeks and culminating with Freshers’ Week. Not only did we face the challenge of our biggest cohort of graduate Freshers (over 140) but we also had to run events in a way that conformed to government guidelines. Where this year other colleges completely shut down social events, we as an MCR continued to keep spirits up in these hard time through socially distant welfare events. Over the past years, the Teddy Hall MCR have gained a reputation amongst postgraduate communities in Oxford for being one of the most social, vibrant and welcoming. I am very pleased to report that we are continuing on that path with maximum attendance at all events we ran for new students. We successfully ran dozens of welcome events, including over 140 Freshers attending the traditional welcome dinner in two sittings. Of particular importance was the matriculation ceremony we ran at Norham Gardens; it seemed wrong to welcome these new students without the special tradition that is matriculation. With help from the fantastic College staff, and a live stream from the Vice-Chancellor we were able to inaugurate new students in a near-traditional ceremony, complete with sub-fusc and champagne. This year the MCR committee has had to work harder than ever before, for this I cannot thank the fantastic members of the committee enough! Without their tireless and thankless effort the MCR would be so much worse off. I cannot begin to explain how proud I am of the job they have done this year.

Michaelmas, Hilary and Trinity term

We kicked the first term of the academic year off with a somewhat different framework to normal years. The Treasurer Andrew Gibson and I organised a lively Boozy Bob Ross painting session where more than 50 members turned up over 3 separate sessions to enjoy a glass of wine

whilst painting picturesque landscapes. The recurring High Tea event was taken to the next level by Welfare Reps Raghul Ravichandran and Julie Hechler who put on an impressive spread of snacks and nibbles in personalised bags for a whole day of wholesomeness for graduates to enjoy remotely. Before the end of term, College held the Carols in the Quad Christmas event, it was a lovely event that allowed the MCR, JCR and SCR alike to enjoy College in all its festive glory. The absolute highlight of Michaelmas was of course the phenomenal Christmas dinner that Chef John McGeever and his team had prepared for an evening that was a true example of ‘hygge’. Although split into two events, the dinners lost none of the magic of previous years, over 180 students enjoyed the fantastic night. Unfortunately, due to the rise in cases after the Christmas holidays the scope of events we could run in Hilary term was very limited. Thankfully to the rescue came the Stewards Fernando Jiminez Gallardo and Thijs Van der Plas, and the Welfare Reps Raghul and Julie, who held a plethora of online events to keep the spirits of the MCR up. These events included online painting by numbers, and virtual beer tasting. Trinity term saw the gradual unlocking of restrictions and with it, more flexibility in the way the MCR could operate. The restarting of sports teams saw the MCR Football Team competing in an intercollege 5-a-side competition led by Captain Jack Mills. The Croquet Team made it to a record breaking last 16 in Cuppers under the leadership of European doubles champion Mark Baker. With new rules in place the MCR was able to hold events once again, of particular success the barbeques at Norham Gardens in the glorious sunshine saw over 60 people at two separate events enjoy the fantastic British summer. Academic events

For yet another year, Professor David Priestland has graciously invited us into his home virtually for academic minitalks by members of the MCR, enjoyed over dinner, snacks and drinks from the comfort of everyone’s home. I wish to extend a special thanks to our Academic Rep Paul Röttger for orchestrating speakers, not only for this event series, but also for the first ever Teddy Hall Lightning Talks, offering a diverse spread of our postgraduates to give 5-minute talks for an audience of their peers. It was a great event that only underlines the massive advantages of our diverse MCR community.

Closing remarks

The implications of the global pandemic have been ever apparent throughout this year, but the MCR once again proved just how strong a community it is when faced with a new challenge. Facebook groups were created, a peer support network for students who were self-isolating was organised, and once in-person events such as ‘pub-quizzes’ were moved online. The lockdown just emphasised what I knew to be true already: whether you are in Oxford for just one year, or for several, the welcoming and social nature of the MCR helps you create lasting friendships within a network of people that you can rely on for life. I have tried my best to outline key elements on what has been going on in the MCR this past year, but the MCR is much, much more than I could give an account of here. Leading the MCR this year during these difficult times has been an

absolute privilege. Teddy Hall has become my home away from home, and the MCR has become my new family. As we look forward to returning to normality this year I cannot state how proud I am to be part of an MCR that has remained as amazing and supportive throughout this year as this one has! Benjamin White (2018, Engineering Science)

From the President of the JCR

To say this year was unconventional would be a massive understatement. From the moment students were back in the Hall for Michaelmas 2020, College staff and students alike all worked exceptionally hard towards making everyone’s experience as normal as possible. Led by my predecessor Benjy Penny, the JCR Committee did an incredible job at greeting a new batch of Freshers amid ever-changing restrictions. Collaboration between College staff and the JCR was perhaps never as important as it has been this year, and it has been, overall, a great success. While Michaelmas term ended with a glimpse of hope and the start of the vaccine rollout, Hilary term began with a bleak outlook. As a fresh lockdown was imposed, students were to remain at home for most of term. But JCR life kept going, with online JCR meetings, socials, and continued welfare provision from our wonderful Welfare Officers Felicity Hudson and Alex Abrahams. For those who were in Oxford, the Hall stayed as open and welcoming as possible. Unlike most other colleges, our Library was open 24/7 with no booking system throughout the lockdowns, and having a separate workplace was a massive help for student wellbeing. On top of dinner in the Hall, we kept warm breakfast going throughout Hilary term, giving students a bit of comfort before starting a day of online classes. We had snow in Oxford in January, and our spontaneous snowman competition was a highlight for many of us. In the middle of term, the second years held an online ‘Halfway Hall’ with an impressive turnout to mark the occasion, with refreshments and entertainment provided to households by our tremendous Entz Presidents Millie Liddell and Caitlin Conway. In Trinity term, the Hall very much came back to life. As most students returned to Oxford, many enjoyed the start of spring by swimming in Port Meadow and socialising in the sun with their friends they had not seen since Michaelmas term. From May, we were able to organise a range of in-person events and socials again. The Buttery reopened for drinks indoors, and Freshers were able to discover the Oxford pubs and restaurants they had not had a chance to explore amid the various lockdowns. Millie and Caitlin did an amazing job at making up for all the lost

time. The JCR organised hugely popular seated BOPs, which were, for many, the most normal socials they had experienced since the start of the pandemic. We also hosted a proper second years’ formal, with a drinks reception in groups of 30 in the Front Quad and the Graveyard. We even had former MCR President Freddie Sørensen take professional photos all evening. Our Finalists were also invited by their tutors to two Schools’ Dinners in the Hall after they had finished their exams. Our new Welfare Officers Katie Long and Greg Halliwell were exceptional throughout Trinity term. A source of great excitement for all in the JCR this year was the arrival of a new friend, our JCR Tortoise. After an online poll, we settled on the name Monty for this beautiful specimen of a Hermann’s Tortoise. Monty is taken care of by our Welfare Officers and our dedicated Tortoise Keeper Verity Black. Trinity also saw the return of our famed weekly JCR Tea (JCRT), with treats and snacks for all years every Friday. They also invited everyone to enjoy strawberries and cream in the graveyard, which was a great occasion to bring Monty out and introduce him to the JCR. While sports were, to say the least, disrupted by Covid restrictions this year, our captains did a tremendous job at making the most of the moments we were able to play. In Trinity term, the Freshers got their first taste of Hall rugby by winning the Rugby 7s Cuppers. The Boat Club is in great shape, with W1 and W2 winning blades, M1 bumping Wolfson to reach 5th place in Division 1, and M2 falling short of blades but maintaining a 7-year upward streak. Mixed Athletics and Polo also won Cuppers, and a brave mixed Rounders team reached the Cuppers final. Women’s Cricket won Cuppers, and the men also had a great term. Overall, our sports teams were able to blend fun, inclusiveness and success throughout Trinity term. I will therefore conclude by stressing how strong our community has remained throughout the pandemic. While restrictions have been a hard blow to our experience as students, they may have had the unexpected effect of strengthening communication and cooperation between the JCR and College Fellows and staff. I am confident that we will keep the momentum going, and that next year will be a great one for the students of the Hall. Julien Kress (2019, History)

From Student Clubs and Societies

Professor Luc Nguyen, Tutorial Fellow in Mathematics writes as Senior Treasurer of the Amalgamated Clubs: To begin with I would like to record our thanks to our former Treasurer, Professor Roger Benson, who has helped shape the way of the Clubs in many ways. Being new in this role, I am very pleased to see that, despite very difficult circumstances, aspects of cultural and sporting life at the Hall carry on undeterred though rather differently. Many activities could only be held remotely or very briefly when situation permitted. Discarding aside all the uncertainty, we hope that the pandemic will soon come to an end and look forward to our chance to follow our ambitions in the nearest future.

Men’s Association Football

1st XI Captain: Jordan Dring Social Secretary: Oliver Ogden Vice-Captain: Joe Stevani President: Rick Anslow 2nd XI Captain: Alessandro Gallo 3rd XI Captain: Shariz Azlam SEHAFC were looking to build on a promising 2019-20 season where we got to the semi-finals of Cuppers, losing to the eventual winners. Sadly, due to the pandemic, the season was very frustrating for all, only managing two games in Michaelmas and no football in Hilary. However, there was hope in Trinity where we competed in a 5-a-side league. Teddy Hall put out two sides, with some great Fresher participation. There were some great performances on show and some great signs for next year. In particular, some very resilient performances from the 2s. Both sides finished third in their respective leagues with four wins and two losses. However, a victory in a friendly against Queen’s was a fantastic way to end the shortened season.

Players of all abilities are strongly encouraged to play at Teddy Hall, with three 11-a-side teams normally competing. The stage is set for the 202122 season. The club is in very capable hands with 1st XI Captain Sam Boulger and vice Tomas Dwyer, who I’m sure will strive to Cuppers success. Jordan Dring (2018, Chemistry)

Women’s Association Football Captains: Sian Langham & Rebecca Whant Despite a rocky start to the season due to Coronavirus, we as captains believe we still managed to have a great season. Due to the season starting in Trinity, which is typically cricket season, we played in a 5-a-side league this year instead, which we all thoroughly enjoyed (some more than 11-a-side). We managed to field two teams a week playing a total of 10 games and winning half of those. Even after scoring 20 incredible goals, unfortunately we still narrowly missed out on qualifying for the quarter finals but there was some great football on display throughout.

We thought fielding two teams during exam season would be difficult, but we had over 25 women represent Teddy Hall, which shows how much the Hall loves football. For this reason, the teams each week varied somewhat and involved a wide range of people including postgraduate students, Freshers, experienced players, and brand-new players. It has been great to get so many players involved and meet plenty of new faces through football this season. We managed to do a couple of socials too which brought us all closer together and created a good team spirit. We ended the season with a crazy mixed match at Teddy Hall sports day where we had six girls confidently represent us. As a goalkeeper, the highlight for me was the warm weather which I will definitely miss next season. We are excited to see what next season holds under our new captains Gemma Bingham-Smith and Yasmin Ratcliffe. Sian Langham (2019, Engineering Science)

Chess When Covid hit, most sports and societies were forced to stop. Luckily, chess is one of the fortunate activities that can easily be adapted to an online format. And with the success of the series The Queen’s Gambit and people being stranded at home due to lockdown regulations, chess actually experienced a real boom and saw increased numbers of players worldwide. This trend was also visible in this year’s Chess Cuppers in Oxford, as a recordbreaking 40 teams competed in four divisions for the title. The Teddy Hall Squad started in the second division. Over nine matches throughout Michaelmas and Trinity the team tried their best to withstand some of the extremely strong opponent teams in this division. In the end, the title in the second division went to a combined team from Merton/Mansfield, who managed a clean sweep and won all of their nine matches. The Teddy Hall Squad won two of their matches and drew another two: just enough to closely scrape past the relegation! The atmosphere in team was friendly and supportive all the way through and was welcoming to players of all levels. Whereas the top two boards were generally filled with some of the more experienced Teddy Hall players, the two lower boards offered plenty of opportunities for some of the (Teddy Hall) chess newbies to gain experience in their first ever tournament chess matches. We are grateful that Chess Cuppers enabled us to keep some of the Hall Spirit and the Cuppers feeling alive, even in a time when most other events had to be cancelled. Nevertheless, we are looking forward to the upcoming term, and are hoping that in person ‘over the board’ tournaments will be the norm again. Lilli Hahn (2017, DPhil Molecular Cell Biology in Health and Disease)

Cricket Captain: Oliver Ogden After not having a season last year due to coronavirus, the members of SEHCC were ready to get their teeth sunk into a full season of cricket in Trinity term. We started the season with a few net sessions in the Uni parks and the Queen’s College ground. After not seeing the second and first years play before, the older members of the club were scouting out new talent to keep up the high standards of the cricket team. We started the season with an emphatic win over Lincoln. Batting first, we totaled 203/4 and bowled them out for 83. This was a great all-round display by the team and stood us in good stead for the rest of the season. Following this win, we then went on to face Sommerville in the first round of Cuppers again beating them 223/5 to their 120/5 after the full twenty overs. Our outstanding players in this match were the former Captain Jordan Dring, scoring 98, and Fresher Robbie Hardwick scoring 87- their huge opening partnership giving us the base to a total that no team would be able to chase. After a few weeks of bad weather and losing a lot of the team to the library, we had to forfeit the rest of our group league games. Despite this, after our first big win we still came fourth out of six in the group! Putting all our focus on our Cuppers campaign, we went on to beat St Hugh’s - easily chasing their 80/6. After two big wins in the early rounds of Cuppers, we went on to face Jesus in the quarter finals. After a good display in the field, we were left to chase 176. Jordan and Robbie got us off to a great start and we were looking in the driver’s seat sitting at 130/3 after 14 overs. After a very quick middle order collapse, the tail enders were given the task of bringing the team home. However, this was not the case as we were bowled out for 172, bringing our good Cuppers campaign to an end. This was a great season for building the foundation for next year’s season and I would like to wish the best of luck to Robbie Hardwick as he captains the vessel that is SEHCC next year. Oliver Ogden (2019, Engineering Science)

Hockey Captain: Shariz Aslam A pandemic isn’t great for casual sport, and SEHHC’s 2020/21 season felt that quite sharply. To start with what went well, this intake of Freshers was filled with lots of keen and/ or talented hockey players, many of whom (alongside a rather skilled visiting student) have committed themselves to the club. This meant the club had several Blues players, men and women, in its ranks and – equally importantly – had lots of keen faces who’d never played the sport before. We were also quick out the gates with getting risk assessments sorted to enable us to play early in the Michaelmas term. But that’s where everything ground to a halt for a while. The second national Covid-19 lockdown put an end to any hopes of play for what turned out to be the rest of Michaelmas term, with the third lockdown taking up a similar role for Hilary term as well. So as Trinity term came around, it became devastatingly apparent that, as captain, I would not be able to lead the club through a full league campaign or even a full mixed Cuppers tournament. However, the OUHC Cuppers Secretary was able to organise a couple of mini-leagues in Trinity term,

featuring the few colleges remaining confident of consistently fielding a playing squad. We were placed in a mini-league with other strong hockey sides. The campaign opened with a thrilling 4-3 victory over Keble; we were 0-2 down at half time but persevered to turn the game around. The next game, unfortunately, saw an opposing fate as we led Jesus/Worcester 1-0 for the majority of the game before conceding two quick successive strikes in the dying minutes of the game to lose 1-2. Next up was a game against Queen’s, who turned up with a squad of just nine. Given the long Covid-enforced absence from sport, we were all just keen to play and so one of our players switched sides. The Queen’s + 1 team proceeded to narrowly beat SEHHC 3-2 (with said pinched player providing some key movement in their midfield). The Cupper Secretary later pointed out a player loan would usually be mean concession by Queen’s but, since no concession was discussed in advance, we let Queen’s take all 3 points. Our lesson was learned when we faced Brasenose, who had to borrow two of our players and agreed concession before we came away with a 1-0 win anyway. This was followed the week after by a comfortable win against Exeter. The final game was against New, for which various eighth week plans and exams had depleted our squad to just 4. With some reinforcements from St Hilda’s (who weren’t in a league) we just about had seven, enough for a half-pitch game against a full New College squad in the intense heat. It would have been far easier to call the match off, but we love hockey and – even with a 5-0 loss – it was good to get out and play. The final whistle of that game marked the end of a very unusual and turbulent 2020/21 season. As we hopefully put this pandemic behind us, we’re ready for a normal season next Michaelmas (fingers crossed) for which the club will be in the very trustworthy hands of Harriet Eyles. I wish her the best of luck as captain. Shariz Aslam (2019, Economics and Management)

Netball Captains: Kalli Dockrill & Nailah Ranjan The netball team had a challenging year, as due to lack of court availability and Covid restrictions we were unable to play in Michaelmas or Hilary. However, during Trinity we were lucky enough to play in the Cuppers league, where we were put into the top group. It was tough as we didn’t have a consistent team and could not train much, but everyone who played did a fantastic job and we ended up placing 11th in our group. There was real improvement between each game which was amazing to see, even if we did not win as many matches as we would have hoped. We also had regular training sessions at Jackdaw Lane, which were always fun even though we didn’t have an actual court. The team really developed and improved from these sessions and it was great to run them along games. We’re looking forward to next year, when hopefully games will be more regular throughout Michaelmas and Hilary and we can have a strong Hall turnout at Cuppers in Trinity. Our new captains are Beth Scott and Esmé McMillan and I’m sure they’ll do an amazing job! Nailah Ranjan (2019, History & Politics)

President: Jess Radley Vice President: Natasha Cooke Men’s Captain: Oliver Shepherd Women’s Captain: India Brough Men’s Vice Captain: Toby Whitehead Women’s Vice Captain: Maddie Prottey Captain of Coxes: Catriona Campbell Treasurer: Beth Goodfellow Secretary: Felicity Hudson IT Officer: Aleksei Malyshev Men’s Social Sec: Julien Kress Women’s Social Sec: Brittany Perera Water Safety Adviser: Alistair Ross This academic year started with the great news that British Rowing had allowed rowing in eights again after a long time off due to the coronavirus pandemic. We were happy to see that many Freshers were keen to try out rowing. Mixed novice training was run whereby the men and the women trained together, and over 50 Freshers tried the sport out. Meanwhile, the seniors were getting fours and eights out, trying to remember how to row after such a long time off. Only one race went ahead in Michaelmas term before the second lockdown, the Isis Winter League. The women pulled together a crew to enter this and achieved a modest time of 6:17. Then on 5 November, we found ourselves in second national lockdown and all rowing activity was halted. Luckily, the committee was now experienced at keeping morale up online. Socials and circuits on Zoom began again, and athletes were encouraged to log their activities on a Google sheet. Our coaches ran online workshops giving expert tips on rowing and coxing. Rowing began again after the lockdown was lifted on 29 March, and the captains really hit the ground running with at least two SEHBC outings being run every day. The next race we could enter was the Isis Spring League A on 16 May. The Women’s First Eight (W1) was the second fastest women’s crew out of 44 women’s boats with a time of 5:13 and the Men’s First Eight (M1) was the third fastest men’s crew out of 42 men’s boats with 4:22. The Men’s and Women’s Second Eights (M2 and W2) also did well, coming 28th and 31st, respectively.

Some old members came back in May to chalk up their M1 blades from 2019, where M1 went from ninth to fifth on the river. The second Isis Spring League took place on 30 May, and we entered five boats. All boats improved on their times from the last race, with the results showing Teddy Hall has the second fastest W1 (5:06) M1 (4:16.5) and W2 (5:34.5) and the fastest M2 (4:53). Usually in Trinity term, Summer VIIIs is the big race of the term. However due to the lack of rowing for the past two years, Oxford University Rowing Clubs (OURCs) decided it would be safer to use Torpids rules rather than Summer Eights rules. This means only the boat that achieves a bump drops out of the racing, rather than the pair of boats involved in the bumping. The captains then voted for Torpids charts to be used (rather than Eights charts). University athletes were allowed to compete. The divisions were reduced to 10 from the usual 13 and since there were more entries from women’s boats then men’s, the races each day finished with Women’s Div 1 for the first time. Spectators were also discouraged from watching this year’s races and instead a livestream was set up. SEHBC entered six boats in Torpids, which is the first time a W2 has been in Torpids since 2012 and the first time a W3 has ever appeared. Just before Torpids began, we were lucky enough to get some upgrades to our boathouse. Alex Grant and Elion Angjelo, from the Hall’s maintenance team, put up a new shelf for lifejackets, a cupboard for cox boxes as well as looking into rejigging our lights system downstairs and putting in a new cupboard for shoes and bags. We also rediscovered our third, outdoor toilet and a fob system was installed so members can use their Salto keys to get in. Another St Edmund Hall crest was installed which had been recently restored. The Friends of St Edmund Hall Boat Club, our benefactors, generously purchased some new Concept 2 skinny blades for the women. For the first time, W1 were rowing with suede handles rather than wooden ones which everyone was very pleased about. We had two rowers competing in the OUWLRC Blue Boat this year, Hazel Wake and Katie Wellstead.

Torpids

All six of the College’s teams achieved solid results across the four days of Torpids. M3 finished their campaign level in fixed divs, now as the second highest M3 across the colleges. W3 bumped twice and W2 moved up a division and won blades. M2 were tragically denied blades when, on day 4, the rudder fell of their boat while they were making their way to the start. After 5 years of falling, SEH W1 has finally climbed back up to where they rightfully belong. This is the third time our W1

has achieved blades in Torpids, the two previous times being 2004 and 2005. Since the divisions were smaller this year, these results mean our W1 will actually start at the bottom end of Division 2 in Torpids 2022 (without ever having to be the sandwich boat!). M1 fought hard to get their row over along with all other crews in Division 1, maintaining their spot at 5th on the river. The last time our M1 has finished this high in Torpids was 1969. In total, SEHBC achieved 17 bumps this Torpids campaign, the most of any college. M1 +1 W1 +6 BLADES M2 +2 W2 +6 BLADES M3 0 W3 +2 The members celebrated their success with a trip to South Park until the early hours of the morning. Then on 19 June, SEHBC entered seven mixed, men’s and women’s boats into Oriel Regatta. The women formed a composite with Hertford and won their category, gaining a bottle of gin. The mixed men’s and women’s first boat put on a good show, winning all their heats but unfortunately losing to Christ Church in the final, who had clearly been training much too hard. The committee put on a fun regatta-style race on 20 June 20 for members, which included spinning the boat and backing it down the fastest. Torpids dinner was due to take place on 23 June with hope that restrictions would be fully lifted by then. This however wasn’t the case so plans had to be quickly changed to move it from our usual venue of Vaults and Gardens to an outdoor venue. We were luckily hosted by Isis Farmhouse, a location we all knew well but not many of us had had a chance to visit yet. The evening continued almost as normal and was a fantastic way to end a successful season. SEHBC has had a wonderfully successful season despite all the restrictions in place. I’d like to thank all the members, committee, our senior member Charlotte Sweeney, and the Friends of SEHBC for their support throughout. Jess Radley (2018, DPhil Psychiatry) Men’s Rugby Captain: Ed Hayes

The 2020/2021 SEHRFC season has been as disrupted as everything else this year. Having not been allowed to play or train until Trinity term, we had a lot of catching up to do. Without the usual league or 15-aside Cuppers tournament in the first two terms, OURFC held a mixed touch tournament and sevens Cuppers tournament. We were determined to bring home some silverware and continue our reign as the best college team. Needing to blow away a few cobwebs, training commenced in the sun with a strong turnout from both older and younger years. It was excellent to finally bring the club together after a year of attempting to replicate the College bar’s atmosphere on Zoom. Despite it being a very short season, in true Teddy Hall fashion it did not lack success. With the Varsity match being moved to July, the club was not able to field its contingent of OURFC blues players. However, the depth of our club

meant that numbers were never an issue helped by an influx of Freshers accounting for more than half the team. The mixed touch tournament was a brilliant display of the unity of the College. We were required to field a team that was made up of at least half of women from the Hall. Fortunately, they certainly stepped up along with a large group of Freshers. Cruising through both the quarter and semi-finals, we made it to the final against New College. The final was filled with action and ended tied. Going to extra time fatigue set in, and a golden try from New College meant the game finished dramatically meaning we finished in a very respectful second place. The Sevens Cuppers was the only full contact event of the year meaning that it was the one all college teams were desperate to win. Having made our way through the group stage comfortably on the first day, our strong form continued the second day with big wins in both the quarter and semi-finals. The final was tightly contested against Hertford with the second half finishing tied, 14-14. Like the Touch Cuppers, we ended up in a golden try situation. This time, with a try from Ed Hayes, we got the win and meant we took home the silverware. It was an excellent display by all the lads involved and a brilliant way to finish off what has been an unusual year. We look forward to things being back to

Cultural, Social & Volunteering

Christian Union President: Hannah Treece The Christian Union of St Edmund Hall (Magdalen and Teddy Hall CU) has met bi-weekly since the merging with the CU in Magdalen earlier this year, using Zoom for all of Michaelmas and Hilary, except for the last few meetings in Trinity, where the advantage of good weather and relaxing of some restrictions allowed us to meet in the Deer Park in Magdalen. We

normal next year as we look to retain the Cuppers trophy in both fifteens and sevens as well as piling back into the College bar. Ed Hayes (2019, BA Economics and Management)

Ultimate Frisbee Captain: Davidson Sabu Teddy Hall’s Ultimate Frisbee was squashed into one term this year, due to unforeseen circumstances, with restrictions easing in Trinity term. League matches were across a few weeks in Trinity term where we were paired with the Balliol team. In the penultimate week of term, we had our Cuppers debut, after it was cancelled last year. Given it was during exam season for the older undergraduate members, it was wonderful to see the Freshers and younger years representing the Hall, with Matthew Morris heading up our side. Even more impressive, finishing 5th in our first Cuppers competition. It’s only upwards from here and we look forward to growing the team next year and reaching ever closer to the Cuppers victory. Congratulations to the team for this year’s achievement and the best is yet to come! Davidson Sabu (2018, Materials Science)

Other sports clubs playing in 2020-2021 included Athletics, Basketball, Women’s Cricket, Croquet, Lacrosse, MCR Football, Polo and Rounders.

met to study the Bible together, support each other through prayer, and to have a community. Keeping the sense of community was difficult this year, but we found ways to overcome this difficulty. Food could not be shared through a screen, and so instead online game tournaments became a staple – most notably Pictionary, which became wonderfully competitive. It was only when we met in person that snacks could be enjoyed. The creation of a group chat on WhatsApp also allowed us to talk and get to know each other. Due to the nature of this past year, we did not get the opportunity to run many special events, except for at the end of Michaelmas, where we helped run carol services in Magdalen, served mulled wine, and gave carol packs to anyone in either College who wanted them, which included mince pies and more mulled wine. Hannah Treece (2021, Classics and Oriental Studies, Magdalen)

Music Society Student representative: Jasmin Kreutzer Music-making this year in the Hall has been diverse and varied. Throughout Michaelmas there was a series of recitals preceding Sunday Evensong, which were streamed over Zoom and featured beautiful and high-standard performances by Gabriel Brasaite (violin), Gavin Bala (piano), Connor Wood (Organ Scholar), Raven Undersun (singer/songwriter), Joseph Lucas (viola) and Melissa Guiliano (soprano). The term was rounded off with the annual ‘Carols in the Quad’ Christmas celebration on 3rd December, featuring a wind band of clarinets, saxophones and brass instruments, as well as the Choir of St Edmund Hall. A socially distanced part of the College community was able to join for the carols in person in the Front Quad, gathering with mulled wine and mince pies to sing along in a jolly and cheerful atmosphere, while the event was also recorded and livestreamed for the rest of the College. Another recital series had been planned for Hilary term but became impossible because of the Covid situation in the spring; instead, in Trinity term, a range of professional audio and video recordings were put together by George Cole and Sarah Armstrong, with lighting for the videos by Cherona Chapman. The five recordings spanned a variety of genres––classical music, pop, musical theatre, and singer/songwriter––and featured participants from across the years and subject-groups: Alex Burgar (soprano), Jake Eliott (keyboard), Flora Hartz (vocals and piano), Jasmin Kreutzer (violin), Wei Wei Liu (cello), Joe Ritchie (guitar), Beth Scott (vocals), Hiu Suet Shum (vocals), Courtney Stanage (piano), Connor Wood (harpsichord) and Zirui Zhou (vocals). Both the audio and video recordings can be accessed via the Teddy Hall website. Apart from musical performances, Teddy Hall students also had access to music facilities and instruments for practice throughout the entire academic year: the Music Room in the Rear Quad remained open from Michaelmas through to Trinity, and a piano was set up in the Welfare Room; the high-quality piano

in the Norham Gardens MCR was also accessible for playing. Several of the Hall’s instruments were upgraded, too. The drum-kit was renovated, pianos and amplifiers repaired, and the harpsichord tuned and relocated to a more accessible spot in the Chapel. We hope that more in-person events will be possible in the coming year, both short and full-length concerts, of all genres, instruments and voices. Students interested in performing, or in joining the Music Society and planning music-related events, are very encouraged to contact me or other officers of the Music Society with their ideas and wishes. We’re looking forward to many suggestions and concert opportunities and a very musical academic year for 2021/22! Jasmin Kreutzer (2020, English)

Writer’s Workshop Throughout the past year, despite isolation and uncertainty, creativity did not cease to flourish at Teddy Hall. Though many of the creative writing group’s regular members graduated last summer, their literary shoes have been undoubtedly filled by various talented newcomers. In Michaelmas, we overcame restrictions and overlapping quarantines to meet both physically and virtually. It was during this term that we got our first glimpses at Aili Channer’s (2020, English) strange, beautiful, and frequently egg-themed poetry, and that William Heath (2020, English) shared the first threads of what would later become a fully-fledged film project entitled Checking Out. Hilary once again presented us with the challenge of online term, which meant that we again moved creative writing into cyberspace. In the face of time differences, errant cats, and pestering parents, we persisted in our literary pursuits. Jasmin Kreutzer (2020, English) produced an array of original poetry and prose, drawing from dreams, memories, and life in the pandemic. Other students came by on a less regular basis, sometimes to share writing, but mostly to participate in the discussions and debates which would arise. Towards the end of Hilary term, we organised a creative writing exchange throughout College. The participants exchanged various pieces, from poetry to journals, but a special mention must go to Cormac Farrell’s (2020, Maths) Gavin and Stacey MATLAB function for being one of the most formally interesting pieces of writing I have ever read. I hope that my creative writing successors will continue the exchange each year, as it was a great showcase of both talent and community spirit at the Hall. With Trinity came the opportunity for us to (cautiously) meet again in person, and the change in environment seemed to spur the group into increasingly explorative conversation. Every participant this year has proved not only their capacity to adapt to adverse situations, but more importantly their ability to turn that adversity into beautiful and interesting writing. I have sincerely enjoyed my year running the group and believe that I am leaving it in very capable hands. With some semblance of normality returning to life, we may also see a re-emergence of a creative writing publication, and I look forwards to returning to College to see how the group will have progressed in 2021-22. Alexander Abrahams (2019, English Language & Literature)