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Plus est en vous

Antonians make a difference in the world through a hugely diverse range of professional paths. Here is a round-up of recent alumni career updates.

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Plus est en vous

Antonians make a difference in the world through a hugely diverse range of professional paths. Here is a round-up of recent alumni career updates.

The Antonian | December 2023

1960s

Ahmed Al-Shahi (Social Anthropology, 1962) is Co-Founder (with Bona Malwal) and Chair of Trustees of The Sudanese Programme (a UK registered charity, no. 1177019) and with Dr Richard Barltop (Trustee of The Sudanese Programme) continues to organise conferences, workshops and other events in collaboration with the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s.

1970s

Francis Ghiles (French Colonial Economics, Algeria, 1975) has moved back to Paris after 17 years in Barcelona where he remains Associate Senior Researcher at CIDOB. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at Kings College London and continues to write and broadcast on North African Affairs.

Allan Hughes (History, 1979) was a Barrister from 1983 to 1998 and a Judge from 1998 to 2010.

1980s

Michael Cullen (DPhil Agricultural Economics, 1984) is Board Member and Investor of Terra Global Capital, a firm that provides private sector finance to forestry conservation and land use projects around the world. They have a target of raising $300 Million for a fund that can generate over $1.2 Billion in carbon credits over the next 30 years for the benefit of local communities in developing countries to enhance biodiversity in their ecosystems.

Suranjan Das (DPhil Commonwealth History, 1984) has completed his term as Vice-Chancellor of Jadavpur University, Kolkata and President, Association of Indian Universities, New Delhi. He is currently Vice-Chancellor of Adamas University, Kolkata.

Juhi Hajela (MSt History, 1993) is currently Vice President – Global Marketing for BlueStacks & now.gg (a cloud gaming company).

Kisaburo Ishii (Economics, 1981) was appointed as President of the City Planning Association of Japan in 2023.

Toshiyuki Kosugi (SAM, 1984-1985) has been appointed as Executive Managing Director, CEO of JBIC IG Partners, a subsidiary of Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and IGPI Group with functions of an advisor and operator of overseas venture funds.

Jeff VanDreal (MPhil International Relations, 1984) Jeff retired from the US Foreign Service in September 2022. He is now happily ensconced in Denver, pursuing his non-academic passions: mountain-hiking, beer-brewing, and baseball-watching.

Phillip Walker (MPhil International Relations, 1984) has recently started on a new project working with the government of Iraq to establish the “Iraq Fund for Development.” This unique sovereign wealth fund with initial capitalisation of 3 trillion ID (roughly $2.2 billion USD) will focus on long-term domestic Iraqi investment in key sectors of the economy in cooperation with private sector investors. Phil will be shuttling back and forth between Baghdad and his home in New Hampshire, with frequent stops (he hopes) in London and Oxford.

Nira Wickramasinghe (DPhil Modern History, 1985) is a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, School of Historical Studies in 2023.

1990s

Judith Clifton (Economics, 1993) has been appointed Non-Executive Director to OFCOM’s consumer panel.

Jörg Michael Dostal (DPhil Politics, 1999) was appointed as a Professor in the Graduate School of Public Administration at Seoul National University in September 2023.

Steven Everts (DPhil International Relations, 1994) has been appointed as the new Director of the EU Institute for Security Studies.

Sam Halabi (MPhil International Relations, 1999) has been appointed as Professor at the Georgetown University School of Health and Director of the Center for Transformational Health Law at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center.

Chimene Keither (DPhil International Relations, 1996) has joined the University of California Davis School of Law as Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law.

Alison Stone Roofe (MPhil International Relations, 1993) was appointed as the Permanent Secretary at the Jamaican Ministry of National Security (after 34 years in the Jamaican Foreign Service).

2000s

Rowan Alcock (DPhil Politics, 2014) is ‘Shuimu’ Postdoctoral Fellow at Tsinghua University in the Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences.

Mariah Atiq (MSt Diplomatic Studies, 2019) is Second Secretary Political at the Embassy of Pakistan in Brussels and is the contact for EU institutions.

Ibone Ametzaga Arregi (Basque Visiting Fellow, 2001) has been appointed Full Professor at the University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Univertsitatea.

William Attwell (MSc African Studies, 2008) has been appointed Director of Climate Risk and Sustainable Finance at Sustainable Fitch.

Gülnur Aybet (International relations, 2006) was appointed as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Türkiye to UNESCO in Paris in 2021.  Before this, she was Senior Advisor in Foreign and Security Policy to the President of Türkiye, working with President Erdoğan for five years.

William Attwell (MSc African Studies, 2008) was recently appointed Director of Climate Research at the Fitch Group.

Rene Balletta (Hudson Fellow, 2020) has been appointed as the First Sea Lord’s Visiting Fellow to the Royal United Services Institute.

Jessie Barton Hronesova (DPhil Politics, 2013) was appointed Lecturer in Political Sociology at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London

Leong Cheung (Academic Visitor, 2022) joined the Hong Kong Monetary Authority in July 2023 as the Chief Strategy Officer of the Exchange Fund. With his colleagues he manages hkd 4 trillion of reserve to defend the currency and add value to the capital. Specifically, he will initially focus on business

Noe Cornago (Basque Senior Visiting Fellow, 2011-12) is CPD Research Fellow 2023-25 at the Center for Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA.

Mario Carvajal Cabal (MSc Latin American Studies, 2021) was recently appointed Public Affairs Leader at IDDEA Comunicaciones a strategic communications firm in Bogotá D.C., Colombia.

Marina Costa Lobo (DPhil Politics, 2001) has been elected Director of the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon.

Gonzalo Croci (MSc in Latin American Studies, 2017) was invited to become an expert member of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.

Abdinor Dahir (African Studies, 2020) returned to Somalia, his country of origin, following his Oxford graduation in October 2021. After working with the Somali Government for 1.5 years as an advisor, he founded Taloford Consulting Group, which shares knowledge with public, private and social sector leaders to drive change and make direct impact on society. The Group also establish strong bridges with the academia to help clients understand the issues and key factors at the heart of the country’s political and socio-economic changes.

Bihi Egeh (MSt Diplomatic Studies, 2018) was appointed as the Finance Minister of the Federal Government of Somalia in July 2023. He was previously the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs.

Alejandro Espinosa (MSc Latin American Studies, 2012) was appointed Assistant Professor of Politics at IPADE Business School.

Sandhya Fuchs (MPhil Social Anthropology, 2015) completed a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship for her project “Hate Speech in India: Judicial Politics of History and Memory” at the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. She will be taking up a position as Assistant Professor in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Free University of Amsterdam in January 2024.

Jonathan Fulwell (MPhil Modern Chinese Studies, 2010) has been appointed First Secretary, Political at the British Embassy in Tokyo to start in October 2023.

Noorain Fatima Khan (Migration Studies, 2006) has been appointed President of Girl Scouts of the USA. As National Board President, Khan will lead a 30-member National Board of Directors.

Takamitsu Kurita (MPhil and DPhil in Economics, 2001) has moved from Fukuoka University to Kyoto Sangyo University

Isaac Kardon (MPhil Modern Chinese Studies, 2007) started a new position in 2023 as Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in Washington DC. Co-winner of Perry World House Affairs Prize.

Vivek Krishnamurthy (MPhil International Relations, 2002) was appointed Associate Professor of Law and the Director of the Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic (TLPC) at the University of Colorado—Boulder.

Makoto Kosaka (SAM 2003) is President of the University of Hyogo, Kobe Japan, and Vice-Chancellor, Hyogo Public University Corporation.

Damon Loveless (US Navy Hudson Fellow, 2021) recently began duties as Executive Officer of USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), one of 11 US Navy aircraft carriers, homeported in San Diego, California.

Samuele Mazzolini (MPhil Latin American Studies, 2010) was awarded a post-doctoral position at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, which he will hold until January 2025, when he will start a three-year Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship, with the project “Populism and institutions in Latin America. A comparative assessment between Ecuador and Argentina”. He will be based at FLACSO Ecuador in the first two years and at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in his final year.

Keya Madhvani Singh (MSc Global Governance and Diplomacy, 2009). After more than seven years in senior roles at Twitter in India, Keya has moved into a new role at the India Climate Collaborative, focussing on mobilising philanthropy to climate change in India.

Jamie Masraff (MPhil Development Studies, 2005) is now the CEO of OnSide, a charity which develops and supports a network of state-of-the-art youth centres across the most disadvantaged parts of the UK.

Isabel Moctezuma-Barbará (MPhil Development Studies, 2007) has been appointed Regional Manager for Latin America of the “Stevens Initiative” at the Aspen Institute which promotes virtual exchange among youth from different countries and cultures.

Hashi Mohamed (Msc African Studies 2008) has joined new barristers’ chambers – Landmark Chambers.

Marcelo de Almeida Medeiros (International Relations, 2015) was on sabbatical, conducting research at Sciences Po Grenoble and the Centre de Recherche et Documentation sur les Amériques – CREDA/CNRS (Paris). As a Kosaka Visiting Professor, he was focusing on Regional (Dis)Integration and Nationalist Logics from a Comparative Perspective. In 2022, he was appointed as a member of the Superior Council of the Foundation for the Support of Science and Technology of the State of Pernambuco (Recife/Brazil) in the Area of Human and Social Sciences.

Aaron Maniam (DPhil Public Policy, 2013) has been appointed Fellow of Practice and Director of Digital Transformation Education at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford.

Hossameldeen Mohammed (Senior Member, 2017-18) was appointed as Assistant Professor at Karabuk University, College of Theology, Turkey.

Matt Offord (Hudson Fellow, 2016) was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Leadership and Management Education at Glasgow University’s Adam Smith Business School.

Olanrewaju Olaniyan (SAM, 2007) has been appointed as the Pioneer Vice Chancellor at Emmanuel Alayande University of Education in Oyo, Nigeria.

Ryan Powell (MPhil Development Studies, 2015) was appointed Head of Innovation and Media Business at the International Press Institute, building a new global project funding, training, and coaching independent media on their growth. 

Patel Priyesh (DPhil Sociology, 2020) recently began the role of Parliamentary Caseworker for a UK Member of Parliament.

Patrick Quinton-Brown (DPhil International Relations, 2014) is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Singapore Management University.

Pablo Quiñonez (MSc Comparative Social Policy, 2019) was elected Councillor of Loja, Ecuador. He currently chairs the Production, Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship Commission of the municipal council.

Clemens Rawert (MSc Economic & Social History, 2019). His AI start-up raised USD 4m in seed funding and took part in the prestigious YCombinator accelerator.

Matt Stone (MSc Global Governance & Diplomacy, 2008) was recently appointed Executive Vice President – United Kingdom of Power2X, a green hydrogen and green fuels project developer, after an 11-year career, including the last four as a Partner, at McKinsey & Company.

Anda Totoreanu (MSc Russian and East European Studies, 2016) graduated from Law School and started a new career as a Business Immigration Attorney.

Saad Toor (MSc Modern South Asian Studies, 2017) is President of Somerset County Young Democrats, Somerset County, NJ, USA. He is also Adjunct Professor of Government and Politics at Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CT, USA, and Form Dean, Upper School History Teacher, Middle School Athletics Coach, and Advisor at the Pingry School in Basking Ridge, NJ, USA.

Daniel Villar-Onrubia (DPhil in Information, Communication and the Social Sciences, 2009) has recently left the UK and relocated to Spain to join the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission as a researcher (Scientific Officer) in the field of Digital Education and Skills.

Roxanne Varzi (Senior Member, 2004-5) was made Professor at the University of California Irvine in 2019.

Thom Woodroofe (MSc Global Governance & Diplomacy, 2014) has commenced a new role in Washington D.C. with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade as Principal Adviser to the Ambassador to the United States (and former Prime Minister), Kevin Rudd. Thom had served for over three years as Kevin Rudd’s Chief of Staff at the Asia Society where he established a new China Climate Hub providing intelligence and rapid response analysis on the state of China’s climate action.

Pēteris Zilgalvis (Visiting Fellow, 2013-2014), Judge at the General Court of the European Union, was named as a member of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Management Board of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

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Plus est en vous

Antonians make a difference in the world through a hugely diverse range of professional paths. Here is a round-up of recent alumni career updates.

View the story

Plus est en vous

Antonians make a difference in the world through a hugely diverse range of professional paths. Here is a round-up of recent alumni career updates.

1960s

Fred Hohler (DPhil Politics, 1966) founded the online Public Catalogue Foundation (PCF), now Art UK, in 2002, which has recorded and photographed all oils in public ownership in the UK. Subsequently and with the financial assistance of The Javad Marandi Foundation, he founded The Watercolour World. From the decision by the Georgian military in 1746/7 to establish in Stirling a school of military drawing using watercolour, watercolour spread globally to become the medium for making the visual record. An enormous number of these documentary images still exist today, constituting a unique record, in colour, of the known world before photography. Arguably, the period 1759-1900 (the arrival of the Box Brownie swiftly ended the watercolour era) is the best visually recorded period of human history. The global watercolour collection (public and private) is now being collected, geo-located and made freely available on the TWW website.

David C Mulford (DPhil Political Science, 1962) is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He focuses on research, writing and activities related to global economics and financial developments, including the founding and development of a US-India program for deepening US-India economic and geopolitical relations.

1970s

Teresa (Teri) (Bolin) Waldron (MPhil Latin American Studies, 1977) is currently enrolled on the Oxford PGCert course in Historical Studies, focusing on the Medieval Church.

Eurico de Lima Figueiredo (DPhil Political Science, 1974) is the Coordinator of the Center for Advanced Studies, at Fluminense Federal University in Rio de Janeiro. He is also an Emeritus Fellow at the Brazilian Association of Defense Studies and an Emeritus Professor at Fluminense Federal University. Until 2020, he was the Director of the Institute of Strategic Studies.

1980s

Masahiko Asada (Senior Member, 1988) was elected as a member of the UN International Law Commission at the UN General Assembly in November 2021. The mandate is 2023-2027. He was also elected to the Institut de Droit International as an associate member in 2021.

Wladyslaw Bartoszewski (Research Fellow, 1985; SAM, 1989) is Vice-Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Polish Diet (Sejm), Vice-Chair of the Polish-British Parliamentary Group, and Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary Group for the Reform of the Intelligence Services.

Suranjan Das (DPhil Modern History, 1984) is the Vice-Chancellor of Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and Honorary Professor of Exeter University, UK. As the senior Vice-Chancellor in the country, he is currently the President of the Association of Indian Universities.

Elizabeth Harvey (DPhil History, 1981) has been seconded from the University of Nottingham to the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History, Berlin office, as project-lead for the English-language 16-volume series of documents The Persecution and Murder of the European Jews by Nazi Germany, 1933-1945. Five volumes are now out, and three more are due to be published in 2023.

Minouche Shafik (DPhil Economics, 1989) Honorary Fellow and alumna of St Antony’s, Baroness Minouche Shafik DBE, HonFBA has been appointed as the 20th President of Columbia University in the City of New York.

1990s

Márton Benedek (MPhil European Politics & Society, 1999; DPhil International Relations, 2009) is now Head of Cooperation at the EU Delegation to Libya. He asks any Antonians in Tunis or Tripoli to please reach out to him.

Hamish Nixon (DPhil Politics and International Relations, 1998) recently joined Global Affairs Canada as Advisor in the Peace and Stabilization Operations Programme, which is central to Canadian engagement in fragile and conflict-affected settings.

Gordon Peake (MPhil DPhil, 1996) is Senior Adviser at the United States Institute of Peace.

Bradley Cook (DPhil Oriental Studies, 1995) started serving as President of the American University of Bahrain.

David Hall-Matthews (DPhil Modern History, 1994) is the Student Funding Manager at the Saïd Business School.

Heungchong Kim (MPhil Economics, 1993) became President of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.

James Onley (DPhil Modern History, 1996) was appointed the Ahmed Seddiqi Chair in Gulf and Middle Eastern Studies and Professor of History at the American University of Sharjah in August 2022. 

Valla Vakili (DPhil Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, 1995) is now Global Head of Insights and Innovation at Visa in San Francisco.

2000s

Richard Adjei (MSc African Studies, 2019) has begun postgraduate studies at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States in his quest to become a professional historian of medicine and Africa. He joined the School of Medicine for a PhD in the History of Medicine in the fall of 2022.

Claudia Baldoli (PhD Contemporary History, 2003) was Lecturer in Modern European History, Newcastle University from 2006-2010, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History, Newcastle University from 2010-2018, and since 2018 has been Associate Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Milan, Italy.

Jaroslaw Bajaczyk (MSt Diplomatic Studies, 2019) was promoted to First Counsellor in the Embassy of Poland in Berlin, Germany as of January 2023. His position is Head of the Political Section. 

Elife Bicer-Deveci (DPhil History, 2016) founded the international research network History of Body Politics in the Global South.

Cristina Blanco Sío-López (Fellow, Iberian and European Studies, 2018) is the ‘María Zambrano’ Senior Distinguished Researcher at the Universidade da Coruña, Spain and PI of the ‘FUNDEU’ project, financed by the NextGenerationEU framework.

Annegret Brauss (MSc Modern Chinese Studies, 2012) is now working as manager of business development for H2 Energy, a company driving the development of green hydrogen in Europe.

Gordon Barrett (MPhil Modern Chinese Studies, 2007) started a 3-year post-doctorate on the European Research Council-funded NEWORLD@A project (based at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester).

Bhavya Bishnoi (MSc Modern South Asian Studies, 2016) was elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly from Adampur in Haryana, India in November 2022. He is the youngest legislator in the 90-member state assembly.

Neil Briscoe (DPhil International Relations, 2000) is Head of Policy at Wilton Park, an executive agency of the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office.

Davide Cadeddu (Senior Member, 2022) has been elected Life Member of Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge, and has been nominated Professor of History of Political Theory at the University of Milan.

Giovanni Cadioli (MSc Russian and East European Studies, 2012; DPhil History 2013) has won a three-year Research Fellowship at the Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies (SPGI), University of Padua. The Italian title is “Ricercatore a tempo determinato – fascia A” (Fixed term researcher – tier A). This marks a continuation, with a higher qualification, of affiliation with the University of Padua.

Noé Cornago (Visiting Fellow, 2011-2012) is a CPD Research Fellow at the Centre on Public Diplomacy, Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California.

Anna Coyet (née Komheden) (MPhil European studies, 2000) is the new Senior International Advisor at the Swedish National Audit Office, with responsibility for Nordic cooperation, EU relations, coordination of peer review of supreme audit institutions, and audit of international organisations.

Otilia Dhand (MPhil Russian and East European Studies, 2004) is joining Temasek, a global investment company headquartered in Singapore, as the Director for Institutional Relations based in Brussels. She will advise the board of directors and the management team on EU policies and geopolitics.

Kathleen Derose (MSc Contemporary Chinese Studies, 2014) has joined the following boards as a non-executive director: The London Stock Exchange Group, Experian, Voya Financial, and Enfusion.

Suriya Edwards (MPhil Development Studies, 2001) recently joined the Partnership at the law firm, Foot Anstey LLP. She is a construction lawyer and the firm’s net zero construction lead. Suriya’s practice tackles the complex issues surrounding climate change in the built environment, a particularly big emitter of 25% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions. She does this by focusing on solutions, such as climate-aligned contracting (working with The Chancery Lane Project).

Kyrre Elvenes Brækhus (MPhil International Relations, 2003) is the Minister Counsellor and Deputy Head of Mission, at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Yangon.

Simón Escoffier (DPhil Sociology, 2011; SCR Member 2018-2019) is now an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Hart Nadav Feuer (MPhil Development Studies, 2006) received tenure as Associate Professor in the Faculty of Agriculture, Kyoto University. He is one of only three non-Japanese academics of the 120 researchers in the Faculty.

Mathieu Gasparini (MSc African Studies, 2006) is starting a new position as Head of HR Management at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Tressa Guenov (MSc Politics Research, 2002) took on the role of Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, US Department of Defense.

Nathan Harper (MPhil Social Anthropology, 2010) is the Country Director for the Jordan Mission at Medair International.

Tanya Samara Herfurth (MPP, 2020) recently started working as Manager for International Affairs, responsible for EU policymaking, at the German Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (Verband Forschender Arzneimittelhersteller e.V. (vfa)) in Berlin. The vfa represents the interests of 48 leading global research-based pharmaceutical companies, including their subsidiaries and affiliated companies.

Christian Heller (MPhil Modern Middle Eastern Studies, 2013) joined Amazon Web Services supporting their public sector team in Washington DC.

Marion Isaacs (MSc African Studies, 2009) produced a feature documentary entitled ‘Milisuthando‘, set in past, present, and future South Africa which premiered in competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

Robert Kilpatrick’s (Senior Member, 2022) field is Health Innovation and Social Impact. Together with Scientific American, Phenome Health, and Google, he has developed content for a custom media project titled The New Science of Wellness. He is developing a second media project: Healthspan. The Science of Ageing and Longevity, with the aim of empowering people to live better and longer.

Stefan B. Kirmse (MPhil Russian and East European Studies, 2003) has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant (2023-2028) as head of a team of researchers in the interdisciplinary project “In Pursuit of ‘Legality’ and ‘Justice’: Minority Struggles in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union”. The project will be based at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin.

Helena F. S. Lopes (DPhil History, 2013) has been appointed Lecturer in Modern Asian History at Cardiff University.

Jaime Lluch (Visiting Fellow, 2010-2011) obtained tenure and was promoted to full professor in Political Science at the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan. This semester he is teaching a seminar on “Constitutionalism and National Pluralism” at the UPR.

Edward Melhuish (Senior Member, 2016-2022) was invited by Nicola Sturgeon, Former First Minister of Scotland to join the International Council of Education Advisers, which advises the Scottish government on future education policy. This follows from similar work for the Republic of Ireland government.

Elena Minina (MSc Comparative International Education; PhD Educational Studies, 2014) is a Lecturer in International Comparative Education with the School of Education, Communication and Society, King’s College London

Marco Moraes (DPhil International Relations, 2015) has been appointed Legal Officer at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva.

Munkhjargal Nergui (MSt Diplomatic Studies, 2019) is the first Secretary at the Embassy of Mongolia in London

Joshua Nott (MSc African Studies, 2017) is a Manager of Global Growth at Schmidt Futures. Schmidt Futures is a philanthropic initiative of Eric and Wendy Schmidt.

Professor Mohammad Nurunnabi (Senior Member) from Prince Sultan University was invited as a distinguished panel speaker at the 77th UN Day in Saudi Arabia, in a session titled – “Emerging and innovative approaches of partnerships in Academia”. Prince Sultan University is the First Saudi University to pledge to achieve Net Zero by 2060.

Chris O’Flaherty (Hudson Fellow, 2017-2018) is now the UK’s Defence Attaché in Tripoli, Libya. 

Aries Poon (MSc Public Policy, 2015) has been appointed Director and Head of Asia-Pacific economics and country-risk research at S&P Global Market Intelligence. He is based in Hong Kong.

Indrajit Roy (DPhil International Development, 2008) was recently appointed as Co-Director of the York Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre. He was also recently elected Executive Trustee of the UK Political Studies Association and on the Council of the UK Development Studies Association.

Sherry-Lee Singh (Abrahams) (MPhil International Relations, 2004) is starting a new position as Senior Director of Supplier at Walmart, US. Sherry will collaborate with the organisation’s leaders, teams, and stakeholders in this role to build an inclusive supply chain.

Kevin Trowel (MPhil Russian & East European Studies, 2003) left his post as Deputy Chief of Criminal Appeals for the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York to become a Principal in the Free and Fair Litigation Group.

Raphael Susewind (MSc Contemporary India, 2009) will join the LSE in July, as Associate Professorial Lecturer in Qualitative Methods at the Department of Methodology.

Kassie Scott (Msc Social Data Science, 2020) is working in Business Development for the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development in Washington, D.C.

Krzysztof Szubert (Senior Member, 2019) was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General to a two-year term to serve on his inaugural Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Leadership Panel and appointed as the Vice President of the Managing Board & CEO of PKO TFI.

Roxanne Varzi (Visiting Senior Iran Fellow, 2004-2005) became a full professor in 2018 and staged a reading of her new play Yalda: an Iranian Twelfth Night through the University of California, Irvine, New Swan Shakespeare Center.

A. Nuri Yurdusev (Senior member, 2003) has been elected as the President of the Association of Academies and Societies of Sciences in Asia (AASSA).

Pēteris Zilgalvis (Fellow, 2013-24) is a Judge at the General Court, Court of Justice of the European Union, and was elected to the Management Board (Conseil de gestion) of the General Court for the period 2022-2025.

Nadhirah Zanudin (MSt Diplomatic Studies, 2019) has been promoted to Political Counsellor at the Embassy of Malaysia in Manila, Philippines. Prior to this, she was First Secretary at the Embassy of Malaysia in Washington D.C.

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Antonian Publications

Books by Fellows and alumni of St Antony’s College

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Antonian Publications

Books by Fellows and alumni of St Antony’s College

The Antonian | December 2023

Fellows of St Antony’s

Ramon Sarró (Fellow)

Inventing an African Alphabet

Cambridge University Press 2023

In 1978, Congolese inventor David Wabeladio Payi (1958–2013) proposed a new writing system, called Mandombe. Since then, Mandombe has grown and now has thousands of learners in not only the Democratic Republic of Congo but also France, Angola and many other countries. Drawing upon Ramon Sarró’s friendship with Wabeladio, this book tells the story of Wabeladio, his alphabet and the creativity that both continue to inspire. A member of the Kimbanguist church, which began as an anticolonial movement in 1921, Wabeladio and his script were deeply influenced by spirituality and Kongo culture. Combining biography, art, and religion, Sarró explores a range of ideas, from the role of pilgrimage and landscape in Wabeladio’s life to the intricacies and logic of Mandombe. Sarró situates the creative individual within a rich context of anthropological, historical and philosophical scholarship, offering a new perspective on the relationships between imagination, innovation and revelation.

Avi Shlaim (Emeritus Fellow)

Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab -Jew (Oneworld 2023)

In July 1950, Avi Shlaim, aged five, and his family were forced into exile, fleeing their beloved Iraq for the new state of Israel.

Now Iraqi Jews, a once flourishing community of over 130,000, tracing their history back 2,600 years, are all but extinct. For many, this tells of a timeless clash between Arab and Jewish civilisations, the heroic mission of Zionism to rescue Eastern Jews from backward and inhospitable nations and unceasing persecution as the fate of the Jewish people.

Avi Shlaim tears up this script.  In Iraq, there had been a long tradition of religious tolerance.  The Jews were just one minority among many.  Unlike Europe, Iraq did not have a “Jewish problem”.  The Jews were well integrated into Iraqi society.  His parents had many Muslim friends in Baghdad and no interest in Zionism.  As anti-Semitism grew in Iraq, especially after the birth of Israel, the Zionist underground fanned the flames to accelerate an exodus.

Upon arrival in Israel, Iraqi Jews, once celebrated for their ancient heritage and rich culture, were treated as inferior and their native Arabic language viewed with contempt.  Their history was rewritten to serve the Zionist master narrative.

This memoir reanimates the vanishing world of Iraqi Jews.  Weaving together the personal, familial and political, it offers a fresh perspective on the history of the Jews of the Arab lands.

Robert Service (Emeritus Fellow)

Blood on the Snow (Pan Macmillan, 2023)

In Blood on the Snow, Robert Service returns to the subject that has formed the backbone of his long and distinguished career: the Russian Revolution.

For Service, the great unanswered question is how to reconcile the two vital narratives that underpin the extraordinary but troubled events of 1917. One puts the blame squarely on Tsar Nicholas II and on Alexander Kerensky’s provisional government that deposed him. The other is the view from the bottom, that of the workers and peasants who wanted democratic socialism, not the Bolshevik dictatorship imposed by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and his successors.

Service’s vivid and revisionist account spans the period from the outbreak of the First World War to Lenin’s death in 1924. In it, he reveals that key seeds of the revolution were sown by the Tsar’s decision to join the war against Germany in 1914. He shows with brutal clarity how those events played out, eventually leading to the establishment of the totalitarian Soviet regime, which would endure for the next seven decades.
Nicholas II, Kerensky and Lenin are to the fore, but Service enriches his narrative by drawing on little-known diaries of those such as the Vologda peasant Alexander Zamaraev, the NCO Alexei Shtukaturov and the Moscow accounts clerk Nikita Okunev. Through the testimony of these ‘ordinary’ people, Service traces the tortuous path that Russia took through war, revolution and civil war.

Antonians

Olga Akroyd (MSc Russian and East European Studies, 2009)

Presidents and Place: America’s Favorite Sons [co-edited]. Lexington Books, 2023

Presidents and Place: America’s Favorite Sons highlights the interrelationship between America’s leading political icons and various facets of space and place, including places of birth and death as well as regional allegiances, among others. The chapters examine the legacy of relationships between presidents and place in a variety of social and cultural forms, ranging from famous political campaigns to television series to developments in tourism. Beginning with the political iconography of New York’s Federal Hall in early eighteenth-century America and ending with a focus on the Republican Party’s electoral relationship with the South, the interdisciplinary and methodologically diverse nature of the chapters reveals that place has more than a biographical significance in relation to US presidents.

Professor Dr. Harun Arikan (SAM, 2006)

Turkey’s Challenges and Transformation: Politics and Society on the Centennial of the Republic (Springer, Palgrave Macmillan 2023)

This book analyses the transformation of Turkey’s international and domestic politics in the past two decades through a comprehensive domestic- international nexus. It examines the domestic system, the main historical challenges and their international drivers and looks into foreign policy areas and issues by accounting for the domestic developments that affected them. Looking inside Turkey’s transformation on the basis of an interplay of external and internal factors, through the prism of critical scholars who all agree on the interdependency of national and international politics, it is designed to provide a thoughtful look into the future of Turkey through themes and regions.

This book offers an unconventional perspective on the development of nationalism and world history. It will be relevant for scholars, and researchers of European history, nationalism, and self-determination.

Miriam Bradley (DPhil International Relations, 2008)

The Politics and Everyday Practice of International Humanitarianism. (Oxford University Press 2023)

Through a combination of detailed case studies of humanitarian emergencies and thematic chapters which cover key concepts, actors and activities, this book explores the work of the largest international humanitarian agencies. Its central argument is that politics plays a fundamental role in determining humanitarian needs, practices, and outcomes. In making this argument, the book highlights the many challenges and dilemmas facing humanitarian agencies in the contemporary world. It covers significant ground – temporally, geographically, and thematically.

The book is divided into four sections, providing a wide-ranging survey of contemporary international humanitarianism. The first section begins by presenting chapter-length case studies of the international responses to eleven humanitarian emergencies from the 1960s to the present day across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Europe; the second explains key concepts and trends in international humanitarianism; the third discusses how the work of international humanitarian agencies interacts with a range of other actors-including media, celebrities, donors, states, civil society, military forces and armed groups-who have significant impacts on humanitarian response and outcomes; and the fourth turns to the operations and activities undertaken by aid agencies on a daily basis.

Elias Buchetmann (MSc Global Governance and Diplomacy, 2013)

Hegel and the Representative Constitution. Cambridge University Press, 2023

This book provides the first comprehensive historical discussion of the institutional dimension of G. W. F. Hegel’s political thought. Elias Buchetmann traces this much-neglected aspect in unprecedented contextual detail and makes the case for reading the Philosophy of Right from 1820 as a contribution to the lively and widespread public debate on the constitutional question in contemporary Central Europe. Drawing on a broad range of primary source material, this volume illuminates the wider political discourse in post-Napoleonic Germany, carefully locates Hegel’s institutional commitments within their immediate cultural and political context, and reveals him as something closer to a public intellectual. By exploring this indispensable thinker’s demand for the constitutional protection of popular participation in government, the book contributes beyond Hegel scholarship to shed new light on the history of democratic theory in early nineteenth-century Europe and encourages critical reflection on questions of representation today.

Chi-Kwan Mark (DPhil Modern History, 1996)

Decolonisation in the Age of Globalisation: Britain, China, and Hong Kong, 1979-89. Manchester University Press, 2023

In the 1980s, Britain actively engaged with China in order to promote globalisation and manage Hong Kong’s decolonisation. Influenced by neoliberalism, Margaret Thatcher saw Britain as a global trading nation, which was well placed to serve China’s reform. During the negotiations over Hong Kong’s future, British diplomats aimed to educate the Chinese in free-market capitalism. Nevertheless, Deng Xiaoping held an alternative vision of globalisation, one that privileged sovereignty and socialism over market liberalism and democracy. By drawing extensively upon the declassified British archives along with Chinese sources, this book explores how Britain and China negotiated for Hong Kong’s future, and how Anglo-Chinese relations flourished after 1984 but suffered a setback as a result of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. This original study argues that Thatcher was a pragmatic neoliberal, and the British diplomacy of ‘educating’ China yielded mixed results.

Julian Cobbing (Global/Planetary Crisis, 1963)

Growth Growth Growth: Human History and the Planetary Catastrophe. Mvusi Books, 2023

Growth Growth Growth retells history as a succession of pivotal crises linked to economic growth. Beginning with agriculture ten thousand years ago, each crisis led to an impasse until human ingenuity devised a technical ‘solution’ to fix it. These solutions included the alphabet, paper, clocks, guns, the printing press, the steam engine, the petrol engine, electricity, nitrogen fertilizer, and the computer. Each solution, however, played a part in the next crisis. This time, however, there is no technical solution, and the continuation of our economic system causes us to devour the Earth’s finite resources.

Suranjan Das (DPhil Commonwealth History, 1984)

Dreadful Diseases in Colonial Bengal: Cholera, Malaria and Smallpox. Primus, 2021 [Co-Edited with Achintya Dutta]

Dreadful Diseases in Colonial Bengal is the third volume produced under the aegis of the Wellcome Trust (London) funded documentation project ‘Western Medicine and Indigenous Society: History of Disease, Medicine and Public Health Policy in Colonial Eastern India, (1757-1947)’. While the first volume documented the context in which hospitals were established in Calcutta during the rule of the British East India Company, and the second analysed the trauma caused by tuberculosis in the public health system of twentieth-century India, the present volume brings together selections from official reports on cholera, malaria and smallpox-the three diseases which repeatedly struck colonial Bengal as epidemics. Its objective is to provide a useful resource for researchers, with ready entry points for reconstructing the incidence of these diseases, their mortality rates, social and economic effects as well as colonial medical interventions to contain them. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of studying epidemics that have struck human society in a historical continuum and the significance of the present collation needs to be viewed in this context.

Suranjan Das (DPhil Commonwealth History, 1984)

Gandhi and the Champaran Satyagraha. Primus, 2022

This volume looks back at the Champaran Satyagraha of 1917 through contemporary accounts and scholarly reflections. Organised into five parts, the collection contains passages from Gandhi’s own recollection of the Satyagraha; excerpts from the accounts of participants such as Rajendra Prasad and J.B. Kripalani; statements of indigo ryots; selections from official documents; and extracts from the works of historians and academics. Gandhi and the Champaran Satyagraha: Select Readings provides readers with an idea of how the first Gandhian mass political intervention in India has been recreated, contextualised, and assessed in writings, and captured through some archival visuals.

João Carlos Espada (DPhil Social Studies, Politics, 1990)

International Meetings in Political Studies (Est. 1993): Confronting the Authoritarian Challenge – Volume especial 2022. Universidade Católica Editora, 2023

The International Annual Meetings in Political Studies began in 1993 in Arrábida and were in the meantime transformed into the Estoril Political Forum, which celebrates its 30th edition in 2022.

This special volume is a compilation of the papers presented in this 30th edition.

João Carlos Espada (DPhil Social Studies, Politics, 1990)

International Meetings in Political Studies (Est. 1993): From Arrábida to Estoril, through Sintra and Cascais Vol. I: 1993-2002. Universidade Católica Editora, 2022

This book is the first volume of a hopefully three-volume edition on The International Annual Meetings in Political Studies (now called Estoril Political Forum) which started in 1993 in Arrabida. This first volume covers the years 1993 through to 2002, including papers presented by guest-speakers such as Professors William Galston, Seymour Martin Lipset, Steven Lukes, David Marquand, David Miller, Anthony O’Hear and Raymond Plant, Marc F. Plattner, among others.

João Carlos Espada (DPhil Social Studies, Politics, 1990)

Liberdade Como Tradição: Um Olhar Euro-Atlântico sobre a Cultura Política Marítima de Língua Inglesa. Dom Quixote, 2023

In this provocative meditation on a group of Euro-Atlantic political thinkers, João Carlos Espada argues that there is a tradition of liberty specific to English-speaking peoples that is one of the essential pillars of the Free World. Through a succinct description of the paths and ideas of fourteen outstanding thinkers, usually forgotten despite being very influential in the tradition of liberty, the Professor gives us a broad perspective of that tradition, using current concepts to clarify the meaning of “liberal, “conservative” and “labour”, and makes a persuasive and intellectual defence of liberal democracy.

Brad Faught (MSt Modern History, 1986)

Churchill and Africa: Empire, Decolonisation and Race. Pen and Sword Military, 2023

This book covers Churchill’s long relationship with Africa during the most important period in Anglo-African history, from nineteenth-century imperial rule to independence and the emergence of modern Africa.

Churchill first went to Africa during the British re-conquest of Sudan in 1898 and would spend almost the next sixty years dealing with Africa as soldier, journalist, government minister, and finally prime minister. Churchill’s story is one of transition from the height of late-Victorian British imperialism to the acceptance of African nationalism in the middle years of the twentieth century. He helped to shape British colonial policy in Africa from the first decade of the twentieth century through the Second World War and colonial Kenya’s Mau Mau crisis of the 1950s. Few British leaders were as closely involved with Africa as was Churchill.

Patrick Fridenson (Visiting Fellow, 1977)

The Truth of Liberal Economy: Jacques Rueff and John Maynard Keynes. Yasuo Gonjo, Kazuhiko Yago, Patrick Fridenson. Springer, 2023

This book provides historical, theoretical, and biographical perspectives on two giants of contemporary economics, Jacques Rueff (1896-1978) and John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946). The former French bureaucrat and academician championed classical economics; the latter British economist founded macro-economics criticising the classical school. Depending upon archival sources, including personal correspondences between the above two figures, the book describes furious debates between them and surrounding them.
The two economists proposed contrasting diagnoses over almost every event in the contemporary world economy: the reparations problem, the Great Depression, the gold exchange standard, and the Bretton Wood System. Keynes appraised managed currency to cope with unemployment, criticizing the classical gold standard; Rueff believed in the function of market mechanism, blaming the state intervention. The book highlights deep influence of Rueff, rather larger than Keynes, in Europe before and after WWII. The perspective of the book reaches today’s economic issues. The classical view of Rueff was shared in Mont Pelerin Society, a cradle of neo-liberalism. Rueff’s market-friendly view paved the way to the neo-liberal reforms which took place after the 1980s. The classical market theory of Rueff, together with dialogues with the labour unions, prepared the social background of the European Union. This book thus reveals the truth of liberal economy, from the 20th to 21st centuries.

Sandhya Fuchs (MPhil Social Anthropology, 2015)

Fragile Hope: Seeking Justice for Hate Crimes in India. Stanford University Press, 2024

Against the backdrop of the global Black Lives Matter movement, debates around the social impact of hate crime legislation have come to the political fore. In 2019, the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice urgently asked how legal systems can counter bias and discrimination. In India, a nation with vast socio-cultural diversity, and a complex colonial past, questions about the relationship between law and histories of oppression have become particularly pressing. Recently, India has seen a rise in violence against Dalits (ex-untouchables) and other minorities. Consequently, an emerging “Dalit Lives Matter” movement has campaigned for the effective implementation of India’s only hate crime law: the 1989 Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act (PoA).

Drawing on long-term fieldwork with Dalit survivors of caste atrocities, human rights NGOs, police, and judiciary, Sandhya Fuchs unveils how Dalit communities in the state of Rajasthan interpret and mobilize the PoA. Fuchs shows that the PoA has emerged as a project of legal meliorism: the idea that persistent and creative legal labor can gradually improve the oppressive conditions that characterize Dalit lives. Moving beyond statistics and judicial arguments, Fuchs uses the intimate lens of personal narratives to lay bare how legal processes converge and conflict with political and gendered concerns about justice for caste atrocities, creating new controversies, inequalities, and hopes.

Sam Halabi (MPhil International Relations, 1999)

Pandemics, Public Health, and the Regulation of Borders (2024, Routledge) [Co-Edited]

This book examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has engendered a new and challenging environment in which borders drawn around people, places, and social structures have hardened, and new ones have emerged.

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, borders closed or became unwelcoming at the international, national, sub-national and local levels. Debate persists as to whether those countries and territories that tightly managed their borders, like New Zealand, Australia or Hong Kong, got it ‘right’ compared to those that did not. Without doubt, a majority of those who suffered and died throughout the pandemic have been those from vulnerable populations. Yet, on the other hand, efforts taken to manage the spread of the disease, such as through border management, have also disproportionately affected those who are most vulnerable. How, then is the right balance to be struck, acknowledging too the economic and other imperatives that may dissuade governments from taking public health steps? This book considers how international organizations, countries, and institutions within those countries should conceive of, and manage, borders as the world continues to struggle with COVID-19 and prepares for the next pandemic. Engaging a range of international, and subnational, examples, the book thematises the main issues at stake in the control and management of borders in the interests of public health.

Paul Hansbury (MSc Russian & E European Studies & DPhil International Relations, 2012)

Belarus in Crisis: From Domestic Unrest to the Russia-Ukraine War. Hurst Publishers/Oxford University Press, 2023

In 2020, mass anti-government protests erupted across Belarus. The brutal crackdown that followed shocked the international community: the authorities arrested tens of thousands of citizens, shut down independent media and NGOs, and fomented a migrant crisis on the European Union’s border. But where many thought Belarus’s dictator, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, would fall, he instead turned to Moscow for support, intensifying repression. Many of his opponents fled the country. Then, in February 2022, Belarus provided a staging area for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, allowing troops and missile systems to be based on its territory as large-scale war returned to Eastern Europe once again. Many outsiders now view Belarus as little more than a Russian military district, rather than a sovereign country. Paul Hansbury offers a wide-ranging account of these two related crises. Exploring the domestic origins of Belarus’s political chaos and its international ramifications, he also assesses the effectiveness of western sanctions policy, as well as considering the history and prospects of Belarusian statehood. Does Belarus have a future as an independent polity? And how has Russia’s war with Ukraine affected Belarusians’ views of their dictatorship and the cause of democracy in their country?

Peter Harris (MPhil International Relations, 1977)   

The Empire Looks South: Chinese Perceptions of Cambodia before and during the Kingdom of Angkor. Silkworm Books & The University of Washington Press, 2023

The most famous first-hand account of the Kingdom of Angkor was left to us by the imperial Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan. But Zhou’s was not the only portrait of Angkor and the kingdoms that came before it. The Empire Looks South draws on other early Chinese sources to provide new and engrossing perspectives on early Cambodia up to and including the time of Angkor.

These sources include accounts in official Chinese histories, descriptions by Buddhist monks, the reflections of Daoists searching for immortality, and reports by Chinese merchants in pursuit of perfumes and other exotic goods.

The book tells the story of the Kingdom of Angkor through readable translations of important texts, some of them in English for the first time, and all of them set in historical context. The work concludes with several informative appendices, among them a portrait of Linyi, the pre-Vietnamese kingdom that was early Cambodia’s neighbour, again drawn from Chinese sources.

Renee Hirschon (DPhil Social Anthropology, 1971)

Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe: The Social Life of Asia Minor Refugees in Piraeus

First published 1989 [Clarendon Press, Oxford], published in 1998 [Berghahn Books, Oxford], updated and reissued in 2023 with a new Preface and Afterword [Berghahn Books]

Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe is a landmark work in the areas of anthropology and migration studies. Since its first publication in 1989, this classic study has remained in demand. The third edition is published to mark the centenary of the 1923 Lausanne Convention which led to the movement of some 1.5 million persons between Greece and Turkey at the conclusion of their war. It includes updated material with a new Preface, Afterword by Ayhan Aktar, and map of the wider region. The new Preface provides the context in which the original research took place, assesses its innovative aspects and explores the dimensions of history and identity which are predominant themes in the book.

Bruce Hoffman (DPhil International Relations, 1978)

God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America [Co-author]. Columbia University Press, 2023

Shocking acts of terrorism have erupted from violent American far-right extremists in recent years, including the 2015 mass murder at a historic Black church in Charleston and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. These incidents, however, are neither novel nor unprecedented. They are the latest flashpoints in a process that has been unfolding for decades, in which vast conspiracy theories and radical ideologies such as white supremacism, racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, and hostility to government converge into a deadly threat to democracy.

God, Guns, and Sedition offers an account of the rise of far-right terrorism in the United States—and how to counter it. Leading experts Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware trace the historical trajectory and assess the present-day dangers of this violent extremist movement, along with the harm it poses to U.S. national security. They combine authoritative, nuanced analysis with gripping storytelling and portraits of the leaders behind this violence and their followers. Hoffman and Ware highlight key terrorist tactics, such as the use of cutting-edge communications technology; the embrace of leaderless resistance or lone-wolf strategies; infiltration and recruitment in the military and law enforcement; and the movement’s intricate relationship with mainstream politics. The book ends with an array of essential practical recommendations to halt the growth of violent far-right extremism and address this global terrorist threat.

Jeremy Jennings (DPhil, 1975)

Travels with Tocqueville Beyond America. Harvard University Press, 2023

It might be the most famous journey in the history of political thought: in 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville sailed from France to the United States, spent nine months touring and observing the political culture of the fledgling republic, and produced the classic Democracy in America.

But the United States was just one of the many places documented by the inveterate traveller. Jeremy Jennings follows Tocqueville’s voyages—by sailing ship, stagecoach, horseback, train, and foot—across Europe, North Africa, and of course North America. Along the way, Jennings reveals underappreciated aspects of Tocqueville’s character and sheds new light on the depth and range of his political and cultural commentary.

Despite recurrent ill health and ever-growing political responsibilities, Tocqueville never stopped moving or learning. He wanted to understand what made political communities tick, what elite and popular mores they rested on, and how they were adjusting to rapid social and economic change—the rise of democracy and the Industrial Revolution, to be sure, but also the expansion of empire and the emergence of socialism. He lauded the orderly, Catholic-dominated society of Quebec; presciently diagnosed the boisterous but dangerously chauvinistic politics of Germany; considered England the freest and most unequal place on Earth; deplored the poverty he saw in Ireland; and championed French colonial settlement in Algeria.

Drawing on correspondence, published writings, speeches, and the recollections of contemporaries, Travels with Tocqueville Beyond America is a panoramic combination of biography, history, and political theory that fully reflects the complex, restless mind at its centre.

Hartmut Kaelble (Research Fellow, 1975-76)

The Rich and the Poor in Modern Europe 1890-2020. Berghahn Publishers New York 2023

As social inequality grows, historical analysis on wealth and income distribution across the 20th century often does not take into account inequality of education, health, housing and chances of social mobility, nor does it differentiate statistical inequality from the realities of peoples’ actual experience. With this broad understanding in mind, in a long look back on the history of social inequality in Europe, The Rich and the Poor in Modern Europe addresses these neglected subjects. It also tackles the commonplace notion that modern capitalism inevitably produces wealth gaps and asks whether the facts and figures we possess also lead to alternate interpretations of examples of mitigated inequality. Covering the 20th century and the beginnings of the 21st century in Europe through wars and economic crises, periods of unprecedented economic prosperity and staggering economies, both exacerbating and dampening the problem, Hartmut Kaelble offers a response to understanding our present-day challenge of social inequality.

Isaac Kardon (MPhil Modern Chinese Studies, 2007)

China’s Law of the Sea: The New Rules of Maritime Order. Yale University Press, 2023

An in-depth examination of the law and geopolitics of China’s maritime disputes and their implications for the rules of the international law of the sea. This book provides an empirical account of whether and how China is changing “the rules” of international order—specifically, the international law of the sea.
 
Conflicts over specific rules lie at the heart of the disputes, which are about much more than sovereignty over islands and rocks in the South and East China Seas. Instead, the main contests concern the strategic maritime space associated with those islands. To consolidate control over this vital maritime space, China’s leaders have begun to implement “China’s law of the sea”: building domestic legal institutions, bureaucratic organizations, and a naval and maritime law enforcement apparatus to establish China’s preferred maritime rules on the water and in the diplomatic arena. China’s maritime disputes offer unique insights into the nature and scope of China’s challenge to international order.

Hilary Kilpatrick (DPhil Oriental Studies, 1964)

Edited and translated al-Shābushtī The Book of Monasteries. New York University Press, 2023

The Book of Monasteries takes readers on an engaging tour of the monastic centers of the medieval Middle East, illustrated with a rich variety of poetry and prose. Starting with monasteries in Baghdad, readers are taken up the Tigris into the mountains of south-eastern Anatolia before moving to Palestine and Syria, along the Euphrates down to the old Christian center of Ḥīrah and onward to Egypt. For the literary anthologist al-Shābushtī, who was Muslim, monasteries were important sites of interactions between Abbasid elites and the Christian communities that made up about halkif the population of the Abbasid Empire at the time.

Each section in this anthology covers a specific monastery, beginning with a discussion of its location and the reason for its name. Al-Shābushtī presents poems, anecdotes, and historical reports related to each site. He selects heroic and spectacular incidents, illustrations of caliphal extravagance, and occasions that gave rise to memorable verse. Important political personalities and events that were indirectly linked with monasteries also appear here, as do scenes of festive court life and gruesome murders. Through these accounts, al-Shābushtī offers readers a meditation on the splendor of Abbasid culture as well as moral and philosophical lessons: the ephemerality of power; the virtues of generosity and tolerance; the effectiveness of eloquence in prose and poetry; and the fleeting nature of pleasure and beauty. Translated into English for the first time, The Book of Monasteries offers an entertaining panorama of religious, political, and literary life during the Abbasid era. A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

Herbert Klein (DPhil History, 1975)

 Brazil: An Economic and Social History from Early Man to the 21st Century. Cambridge University Press, 2023

This book is the first modern survey of the economic and social history of Brazil from early man to today. Drawing from a wide range of qualitative and quantitative data, it provides a comprehensive overview of the major developments that defined the evolution of Brazil. Beginning with the original human settlements in pre-Colombian society, it moves on to discuss the Portuguese Empire and colonization, specifically the importance of slave labour, sugar, coffee, and gold in shaping Brazil’s economic and societal development. Finally, it analyses the revolutionary changes that have occurred in the past half century, transforming Brazil from a primarily rural and illiterate society to an overwhelmingly urban, literate, and industrial one. Sweeping and influential, Herbert S. Klein and Francisco Vidal Luna’s synthesis is the first of its kind on Brazil.

Susannah Kennedy (DPhil Social Anthropology, 1989)

Reading Jane: A Daughter’s Memoir. Sibylline Press, 2023

A gripping memoir that shows what freedom looks like when we choose to examine the uncomfortable past.

Jane is to the world a charismatic personality – opinionated, an inner-city teacher and public activist, a lover of Italy, proud and successful – who thrives on a carefully crafted life narrative. Susannah, her beautiful only daughter and her intended protégé, senses the stricter, darker truth, and fights to resist the control imposed on her by her mother’s narcissistic tale, especially as Susannah becomes a mother herself.

But then Jane at 75, healthy and fit, chooses suicide, leaving her daughter with grief and the unwelcome gift of 45 years of hidden diaries. Daring to “read” Jane after her death is like unlatching Pandora’s Box. For a year, Susannah twists and turns to the truths she uncovers, comparing what she remembers with what her mother put down in words. As Susannah Kennedy re-lives her life through her mother’s eyes, she grapples with the ties between mothers and daughters and the choices parents make.

Herbert Klein (DPhil History, 1975)

Crops in the Global Market: The Emergence of Brazil as a World Agribusiness Exporter Since 1950 [Co-author]. Palgrave MacMillan, 2023

This book comprehensively examines the development of Brazilian agriculture by focusing on the crops which evolved from national products to international commodities on a massive scale. It traces the transformation of Brazil from a country with low-yield levels in 1950 to its current position as a leading world producer.

The first section of the book examines the modernisation of Brazilian agriculture through a government programme which transformed traditional agriculture through subsidized credit, guaranteed prices, stock purchases, land utilization laws, modern research, new technology and major support for exports. It also explores the changing structures of agricultural production and farm ownership over time, analysing national censuses from 1920 to 2017 to illustrate the increasing efficiency of Brazil’s agricultural workers. The book then discusses the history and evolution of the major Brazilian crops in detail, starting with the newer export crops such as soybeans, maize and cotton, before focusing on the traditional sugar and coffee industries. The final section of the book examines two other major areas of agroindustry: forestry and the evolution of the pastoral industries, as well as the growth of a meat exporting sector. The authors also explore questions of sustainability in the context of today’s climate challenges, and the role of Brazilian agriculture in the world market going forward.

Bill Kinsey (Senior Member 1994)

Agribusiness and Rural Enterprise. Routledge, 2023

Originally published in 1987 and now reissued with a new Preface by the author, this book is written primarily for planners, public administrators and project managers in countries or international agencies considering a development strategy in which agribusiness and rural enterprise projects are viewed as a desirable policy instrument for generating employment and income. It makes available the background and methodology of project analysis so that agribusiness and rural enterprise project can be designed, implemented and reviewed effectively in a wide range of circumstances. It outlines how to establish objectively the potential and limitations of agribusiness and rural enterprise projects; provides guidelines for deciding whether a project can be effective; considers the policy issues relating to such projects and suggests techniques for judging project performance.

Creating Rural Employment. Routledge, 2023

Originally published in 1987, this book discusses the problem of rural employment in developing countries. It puts forward strategies for action and is intended as an applied development manual to assist those organising rural public works programmes. It draws on the experiences of over 20 countries which have implemented such programmes and it draws out the lessons for developing countries in all continents. It discusses policy making, organisational features of programmes, the need to be realistic in establishing the potential and limitations of programmes and explores the problems of assessing performance.

Andre Liebich (Junior Associate Member, 1972; SAM, 2010)

Cultural Nationhood and Political Statehood: The Birth of Self-Determination (Milton Park: Routledge, 2023)

Cultural Nationhood and Political Statehood explores the development of the idea that every nation – most commonly understood as a linguistic community – is entitled to its own state.

Following several contemporary studies of nationalism, this book provides a critical examination of the peculiarly modern concurrence of cultural nations and political states as it developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The author argues that this is one of the most fateful coincidences of modernity: so firmly engraved in today’s consciousness that most scholars and policymakers assume the correlation of cultural nationhood and political statehood to be intellectually unproblematic, yet the consequences have been overwhelming. The conflation of cultural nation and political state has imposed an isomorphism of language, culture, and politics upon the world. It has pre-determined democratic practice by enforcing the doctrine that the will of the people can only be the will of a people. It has led to the assumption that every nation may become a state. The book’s originality lies in tracing the genesis and the elaboration over time of this curious contemporary assumption.

John C Maher (Senior Member 2008)

The World of Coronaspeak: Mockdown, PCR and Surgeon’s Finger. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023

This book explores the concept of Coronaspeak, the language adopted by the global community as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; it involves jokes, slang, public health slogans, cliché, and coronalit (corona related literature). In Coronaspeak we see new vocabulary and coinage like solomoon (honeymoon without the honey), elbow bump or Coronafussgruss (German, ‘corona foot-greeting’), variant labelling in the Greek alphabet (omicron and delta), new drug naming (AstraZeneca), medical jargon (pathogen, R number), semi-technical (spillover, variant) and common expressions (stale air, rebound), and informal speech, dialect and nonce words (jab, jag, and ‘the lurgi’). The book highlights the capacity of words to adapt to shock and social disorder, and argues that they are part of disaster management, with entries from Italian, French, Japanese, German and Korean, taken from scholarly articles and print and internet sources.

Helena F. S Lopes (DPhil History, 2013)

Neutrality and Collaboration in South China: Macau during the Second World War. Cambridge University Press, 2023

The South China enclave of Macau was the first and last European colonial settlement in East Asia and a territory at the crossroads of different empires. In this highly original study, Helena F. S. Lopes analyses the layers of collaboration that developed from neutrality in Macau during the Second World War. Exploring the intersections of local, regional and global dynamics, she unpacks the connections between a plurality of actors with competing and collaborative interests, including Chinese Nationalists, Communists and collaborators with Japan, Portuguese colonial authorities and British and Japanese representatives. Lopes argues that neutrality eased the movement of refugees of different nationalities who sought shelter in Macau during the war and that it helped to guarantee the maintenance of two remnants of European colonialism – Macau and Hong Kong. Drawing on extensive research from multilingual archival material from Asia, Europe, Australasia and America, this book brings to light the multiple global connections framing the experiences of neutrality and collaboration in the Portuguese-administered enclave of Macau.

Georgia Lagoumitzi (MPhil Sociology, 1981)

Sociology in Greece: Its History and Development [Co-author]. Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

This Palgrave Pivot provides a concise history of the development of sociology in Greece. It provides a compelling narrative of the discipline’s embryonic state, its promising beginnings that aligned with its contact with the then robust French and German accomplishments in sociology. It continues with sociology’s entanglement with modern Greece’s turbulent history during the Civil War and the junta years. It charts Greece’s gradual recovery during the mid-1970s, which led to sociology’s institutionalization. Yet such institutional boom was not free of politicisation processes, many of which proved residual and resilient, stemming from the dictatorship years, as well as from Greece’s dependency during its process of modernization. This book completes this historical account by reconsidering sociology’s gradual embrace of a multi-paradigmatic orientation, its opportunities in light of the burgeoning Greek EU membership and extroversion. It concludes with charting sociology’s position in the 21st century, facing challenges like the Great Recession and its impact in Greece as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moshe Maoz (DPhil, ME studies 1966)

Asad’s Autocratic Dynasty in Syria: Civil War and the Role of Regional and Global Powers. Liverpool University Press, 2023

In 2011, the diplomatic and expert consensus was that Bashar al-Asad’s regime would fail, causing Syria to disintegrate into several ethnic enclaves or mini-states. A decade later Bashar is still in control, having defeated the rebels and gained the support of Russia. The years of internal warfare have brought about changes in the spectrum of parties involved in the Syrian state, and the outcome is inevitably going to be shaped by geo-politics. The Alawi minority still largely controls the Sunni-Muslim (Arab) majority. The other players are a gallery of everchanging allegiances: ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, and many other radical Islamic groups; the Muslim Kurdish and Christian Arab communities; as well as Shii Lebanese Hizballah. External horizon players are Iran; Sunni Turkey and Saudi Arabia; Jewish Israel; the United States and Russia. This study aims to analyse these various actors’ agendas, actions, and interrelations from 2011 until the present. It will discuss their ongoing politics and assess forthcoming developments. Both Iran and Russia continue to support Bashar, but compete for political, military, and economic influence. The US has greatly reduced involvement, keeping only 900 troops in north-eastern Syria, to protect its Kurdish allies and fight against ISIS. Turkey still occupies parts of northern Syria, to eliminate the Kurdish forces. Syrian and Russian military attempts to conquer this area continue sporadically. The Israeli air force has attacked Iranian and Hizballah positions with the tacit approval of Russia. However, Russia’s war on Ukraine in February 2022 may result in restricting Israeli interdictions and instead enhance cooperation with Tehran to counter the US and NATO. Both Russia and Iran have been incapable of reconstructing the massively destroyed Syrian infrastructure; the US and Europe are reluctant to contribute due to Bashar’s continued Alawi minority-based autocratic and corrupt rule.

Paul Morland (MPhil International Relations, 1992)

Tomorrow’s People: The Future of Humanity in Ten Numbers. Picador, 2022

The great forces of population change – the balance of births, deaths and migrations – have made the world what it is today. They have determined which countries are superpowers and which languish in relative obscurity, which economies top the international league tables and which are at best also-rans.

The same forces that have shaped our past and present are shaping our future. Illustrating this through ten illuminating indicators, from the fertility rate in Singapore (one) to the median age in Catalonia (forty-three), Paul Morland shows how demography is both a powerful and an under-appreciated lens through which to view the global transformations that are currently underway.

Tomorrow’s People ranges from the countries of West Africa where the tendency towards large families is combining with falling infant mortality to create the greatest population explosion ever witnessed, to the countries of East Asia and Southern Europe where generations of low birth-rate and rising life expectancy are creating the oldest populations in history. Morland explores the geographical movements of peoples that are already under way – portents for still larger migrations ahead – which are radically changing the cultural, ethnic and religious composition of many societies across the globe, and in their turn creating political reaction that can be observed from Brexit to the rise of Donald Trump. Finally, he looks at the two underlying motors of change – remarkable rises in levels of education and burgeoning food production – which have made all these epochal developments possible.

Tetsuo Ogawa Senior Member (Academic Visitor, SAM, SCR, 2000)

Public Policy in the Era of SDGs. Partridge International, 2023

This book provides an overview of public policy, but rather than describing a country’s policies, it deals with explanations for each area. By doing so, basic concepts, issues related to policy effectiveness, and approaches reveal researchers’ methods in describing its characteristics. In this way, the book explores how public policies and policy systems are performing sector by sector among developed countries. It will be clarified by many examples of how different the so-called “society” to which this document is directed includes developing countries and OECD member countries. This book also shows that public policy is still growing in the process that needs to be covered, and government, where public policies are undergoing drastic changes to allow optimism. Therefore, it cannot be handled either. The examples dealt with in this book are issues that have been studied comparatively.

Dr Shane O’Rourke (DPhil Russian History, 1988)

Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, Princess Isabel and the Ending of Servile Labour in Brazil. Anthem Press, 2023

Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna of Russia and Princess Isabel of Brazil were active participants in the struggle to end servile labour in their respective countries. They acted in defiance of political conventions which excluded women from any political activity. Both women were determined to do all in their power to further the cause of emancipation and to determine the terms under which serfs and slaves were emancipated. This book examines the political activities of the two royal women within the context of their respective societies and adopts a comparative approach. 

Daniel Peris (MPhil Russian and East European Studies, 1986)

The Ownership Dividend: The Coming Paradigm Shift in the U.S. Stock Market. Routledge, 2024

We are on the verge of a major paradigm shift for investors in the US stock market. Dividend-focused stock investing has been receding in popularity for more than three decades in the US; once the dominant investment style, it is now a boutique approach. That is about to change.

The Ownership Dividend explains how and why the stock market drifted away from a mostly cash-based returns system to one almost completely driven by near-term share price movements. It details why the exceptional forces behind that shift—notably the 40-year drop in interest rates and the rise of buybacks—are now substantially exhausted. As a result, the U.S. market is poised for a return to the more typical business-like relationships observed in the private sector and in other mature markets around the world. While many market participants have profited from and become used to the way things have been in recent decades, savvy individual investors, financial advisors, and even institutional portfolio managers will want to position themselves to benefit from the reversion to cash-based investment relationships in the years ahead.  

Priyanca Mathur (MSC in Forced Migration, 2002)

Discovering New India: Multiculturalism, Pluralism, Harmony. Jain University Press, 2022

A collection of thought-provoking and well-written articles by a group of progressive thinkers of the society, it reflects the country’s aspirations for national solidarity, economic prosperity and social justice. This book is an initiative to propagate the values we espouse, namely harmony and hope and promote positivity that can reduce violence and hatred; to critically examine issues of contemporary relevance in the context of the current socio-economic religious and political events, and to stimulate discussions on these disciplines in the public domain. It has been produced with the vision of promoting India as a model of unity and diversity. This edited volume aims at inspiring citizens to work towards strengthening India’s potential as a unifying moral force in world affairs while it is emerging as a global economic power.

This book has been specially curated by the Ekam Sat Trust, which was formed in 2021 to promote the concept of unity in diversity and social harmony under the leadership of Dr. Ravindra. It seeks to foster constitutional and human values through dialogue and discussion, particularly among the youth in India.

Ryszard Stemplowski Senior Member (Academic Visitor, SAM, SCR, 1974)

DZIENNIK AMBASADORA. LONDYN 1994 – 1999, TOM I, ROK 1994

Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych, 2023

Ambassador’s Diary. London, 1994-1999, Vol. I (1994)

Ryszard Stemplowski Senior Member (Academic Visitor, SAM, SCR, 1974)

ZALEŻNOŚĆ i WYZWANIE. Argentyna wobec rywalizacji Wielkiej Brytanii, Niemiec i Stanów Zjednoczonych, 1930-1946

Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych, 2023

Dependence and Challenge. Argentine and the rivalries among the UK, and Germany and the US, 1930-1946.

Chris Saunders (DPhil History, 1965)

Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Africa: New Perspectives on the Era of Decolonization, 1950s to 1990s [Co-editor]. De Gruyter, 2023

It is now widely recognised that a Cold War perspective falls short in unfolding the complex geographies of connections and the multipolarity of actions and transactions that were shaped through the movement of individuals and ideas from Africa to the “East” and from the “East” to Africa in the decades in which African countries moved to independence. Adopting an interdisciplinary, transregional perspective, this volume casts new light on aspects of the role of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the decolonisation of Africa. Taking further themes explored in a collection of essays published by the editors in 2019, the twelve case studies by authors from South Africa, Czech Republic, Portugal, Russia, Hungary, Italy, Canada, Serbia, and Germany draw on new sources to explore the history of the ties that existed between African liberation movements and the socialist bloc, some of which continue to influence relationships today. Chapters contribute to three relevant main themes that resonate in a number of scholarly fields of inquiry, ranging from Global Studies, Transregional Studies, Cold War Studies, (Global) History to African Studies, Eastern European, Russian and Slavic Studies: Reconsiderations, Resources, and Reverberations. Drawing upon newly opened archives and combining transregional perspectives with sources in different languages, chapters explicitly point out the shortcomings of past research and debates in the respective field. They highlight new avenues which have been developing and which need to be further developed (Reconsiderations). Selected case studies address the resources of those being active and involved in decolonisation processes, be it in East, North, West and South. They reveal: Which resources (both material and intellectual) are the actors drawing upon? On the other hand: From which resources are individuals on one side or the other reciprocally or intermittently (intentionally) kept away? (Resources). Finally, the third theme puts an emphasis on the historicity of the processes depicted. Studies point to the gaps and dead ends of international support, the paths that peter out, but also to repercussions and reverberations up until today. (Reverberations) Taken these three themes together, the individual chapters contribute to the overall question of: Which general historical narratives about the second half of the 20th century are changing based on these new research findings?

Sau Wai Law (MSc in Economics for Development, 2005)

Banking and Finance Dispute Resolution in Hong Kong: The Suitability of Arbitration in Private Disputes. Routledge, 2023

This book examines the concept of ‘naming, blaming, claiming’ in the application of arbitration for private banking dispute resolution. The author focuses on examining this issue using Hong Kong as a case in point, blending theory and empirical evidence to unveil how disputes are resolved within the banking and finance industry, which will enable them to explore possible effective and efficient mechanisms to resolve financial disputes.

The book offers a comprehensive review of the laws and regulations governing the private banking industry in Hong Kong and selected jurisdictions, as well as how they are implemented. It examines the clients’ perceptions through an innovative methodology for empirical studies. Describing how clients react to the laws and regulations and the potential adverse impacts to the stability of the banking industry, the author identifies possible factors that could trigger another financial crisis. Synthesising his analysis, the author proposes newly discovered self-corrective mechanisms embedded among clients and concludes with policy recommendations.

Lewis Siegelbaum (DPhil History, 1975)

Making National Diasporas: Soviet-Era Migrations and Post-Soviet Consequences (Elements in Soviet and Post-Soviet History). Cambridge University Press, 2023 [Co-author]

This Element explains the historical conditions for the seemingly anomalous presence of people outside of ‘their own’ Soviet republic and the sometimes-fraught consequences for them and their post-Soviet host countries. The authors begin their inquiry with an analysis of the most massive displacements of the Stalin era – nationality-based deportations, concluding with examples of the life trajectories of deportees’ children as they moved transnationally within the Soviet Union and in its successor states. The second section treats disparate parts of the country as magnets attracting Soviet citizens from far afield. Most were cities undergoing vast industrial expansion; others involved incentive programs to develop agriculture and rural-based industries. The final section is devoted to the history of immigration and emigration during the Soviet period as well as since 1991 when millions left one former Soviet republic for another or for lands farther afield.

Reflections on Stalinism. Cornell University Press, 2024 [Co-editor]

Reflections on Stalinism distils decades of historical thought and research, bringing together twelve senior scholars of Soviet history who began their careers during the Cold War to examine their views of Stalinism. They present insights into role of personality in statecraft, the social underpinnings of dictatorship and state terrorism, historians’ attachments to their subjects, historical causality, the applicability of Marxist categories to Soviet history, the relationship of Soviet history to post-Soviet Russia, and more. Essays address the transformation of a peasant country into a superpower and the causes and scale of domestic bloodshed. Reflections on Stalinism ultimately tackles an age-old question: Do powerful people make history or are they the product of it?

Vera Tamari (MPhil Islamic Art and Architecture, 1984)

Returning: Palestinian Family Memories in Clay Reliefs, Photographs and Text. The Arab image Foundation and The Educational Bookshop, 2022

This book is the culmination of an art project developed by visual artist Vera Tamari between 1989 and 1996, for which she created a series of fifteen terracotta bas-relief panels titled ‘Family Portraits’. Each of those panel was inspired by a family photograph from her father’s photographic collection, taken in Palestine between the early 1920s and the 1948 Nakba.

This book documents through the clay reliefs, photos and text, personal vignettes of Vera Tamari’s family from Jaffa and Jerusalem. The stories and images in the book portray the subtleties of life of members of a typical Palestinian urban middle-class community, capturing their social gatherings and daily activities. They appear to live normally and following the natural daily rhythm of life -before their forced exodus and dispersal.

The resulting narrations, supported by photographic representations and the clay reliefs are inherently not only about loss and displacement, but also about remembrance and renewal – in many ways, it is about ’RETURNING’.

Born into a Jaffa family, Vera Tamari is a Palestinian artist residing in Ramallah. She is a multidimensional artist specializing in ceramic sculpture and conceptual art. Her work focuses on nature and the Palestinian landscape and issues of women, history, and memory. She has exhibited widely in Palestine and internationally and is actively involved in the promotion of art and culture in Palestine. Vera has served for more than two decades as professor of Islamic Art and Architecture and Art History at Birzeit University, where she also founded and directed the Birzeit University Museum from 2005 to 2011. A book on Vera’s art and career Intimate Reflections: The Art of Vera Tamari, was published in 2021 by the A M Qattan Foundation.

Siyoree Thaitrakulpanich (MSc Social Anthropology, 2019­)

Thailand’s BCG Transformation: 40 Case Studies on the Bio-Circular-Green Strategy and the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy in Action

NIDA’s Sustainable Development and Sufficiency Economy Studies Center, 2022

The book outlines Thailand’s BCG (bio-circular-green) trajectory through information pages on different industries and 40 different case studies in the country. This BCG strategy is proposed to be probably because of the previous king’s SEP (Sufficiency Economy Philosophy).

Francisco Torres (SAM 2012; SCR Member 2015)

The political economy of Europe’s future and identity: integration in crisis mode. BONGARDT, Annette; TORRES, Francisco (eds)

European University Institute 2023

Today’s European Union (EU) finds itself in a permanent crisis mode – crises appear no longer sequentially and time distant but overlap and reinforce each other and even interact. If, as Jean Monnet put it, Europe will be forged in crises and as the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises, it is also true that multiple, major crises affecting the EU at the same time do not only stretch but risk to overwhelm its crisis response capacity. Yet, the EU needs to successfully address those crises to deliver results for its citizens and hold the ‘club’ together. There is also demand for some soul- and identity-searching, with a shared identity and values assuming special importance for facilitating collective action and leaps forward in times of crisis, such as at present, when the EU faces the need to stand by its values amidst Russia’s war on Ukraine while pursuing its main objectives and its current priorities for 2019-24, most notably the European Green Deal (EGD). Both – addressing multiple challenges and a shared identity – are fundamental for making the EU more resilient to shocks and European integration sustainable (and with a purpose) over time. And they are related.

 

Roxanne Varzi (Senior visiting Iran fellow 2004 to 2005)

Death in a Nutshell: An Anthropology Whodunnit

Bouncing Box Press, 2023

Alex is on the verge of dismissal from her anthropology doctoral program when her luck turns, and she lands a fellowship with a dioramist at the Museum of the Rockies. Only problem is, Alex hasn’t a clue about dioramas or dinosaurs, and, as she will soon find out, she’s not the only one faking it in this frozen landscape.

From New York City to Yellowstone National Park, we follow Alex, a whip-smart dyslexic-ADHD Margaret Meade cum Ms. Marple, as she explores friendship, identity, globalization and a murder against the stunning backdrop of the Rockies in winter.

In an era of fake news and science denial, a little anthropology goes a long way.

Zhe Wang (DPhil Human Geography, 2017)

Transnational Student Return Migration and Megacities in China: Practices of Cityzenship

Springer Nature, 2023.

This book is a study of the return migration of overseas Chinese students. By 2018, over 3.5 million Chinese students had returned from overseas universities to China, with the megacities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen representing by far their main destinations. In other words, when overseas students return to China, many do not return to their hometown but usually land, work and settle down in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Their return migration is thus not only transnational, but also internal-urban. This book adopts a multi-level geographical analysis to explore this important phenomenon, exploring why and how returnees choose these three cities and how they experience and interpret their everyday lives in these megacities after their return. In doing so, it highlights the importance of cultural logics and multiscalar thinking of transnational Chinese students’ return migration and illuminates how their transnational migration reproduces domestic socio-spatial inequalities. This book brings an important contribution to the fields of Cultural Geography, Urban Geography, Transnationalism, Migration Studies and Citizenship Studies.

Olufemi Vaughan (DPhil Politics, 1985)

Letters, Kinship, and Social Mobility in Nigeria

University of Wisconsin Press, 2023

Why was letter writing so pivotal to the everyday experience of Africans in the modern world?

In 2003, Olufemi Vaughan received from his ninety-five-year-old father, Abiodun, a trove of more than three thousand letters written by four generations of his family in Ibadan, Nigeria, between 1926 and 1994. The people who wrote these letters had emerged from the religious, social, and educational institutions established by the Church Missionary Society, the preeminent Anglican mission in the Atlantic Nigerian region following the imposition of British colonial rule. Abiodun, recruited to be a civil servant in the colonial Department of Agriculture, became a leader of a prominent family in Ibadan, the dominant Yoruba city in southern Nigeria. Reading deeply in these letters, Vaughan realized he had a unique set of sources to illuminate everyday life in modern Nigeria.

Letter writing was a dominant form of communication for Western-educated elites in colonial Africa, especially in Nigeria. Exposure to the modern world and a growing sense of nationalism were among the factors that led people to begin exchanging letters, particularly in their interactions with British colonial authorities. Through careful textual analysis and broad contextualization, Vaughan reconstructs dominant storylines, including themes such as kinship, social mobility, Western education, modernity, and elite consolidation in colonial and post-colonial Nigeria. Vaughan brings his prodigious skills as an interdisciplinary scholar to bear on this wealth of information, bringing to life a portrait, at once intimate and expansive, of a community during a transformative period in African history.

Nira Wickramasinghe (DPhil Modern History, 1985)

Monsoon Asia: A Reader on South and Southeast Asia  

Leiden University Press, 2023 [Co-editor]

Monsoon Asia was the first venue of global trade, a zone of encounters, exchanges, and cultural diffusion. This book demonstrates the continuing fertility of the Monsoon Asia perspective as an aid to understanding what South/Southeast Asia, as a connected space, has been in the past and is today. Sixteen tightly knit chapters, written by experts from perspectives ranging from Indology and philology to postcolonial and transnational studies, offer a captivating view of the region, with its rich and variegated history shaped by commonalities in human ecology, cultural forms, and religious practices. The contributions draw upon extensive research and a thorough command of the most recent scholarship. This volume will be an invaluable text for anyone interested in South and Southeast Asia, and for more specialized students in the fields of global and Indian Ocean history, transcultural studies, archaeology, linguistics, and politics.

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Scholarships – your impact

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Scholarships – your impact

The Antonian | December 2023

St Antony’s DAC Scholarship

Last year, the College launched a campaign to raise funds for a scholarship to support students who did their first degree in a Development Assisted Country (DAC) as defined by the OECD and are accepted to do a degree at Oxford, but who cannot come due to financial constraints. To make sure that St Antony’s takes the best students from across the world, regardless of their financial situation, the College’s Governing Body made the DAC Scholarship our funding priority. 

Thanks to the support of the worldwide community of Antonians, and other funders such as the Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Trust, we are already able to support five students who did their first degrees in DAC countries and won places on graduate courses in Oxford but who would not otherwise be able to take up those places.

Partnership with the Weidenfeld-Hoffman Trust

The Weidenfeld-Hoffman Trust (WHT) and St Antony’s College have agreed to a five-year partnership that will support three students each year who did their first degree in a Development Assisted Country with a full scholarship: the WHT DAC Scholarship.

The Weidenfeld-Hoffman Scholarships and Leadership Programme cultivates the leaders of tomorrow by providing graduates and professionals from developing and emerging economies with the opportunity to pursue fully funded master’s courses. St Antony’s contributes to the partnership by funding the Scholars’ Leadership Programme through its DAC Scholarship Fund.

The tailor-made Leadership Programme for the WHT DAC Scholars focuses on skills needed to become leaders in their chosen fields in their home countries and on a global scale. This unique programme is made up of three key strands: ethical leadership (moral philosophy seminar series), business skills, and communication training.

The partnership very much aligns with the strategic objectives of the WHT to support the young leaders from emerging countries who are passionate about social change in their home countries and the College’s aim to address under-representation and help improve equality, diversity, and inclusion in its graduate student body by awarding scholarships to students who have undertaken their first degrees at a university in a Development Assistance Country.

Partnerships with departments within the University of Oxford

Together with the Faculty of Economics and the Oxford Department of International Development, two DAC Scholarships are offered.

The St Antony’s DAC African Economics Scholarship is open to an incoming graduate student applying for an MPhil in Economics who has completed their undergraduate degree in an African country that receives official development assistance.

The Angelines DAC ODID Scholarship is open to an incoming graduate student applying for a degree offered by the Oxford Department of International Development who has completed their undergraduate degree in a Latin American country that receives development assistance.

DAC Scholarship Campaign

Offering the DAC Scholarship and forming partnerships with external funders and departments within the University would not be possible without the support of the worldwide community of Antonians.

The University of Oxford is keen for St Antony’s to offer the DAC Scholarship. It has offered to contribute £0.5 million if the College can raise £1 million towards the endowment of the 90s DAC Scholarship. Thanks to the generosity of those who attended the 90s Gaudy in September, we are already halfway to that target.

If you would be interested in supporting this endowment or the general DAC Scholarship fund, whether large or small, please contact the Development Office or check all the relevant details by following this link.

Gifts can be made through the website of the University of Oxford. Our donors from Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Switzerland, can make tax-efficient donations; please follow the respective links.

Partnerships with Clarendon and UKRI

Through the Warden’s Scholarship Fund, the College is grateful it has been able to partner with the Clarendon Fund to offer a fully funded scholarship in any course that is accepted by the College. In Partnership with UK Research and Innovation, we are also able to offer a full UKRI Scholarship.

Frankco Harris (DPhil Criminology) is currently a recipient of the Warden’s scholarship. His story to Oxford has been anything but ordinary. It has been a path marked by numerous challenges, setbacks, and unwavering resilience. You can read an interview with Frankco here.

Scholarships for students from Japan, mainland China, Hong Kong SAR and Kenya

St Antony’s has a long-standing relationship with the Swire Charitable Trust and is delighted it can continue offering the Swire Scholarships to students from Japan, mainland China, or Hong Kong SAR. And, the Swire / Oxford & Cambridge Society of Kenya Scholarship is open to a Kenyan student.

Current DAC Scholars

In the academic year 2022/23, we welcomed our first ever St Antony’s DAC Scholarship recipient, Samira Mohammed Ibn Moro who studied for an MSc in African Studies. And this year, we are delighted to introduce you to Debayan Das. You can read an interview with him by following this link. We were also pleased to award jointly with ODID a DAC Scholarship for this academic year.

Thank you

Graduate study at Oxford is costly and the financial pressures on students are high. St Antony’s aims to create scholarships for the brightest and most capable students so that we can admit graduate students from all backgrounds with outstanding academic potential. Each year some of the best students are unable to attend due to a lack of funding. To make sure that those who have been offered a place at St Antony’s are able to come, it is a core objective of the College to offer fully funded scholarships and to open Oxford’s doors to the very brightest without financial constraints.

To everyone who is supporting our students – thank you for being so generous.

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Publications

by Fellows

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Publications

by Fellows

Timothy Garton Ash (Fellow)

Homelands: A Personal History of Europe (Penguin, 2023)

Drawing from the people who lived it, Homelands explores how Europe slowly recovered and rebuilt from World War Two. And then faltered. Timothy Garton Ash has spent a lifetime studying Europe and this deeply felt book is full of vivid experiences: from his father’s memories of D-Day and his own surveillance at the hands of the Stasi to interviewing Albanian guerrillas in the mountains of Kosovo and angry teenagers in the poorest quarters of Paris, as well as advising prime ministers, chancellors and presidents.

Homelands is at once a living, breathing history of a period of unprecedented progress, a clear-eyed account of how so much then went wrong and an urgent call to the citizens of this great old continent to understand and defend what we have collectively achieved.

Arthur Stockwin (Emeritus Fellow)

The Failure of Political Opposition in Japan (Routledge, 2022)

The Failure of Political Opposition in Japan explores the dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan since 1955. It explores opposition party politics and the crucial need to dismantle single-party dominance to allow for economic, social, and political growth. In its consideration of electoral reform, the book compares Japan to parliamentary democracies like the United Kingdom and Australia. He concludes that political pluralism is required to break apart the post-war LDP monopoly of policy.

Hubert Kiesewetter (Fellow)

Demokratien und ihre gefährdete Zukunft (Peter Lang Verlag, Berlin, 2022)

This book deals with the eventful history of democracies from antiquity to the present day. 

Der moderne Kapitalismus und seine Überlebenschance. (Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, 2023)

Modern Capitalism and its Chances to Survive: For generations, capitalism has been disputed by scholars and economists as an economic system which produces more negative than positive results.

Tony K Stewart (Fellow, South Asian Literature and Religion, 2016)

Needle at the Bottom of the Sea: Bengali Tales from the Land of the Eighteen Tides (University of California Press, 2023)

An anthology of early modern Sufi tales. These enchanting stories from early modern Bengal reveal how Hindu and Muslim traditions converged on timeless themes of human morality, social culture, and survival.

Translated by scholar of early modern Bengali literature Tony K. Stewart, Needle at the Bottom of the Sea brims with fantasy and excitement. Sufi protagonists travel through a world of wonder where tigers talk and men magically grow into giants, a Hindu princess falls in love with a Muslim holy man, and goddesses rub shoulders with kings and merchants. Across religion, class, and gender, what binds these fabulous stories together is the characters’ pursuit of living honourably and morally in a difficult, corrupt world.

Jorge Heine (Fellow)

Latin American Foreign Policies in the New World Order (London and New York: Anthem Press, 2023)

This co-edited volume (with Carlos Fortin and Carlos Ominami), brings together chapters from leading Latin American IR specialists and practitioners. Given the rise of a Second Cold War, this time between the United States and China, it proposes a new approach to the conduct of the region’s foreign relations, that of Active Non-Alignment. Taking a page from the original notion of non-Alignment, but adapting it to the new century, it argues for putting the interests of Latin American countries front and centre, thus not taking sides in the conflict between Washington and Beijing. The resurrection of Non-Alignment across the Global South in 2022, as well as the recent election in leading Latin American countries of governments committed to greater regional cooperation and coordination, makes this proposal especially timely.

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Letter from The Warden

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Letter from The Warden

Professor Roger Goodman

I am writing this on the day that the largest global TV audience ever tuned in to watch the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Today also sees the arrival of the first cohort of new students at St Antony’s. In both cases, it marks the end of one era and the beginning of another one, since we are hoping very much that this will be the first year since 2019 that we can enjoy a full year of activity with all our students able to come to Oxford.

At the end of Trinity Term, we held our first Governing Body Dinner in three years in the refurbished dining hall now named the Wahba Dining Hall. The name is in honour of Dr Magdi Wahba whose family made it possible for us to complete the work on the Hilda Besse Building. Thanks to new fire safety measures, the Hall can now easily accommodate all 250 of our new students. Indeed, it now has the largest seating capacity (around 320) of any college dining hall in Oxford – and an even larger capacity for bops!

At the Governing Body Dinner, we marked the passing of all those who would normally have attended but were sadly no longer with us: Monna Besse (the last surviving child of our founder), Geoffrey Elliott, Derek Hopwood, Michael Kaser, Nemir Kirdar, Tony Nicholls, Sadako Ogata, David Washbrook and Ann Waswo. We also marked the passing of our former College housekeeper, Estelle Hussein, who looked after generations of students and, sadly, I must now add the name of our former Domestic Bursar, John Sellars, who will be similarly remembered. (A list of the obituaries of former staff, fellows and alumni can be seen at Obituaries | St Antony’s College; if you are aware of anyone who is missing, please do let us know.)

At the Dinner, we bade goodbye and paid tribute to the contributions of two members of the Governing Body who were stepping down: Dan Healey to retirement and Chris Gerry to take up an exciting new position at the University of Central Asia in Bishkek. They have both promised to keep in close touch in the future. This term we are excited to be welcoming three new Governing Body Fellows: Maryam Alemzadeh (Associate Professor in the History and Politics of Iran); Lenka Bustikova (Associate Professor in European Union and Comparative East European Politics), and Zbigniew Wojnowski (Associate Professor in Soviet History). I anticipate that they will have the chance to introduce themselves and their work in future newsletters.

As many people know, the University welcomes a new Vice Chancellor, Professor Irene Tracey in 2023. She will be surprised to discover how many Antonians there are playing important roles in the University’s governance: Tim Power is the Head of the Social Sciences Division; Diego Sanchez-Ancochea is Head of Development Studies; David Pratten is Head of Anthropology; Paul Chaisty is Head of Area Studies. Tim (ex officio), Diego and Nandini Gooptu (both elected through Congregation) are all members of the University Council. Last year, of course, David Johnson served as a distinguished Senior Proctor and Devika Devika was the College’s first (as far as I know) OUSU Sabbatical, serving as Vice President for Graduates, during which time both David and Devika were also ex officio members of the University Council. I suspect that there is currently no other college which has as many members so involved in helping the University steer its way through what look like very challenging times ahead. We are grateful to our colleagues for taking on these very difficult roles but also see it as a sign that St Antony’s is now at the forefront of helping define what Oxford is and should be as we start what has been named the Second Carolean Era under King Charles III.

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Antonian Donor Roll 2021-2022

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Antonian Donor Roll 2021-2022

We wish to thank all donors for their outstanding generosity and commitment to supporting St Antony’s College. Every single gift makes a real, tangible difference to life at the College, for all in our community.

The list of names recorded here is based on gifts received by St Antony’s College between 1 August 2021 and 31 July 2022. We have tried to produce as accurate a list as possible, and apologise for any errors or omissions. Please note that donations are sometimes received with some delay, especially gifts from the United States, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Germany, so if you have made a donation recently and your name is not on the list rest assured that you will be included in the donor roll in next year’s edition.

In addition to the list below, we would also like to thank our anonymous donors and those who have given gifts in kind to the College

Thank you to all who have chosen to donate to St Antony’s.

Individual Donors

Ms Stina Aava

Professor O Ladipo Adamolekun

Professor Matthew D Adler

Dr Nayef Al Rodhan

Milad Alizadeh

Professor Joan C Alker

Professor Roy A Allison

Ahmad Al Majid

Ms Danah A A Al-Mulla

Professor Abbas Amanat

Dr Carol Amouyel Kent

Emeritus Professor Evan E Anderson

Ms Jennifer M Angel

Mr Alan E Angell

Mr Krzysztof Arciszewski

Mr Toby S Ash

Dr Jessica Ashooh

Dr Brian C Babcock-Lumish

Dr Orest M Babij

Mr Siddik Bakir

Mr Richard J Balfour

Mr Robert E Beaman

Mr Richard D Bell

Mr Hazem Ben-Gacem

Dr Michael T Benson

Dr Ame R Berges

Professor Volker R Berghahn

Ms Elena Bernini

Miss Alexandra Biggs

Mr Christopher W Bishop

Camilla Block

Mr Richard L Bolchover

The Revd Teresa Bolin Waldron

Giacomo Borsetti

Mr Christopher Bredholt

Ms C Joanna Brookes

Professor Archie Brown

Mr Christopher D Brown

Ms Jessica M V Bryan-Bentley

Gregory Bucken

Mrs Monica Bucurenciu

Ms Erin Burns & Dr Giles Alston

Mr Andy Buschmann

Mr Peter Carter

Sir Bryan Cartledge KCMG

Catriona Cavender

Ms Hiu Tung Chan

Professor Sin Yi Cheung

Mr Paraskevas H Christodoulopoulos

Jeannette Cloyd

Dr Malcolm J D Cooper

Professor Paul R Corner

Dr Corr

Dr William F Crawley

Dr Andrew R Crawley

Mrs Marisa Crowley

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The Antonian

Michaelmas 2022

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The Antonian

Michaelmas 2022

Antonians in religion, Memories of The Falklands, Young Alum interview, Alumni-funded scholarships, new publications, Antonian prizes, career updates, and more!

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Young Alumni Interview

December 2023

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Young Alumni Interview

Devika (MPhil, 2019) | EDI Officer at the University of Oxford

“It is a matter of pride, to be an Antonian.”

Devika, who graduated in 2021, has just been appointed as EDI Officer at the University and was previously VP Graduates at the Oxford Student Union. She talked to Jane, St Antony’s Communications Manager, about her time at St Antony’s, her biggest achievements and failures to date, and her future plans.

Hi Devika! You came to St. Antony’s in 2019 to study for an MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies. Can you tell us a little bit about your background?

I did my undergraduate degree in English Literature, BA (Hons), from New Delhi’s Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi. As a high school student, there was nothing better for me than a good book of fiction and I absolutely adore English literature to this day. After completing my undergraduate degree, I did an MSc in post-colonial English literature from the University of Edinburgh, achieving a distinction on my thesis. It was after that, that I decided, okay, let’s do an MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies. This was a conscious decision to the extent that my parents had always wanted me to go to Oxford but also, I was ready to move into the world of policy and education. I applied while I was doing my Master’s in Edinburgh; it came at the right time and seemed like the perfect transition to the areas I wanted to explore beyond literature. 

You were a student during the pandemic, how was that experience and what did you learn from it?

Yes, I am part of – as Professor Goodman refers to us – the COVID batch! The pandemic started when I began my MPhil and it ended when I finished! It was by no means easy, especially from an academic perspective, because all of a sudden, the whole system was trying to cope with what to do with the thousands of students, some on campus and some not. It was not easy for the staff, or for us, especially with the lockdown and the college having to control our movements within the houses, around the campus, and so on. It was a very challenging time, I’ll definitely say that, but we tried and did our best.

At St Antony’s, you were appointed as Black, Asian, and Ethnic Minorities Officer. How did you manage to create a sense of community in that role during COVID? That must have been really challenging.

It was, it was – I was the minorities’ officer and I was also a peer supporter; both roles tended to blend into each other. St Antony’s paid for my training for which I’m very thankful. Most of the time, the sense of community came from a lot of personalised interactions with students. Students would approach me for peer support and then I would invite them to the events I was holding as minorities representative, which helped to build a sense of community, but it was a difficult time to fulfil this role. We tried our best online, so we had a lot of virtual events. We organised a couple of virtual games, including a murder mystery! It was all virtual and still a lot of fun.

I was elected as the minorities’ rep in 2019, and stayed on for two years. During my first year in post, we had virtual inductions for incoming students, which was surprisingly popular. Lots of students of colour were tuning in, and one of the first people to join was Pascal, who went on to be GCR President. It was a lot of fun. We also organised virtual Uncomfortable Oxford Tours, which were so popular. People were so surprised by the information but also the medium of these tours. We could really have fun doing this online and we literally created a virtual Oxford map for participants, so it was very accessible. It was definitely a time of innovation.

What are your fondest memories from your time at St Antony’s?

Some of my fondest memories in college, even though I am the COVID batch, are the bar, the events, and I love the CCR. I was lucky enough to experience the college post-COVID a bit as well, because I got to stay on an extra year after my MPhil. The college was so kind and offered me accommodation when I graduated and was appointed as Vice President Graduates at the Oxford Student Union. So, I have experienced all of the ‘normal’ aspects of college life, the move to virtual, and also the Hilda Box! Oh, my goodness – I have memories of the rain on the Hilda Box, Box BOPs, and the Box Bar!

I believe my best memories at St Antony’s are the people. I’m a very social, outgoing person and I have friends in other colleges, but almost all of my community was at St Antony’s. It just highlights how important college life is to the Oxford experience, even for postgraduates. That’s what I always said to incoming students when I did inductions as VP Graduates.

Some of my best memories are picnics at 21 Winchester Road, playing cricket in the University Parks, Bollywood nights, and karaoke nights in the Hilda Box and the bar. I was the one who organised the Bollywood night in the Box, I don’t know how much the staff realise, that St Antony’s is famous for its Box across the university – and we throw the best graduate parties! St Antony’s Bops are the place to be. Lots of people just turn up to the Bops because the atmosphere is amazing. It’s something students want to be part of as it’s just so well organised by the GCR.

We also have one of the friendliest porter’s teams in Oxford and as someone who has been to most colleges, it is a matter of pride for me. They have been incredibly nice and supportive towards me in my three years here and I adore them.

My fondest memories will always be with my fellow Antonians – staff and students.

What did you learn during your time at St Antony’s that’s shaped what you do going forward?

I would say it’s shaped me so significantly because to draw on from the last question, it was when I came to St. Antony’s that I found my community in Oxford. I truly adore the college environment, it’s not just your best friends and housemates who influence your time there, but also your casual acquaintance who’s doing their research in a different area to you. I have a very international community of friends and it is because of St Antony’s.

I always give credit to St Antony’s for allowing me to explore professionally as much as I could, whether it was running programmes as the BAME Officer or submitting applications to the Antonian fund to organise activities. The first committee I sat on in the University was the St Antony’s Interim Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee which was such good experience. I was also a regular alumni telethon caller when we were fundraising for the Hilda Besse, which was very exciting. The best part is when you recognise the person on the other end, and they do the same, ‘oh, I was here two years ago. I remember you’.

The Warden, Fellows, and staff at St Antony’s were incredibly supportive and were always willing to listen. I went to meetings as the minorities’ rep and I would always have opinions, sometimes about things beyond my remit, but they would always have an open ear for that too. Professionally and personally, at the college, there was a sense that your community will always be there to help you.

I will always be in favour of an all-graduate environment. I know for a fact that I’m starting with a plus point in most cases, because in my college I’m not competing with undergraduates for attention, it’s totally focused on the graduate experience, which can be rare in the University.

You have just finished your tenure as VP Graduates at the Student Union. What encouraged you to stand for this post, and during your year in the role, did you achieve what you hoped to achieve in your manifesto?  

At St Antony’s, I realised that I actually like representing people. I’ve always been a very social individual, but I was never social to the extent that I’m happy talking to 500 people at once, and I developed that at college. I’ve done public speaking since the age of three; it’s always been a part of life, with debating society and so on, but I believe it was St Antony’s and Oxford, that really developed these skills and taught me what being the leader or actually effectively engaging with an audience is about. My experience of public speaking previously was that you go up there, you put your points forward and you’re done. The transition that happened at Oxford, was that all of a sudden, the audience was interacting back with me as a public speaker. Though challenging, it led to me developing the skills to engage back and listen, I actually started talking to people about what they care about more than just standing up on a stage and debating on a topic.

Someone nominated me for the SU role, I have no idea to this day who did! I got the nomination and I talked about it with my friends, from my course, from the GCR. I said, ‘I’m thinking about standing’, and the reply I got was ‘it sounds perfect, you should do it!’. It was basically reassurance from the community that encouraged me to do it.

The best part and the worst part about being in a student’s union role is that there’s always more to do. I feel that the most important thing I have done this year is to leave a legacy for the next person to continue to work on. One thing that I’m hoping that I’ve achieved in post is to raise awareness of postgraduate issues across the university. I know that a lot of the senior leadership in the university is very sick of me constantly asking ‘what about the postgrads?’ (Thank you to them for being so patient with me on this!).

Within the SU, I have tried to make governance changes that take care of postgraduate students. I took a paper to the Trustee board where I said that we need to do a review of the students’ union as a whole in terms of how we are serving our postgraduate population. One of my legacy projects is the pilot Postgraduate Consultation Group, which will continue hopefully till 2025. I started it and recruited for it and it comprises 15 postgraduate students, from different backgrounds; colleges, parents, part-time students, mature students. My biggest achievement for the group is that I got funding for it from the university and the SU (combined £27,700). So, every student who sits on the group till 2024/25 will be paid. The overall purpose of the group is to represent postgraduate opinion to the university, beyond the single VP Graduate position.

Professor Goodman has been a great mentor, he’s always there whenever I need help. As has Dr Baldwin, and Filiz. They’re always there whenever I need opinions or advice about university and college matters. It’s so great to have collegiate support. And this support extends to others affiliated with St Antony’s like Professor Nandini Gooptu who was on the Vice Chancellor’s Nomination Committee with me and guided me through it. Also, Professor Patricia Daley, my incredible mentor in the role is going to be on Antony’s Race Equality committee and was with me on the Education Committee and Council.

All these individuals and many others, including my Antonian friends have truly supported and kept me going in this role – 35+ committees, events and projects can get quite hectic as you can imagine!

What’s next for you? Do you have any specific goals for your career that you would be happy to share?

I started my new role as the EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) Officer with the University of Oxford’s Equality and Diversity Unit, in September, after a two-week break. I am excited about the role because I am finally experiencing what it is like to sit on the other end of the table when it comes to the University and EDI. It is a short, fixed-term role for me to experience what EDI involves in Higher Education and I am grateful to Adrienne Hopkins at the EDU for the opportunity. Also, it is a good next step from Minorities Officer to SU Vice President to EDI Officer.

I am most grateful to the incredible postgraduate students at the University of Oxford, the Oxford SU staff team and my fellow Sabbatical officers for being a brilliant team. I have so many thanks to give to people, across the University, who have been incredibly supportive on this journey, and to St Antony’s College for allowing me to call it home and providing me with the community I needed in this phase. It is a matter of pride, to be an Antonian.

I know for a fact that I want to go into Higher Education governance, to make the student life and University experience better for all involved. My role at the SU really helped me realise that. Oxford is an academic democracy, run by academics; I love that about it and it’s definitely made me realise that I want to go into education leadership. I’m keen to stay in the UK for a bit longer, but I’m very open to international options.

What advice would you offer to incoming graduate students?

It would be foolhardy to say don’t be scared. I understand that Oxford and St Antony’s can seem like a very daunting space to be in at first. My advice to the individuals who are coming in is that it’s okay to be scared. I believe that courage lies in overcoming that fear as much as you can and the best part about Oxford and the college is that it’s going to be as good as you make it for yourself. So, if you choose to be the individual who sits in your room and gets a distinction on their thesis and their exams and that’s what you want out of your degree and your Oxford life, that is totally fine. But if you want to be the person who steps out, interacts with every single person who’s out there, participates in committee work, and multiple extra-curricular activities, that’s what your Oxford experience can be as well, and that is very valuable.

It’s what you want to make of it. Don’t think that you have to be a scholar. Don’t think you have to be a sports person. It’s a chance to reinvent yourself, and I hope that the incoming graduate students look at it that way. It is a whole new world and it is for you.

Final question: what do you consider your biggest failure to date, and what have you learned from it? And on the other side, what has been your proudest achievement so far?

My proudest achievement has definitely been the Postgraduate Consultation Group, for this year. They are an incredible group of people and they just represent all that postgraduates have to offer this university, and I am so happy to have played a role in it.

I would definitely say one of my biggest issues in life in general is that I’m so bad with boundaries. And by this, I mean I have a tendency to get over-involved and commit myself to lots of things. It’s great, and I love doing it, and that’s how my life runs. But one of the things I wish I could do more is to take a step back and appreciate things more as they happen. I have very fond, nostalgic memories of all the things that have happened, but it’s been such a rush, with the dinners, the meetings, etc., it just keeps coming.

There are very regular failures, for example, the world will never find out how much I’ve cried after a particular committee! I fail every single day. It’s an important learning experience, to realise that not every committee you sit on will be a hundred percent successful. In my SU role, there are far more things I’ve failed at than I’ve succeeded at, but it’s those little successes and the people around you that really keep you going at the end of the day, and that’s what matters.

I think resilience is a really important quality to have. This brings me to one particular failure that I can tell you about. When I was applying to UK universities for the first time in 2018, I applied to Oxford and I got rejected. I cried, oh God, the amount I cried! But this turned out for the best, and Edinburgh prepared me so well for coming to do an MPhil at Oxford. It was exactly what I needed and I didn’t realise it at the time.

Being resilient to change is something I find very important. I’m one of those individuals who personally absolutely detests change, but in my SU role, in particular, I’ve really learned the value of it. Especially as being identified as a person who pushes for change when the university doesn’t necessarily want to change. It’s been such a big lesson and one thing that has really helped me just stay resilient and happy is accepting change. I’ve noticed that when I get upset the most, it is when I’m not being reactive to change. As a community, I feel there is resistance to change and there always will be in the university and college, they are both old established institutions with their own traditions and practices. But the only thing that will sustain us with the values that we have as a community is when we are okay with accepting change when it knocks at our doors. It is by no means easy, I am very aware, but it needs to happen to progress.

Read Devika’s Impact Report as Oxford Student Union Vice President Graduates (2021-2022)

Find out more about the Postgraduate Consultation Group

Chancellor Chris Patten with Oxford SU’s President, Anvee and VP Graduates, Devika in May 2022. The first time in centuries that students sat on the Vice Chancellor’s Nomination Committee

Chancellor Chris Patten with Oxford SU’s President, Anvee and VP Graduates, Devika in May 2022. The first time in centuries that students sat on the Vice Chancellor’s Nomination Committee

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Sic itur ad astra

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Sic itur ad astra

Prizes and awards

1970s

Patrick Fridenson Fellow (GB, Emeriti, Honorary, Foundation, Visiting, Research, 1977). Lifetime Achievement Award of the European Business History Association awarded in Oslo on August 24th, 2023.

Simon Lebus (Modern History, 1979).  Awarded CBE in 2023 King’s Birthday Honours for services to educational assessment as Interim Chief Regulator at Ofqual in 2021.

Denise Nadeau (MLitt History, 1971) Her book, Unsettling Spirit: A Journey into Decolonization, McGill-Queens University Press, 2020, has won the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion 2021 Prize

1980s

Olufemi Vaughan (DPhil, 1985) John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, 2022.

Jorge Heine (Visiting Fellow 1984) In May 2023 he was awarded the Adil Najam Prize for Advancing the Public Understanding of Global Affairs by the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, where he has been a research professor since 2019. The prize, named after the School’s Inaugural Dean, is awarded annually to a faculty member for excellence as global public scholar and for advancing the public understanding of any international policy issue of major importance in world affairs. The citation partially reads: “Ambassador Jorge Heine embodies the Pardee School in one person: he is a lawyer, an IR scholar and a diplomat. He has been a distinguished public servant, a policy researcher and a first-rate scholar-teacher”.

1990s

João Carlos Espada (DPhil Social Studies, Politics, 1990). On 10 May 2019, Professor João Carlos Espada, Director of the Institute for Political Studies of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, was presented the Honorary OBE (Honorary Officer of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in recognition of services to UK/Portugal bilateral relations. The ceremony took place at the British Ambassador’s Residence in Lisbon, HE Christopher Sainty.

Bahri Yilmaz (Senior Member, 1994). Emeritus Professor Bahri Yilmaz has been awarded a fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation one more time. He will research on the topic of “The World’s Interest and Competition Concentrated in the Asia-Indo-Pacific Region: Current Situation and Future Perspectives” at the Faculty of East Asian Studies of the Ruhr-Universität-Bochum. EU Ad Personam Jean Monnet Professor and Fellow of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

2000s

Ariana Adjani (MPhil Russian & Eurasian Studies, 2005). Ariana Adjani’s impact on the delivery of vital improvements in patient care has been recognised in Oxfordshire LEP Business Awards, as Fine Treatment, the R&D and medtech company she’s the Co-Founder of, has won the Most Innovative Business: Highly Commended Award. Selected out of over 600 high-impact companies across Oxfordshire, Fine Treatment improves people’s health and the quality of life through their patented non-invasive treatment for different chronic diseases. The Awards ceremony was held at the Natural History Museum in the heart of Oxford.

Cristina Blanco Sío-López (Visiting Fellow, 2017) Dr. Cristina Blanco Sío-López (Santander Senior Fellow, 2017-2018) has been elected as Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (RHS) in acknowledgement of her contribution to historical scholarship: 

Samuel Brielmaier (MSc Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation, 2019) After his Master’s degree in Oxford, he completed a second Master at the University of Konstanz. He is very happy to have received the Dietrich H. Boesken Award for the best Master’s degree in 2022 at the University of Konstanz! In his master thesis, he investigated possible discrimination in the responses to citizens’ inquiries by members of parliament. Screening over 2500 studies, he identified more than 50 relevant experiments and aggregated their effects in a large meta-analysis. Two interesting findings stand out: the response rate is 1.5 percentage points higher for female than male constituents, and constituents from ethnic minorities had a 4.4 percentage points lower response rate than those from a majority. The thesis – and therefore the award, too – are directly connected to his studies at St. Antony’s, as I profited from two extensive courses on how to conduct state-of-the-art meta-analyses during his time there (also gives him the good feeling that the night-shifts in the dungeon were worth it).

Anna Davidson (MSc Russian and East European Studies (2019); DPhil Area Studies (current). Anna J. Davis (née Davidson) was selected as a Grímsson Fellow by the Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson Centre to conduct research entitled, ‘Becoming Arctic.’ The aim of the fellowship is to promote cooperation and knowledge as well as relations between international and Icelandic communities. The Fellowship was created by the new Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson Centre and launched in November 2022 at a conference in Ísafjörður; opened by the Prime Minister of Iceland, Katrín Jakobsdóttir. It is in cooperation with Arctic Circle, UW Iceland, Háskóli Íslands, Háskólinn á Akureyri, Reykjavik University and the biotechnology company Kerecis. at the Arctic Circle Secretariat. The 2023-2025 cohort is the first of its kind. The fellows are invited to stay for 2-6 weeks in the House of Grímur, where President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson was born and his family lived. The house is in the historic town of Ísafjörður, the capital of the beautiful Westfjords region in Iceland. The 2023-2025 application round received 251 applications from around 60 countries, with only 10 applicants selected. Each Fellow will deliver a lecture or take part in dialogue sessions at the University Centre of the Westfjords, or in one of the three Universities.

Asha Jibril (MSc Migration Studies, 2015) She was made the Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD) Class of 2023 Global Top 100 list in support of the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent and in celebration of the 75th Anniversary of WHO.  She will be awarded following the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, September 28th – October 2nd, 2023.

Rebecca Clifford (DPhil Modern History, 2003) Rebecca Clifford’s 2020 book ‘Survivors: Children’s Lives After the Holocaust’ won the 2022 Yad Vashem prize for the best new historical work on the Holocaust.

Ivana Gabriele-Smith (MSc Modern Middle Eastern Studies, 2021). She was awarded a 2023-2024 CASA I Fellowship to participate in an intensive Arabic language and culture program in Amman, Jordan. The fellowship is awarded by the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) and receives its primary funding from the United States Department of Education through the Fulbright-Hays – Group Projects Abroad grant.

Muhammad Jawad Noon (Master of Science in Evidence-Based Intervention and Policy Evaluation, 2016) has been selected for this year’s 40 under 40 Public Health Catalyst Award by the Boston Congress of Public Health (BCPH). This international award recognizes the next generation of leaders, entrepreneurs, researchers, scientists, activists, intellectual provocateurs, and authors who made exceptional contributions to the field of public health, health equity, and social justice.

Isaac Kardon (MPhil Modern Chinese Studies, 2007) was co-winner of the Perry World House Foreign Affairs Prize (leading to publication of article “China’s Port Power” in Foreign Affairs magazine, May 2023)

Imogen Resnick (MSc Modern Middle Eastern Studies, 2018) joined the Executive Board of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, a global NGO serving 2 million members worldwide in more than 1,250 congregations in over 50 countries.

Irina Roldugina (DPhil History, 2017) won the 2023 Leverhulme early career postdoc and British Academy early career postdoc. She accepted the Leverhulme award.

Okan YARDIMCI (Academic Visitor at the South East European Studies of Oxford at St Antony’s College 2019-2020) Okan YARDIMCI, a former fellow at the SEESOX, St Antony, has been selected as one of twenty-one who make up the 2023 Eastern Europe Fellows of Eisenhower. The fellowship is highly competitive, and recipients are typically accomplished professionals, entrepreneurs, academics, or government officials who have already made significant contributions to their fields. Since its founding as a birthday present to President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953, EF has connected and empowered leaders from all fields from across the world. More than 2,500 mid-career leaders from 115 countries have benefitted from the unique experience of an Eisenhower Fellowship.

Julia Zulver (DPhil Sociology, 2012) Her book, High-Risk Feminism in Colombia, has won the 2023 Conflict Research Society’s Book of the Year Award. https://conflictresearchsociety.org/

 

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