DEPARTMENTAL NEWSWIRE, HILARY TERM 20121

DEPARTMENTAL

NEWSWIRE

CONTENTS

1 From the Head of Department

3 People• New Staff• New Visitors• Profile: Rebecca Reilly-Cooper• Profile: David Leopold• Profile: Ainius Lasas• Sara Binzer-Hobolt

6 Research• Research Bulletin Board• Knowledge Exchange Officer• CPI Conference Report

10 News and Views• Politics in Spires Blog• Alumni Relations Office: travel

opportunities for academics• Distinguished Friends of

Oxford: call for nominations• Professional Networking Event

for Alumni• New Graduate Admissions

Brochure

13 Copy deadline: noughth week Trinity Term 2012

HILARY TERM 2012

From the Head of DepartmentHilary Term 2012

Dear Colleagues,

Happy New Year!

Let me at the start thank two colleagues who have recently left us – Sarah Percy and Sara Hobolt. They will be missed. Congratulations to Cindy Skach on the arrival of Louis last October! Congratulations to Marc Stears on the recognition of his distinction.

There was a welcome lull in the number of emails landing in my inbox over the holidays, and probably in yours too. But everything is more than in full swing again and 2012 is likely to be a very busy one indeed. Janice, Paul, and I with the help of the entire administration have been hard at work preparing for the 5-year Divisional Review – our second such – that will take place on February 6-7. All aspects of our activity over the last five years are under consideration along with our plans for the future. The review team, which includes externals Paul Heywood (Nottingham) and Paul Kelly (LSE), will spend two days in the Department. The review team will meet with students, administrators and academics. We may even ask if you can meet them, since they have yet to finalise the programme. My view is that the Department is in very good shape and has strategies (or plans to make strategies) worked out to deal with the challenges ahead. The purpose of the review, however, is not just for us to pass a health check but for us to learn from the experience of the externals and to get advice from the review team about how we may do things (even) better. The review will result in a report and a series of recommendations from the panel, to which we will be asked to respond. We will bring all recommendations to the Department for discussion.

Continued on page 2

DEPARTMENTAL NEWSWIRE, HILARY TERM 20122

From the Head of Department, continued

Two major reviews have been undertaken in the last year – (1)the Teaching Review, which for the first time provides good (if not perfect) data about our teaching and supervision capacity and need, and (2) the ‘size and shape’ review which, in light of the Teaching Review, our research strategy and our other declared priorities, considered our plans for hiring over the next five or so years. The big picture which emerged from the Teaching Review is that our stint capacity roughly matches our stint needs and that any new stint taken on (either in the shape of new posts or CUF conversions) should be balanced by stint reductions elsewhere. Moreover, we took the view that we should plan our establishment with our broader goals in mind – to increase studentships, bursaries, research allowances etc.

Even so, we are also this term in the throes of an enormous recruitment drive, including: the Alistair Buchan Chair in IR at St Antony’s (which fills Avi Shlaim’s Readership); a UL in IPE at Univ (vice Beramendi); and ULs in Comparative Government and Politics and in European Politics and Government at Lincoln and St Anne’s (vice Bowles and Hobolt). We expect shortly to receive the go-ahead to convert CUFs at Worcester and Magdalen (vice Ware and Wood) into ULs in Political Theory and CPE respectively. Looking a bit further forward, Nuffield has very generously agreed to fund one new UL if we provide another to match and we hope to get Divisional approval for that soon. But, in line with the ‘size and shape’ strategy, gains to stint made above will need to be balanced by commensurate losses elsewhere. In that vein, we

took the decision not to refill the post at Merton vice Percy and other reductions will be made.

Part of our ‘size and shape’ strategy, however, involves the aspiration to develop more early career researchers and teachers. We will be looking at identifying permanent funding for such positions, but we are aiming to take full advantage of the opportunity to spend from our some of our reserves – currently, about £1.1 million in total – to strengthen our REF submission by using funds to support a number of post-doctoral fellowships in areas where there is teaching need and where we are able to lever maximum value for our investment and attract the strongest field by attaching one year of Department money to other sources of funding to allow two year appointments.

We are also recruiting to our administrative staff. Thanks to Mark Philp and Rasangi Prematilaka, the Department was successful in obtaining Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) from HEFCE for a four-year full-time post dedicated to helping us collectively and individually improve our capacities for knowledge exchange and impact. We hope to hire to that position this term. Sophie Forsey, our personnel officer, will be taking a year of maternity (congratulations Sophie!) leave from the end of February and so, in these very busy times, we are looking right away to replace her part-time position with a one-year full time post. And we look forward to welcoming Maria back in March after her maternity leave.

We also look forward this term to our first excursion into executive

education as we welcome (jointly with SBS) around 10 Indian MPs to a tailored one-week course of lectures, meetings and excursions. What they want fits very well with what we can provide. The connections will be well worth making. We will also make some money for the Department. If this week is a success, there is the prospect that it might become a regular event over the next few years. Thanks to everyone who has agreed to lecture, to Stewart Wood for his efforts on our behalf in Parliament, and to Genevieve Garrido for her tireless efforts.

Finally, our efforts at development and fund-raising continue to move forward. The Development Committee chaired by David Hine had its inaugural meeting last week. David Hine and Mark Philp represented the Department at an alumni meeting in London last term. Thanks to them. We have high hopes to have two posts fully funded by the Teaching Fund in the next couple of years – at Exeter and at Christ Church, where again we must thank David Hine. Fingers crossed. It would be very helpful if all colleagues could think about the Department when fund-raising arises in your colleges. We fully respect the protocols. But we would like to be part of the action, especially if we can work with your college on joint funding of graduate studentships. Please contact me or David or Janice or Kate about any opportunities that we might pursue.

Stephen Whitefield, Head of Department

DEPARTMENTAL NEWSWIRE, HILARY TERM 20123

PeopleThe Department would like to welcome the following new staff:

•Mr Malte Hinrichsen, University of Amsterdam

• Dr Mirjam Kunkler, Princeton University

• Dr Maximilian Terhalle, Columbia University, Schiller University Jena

• Dr Alexandra Tulechov, Hochschule fur Philosophie Munchen Sj

• Dr Virginie Van Ingelgom, Université catholique de Louvain

• Miss Nino Zhghenti, University of Milan

Research centre and programme visitors are listed under each centre / programme.

The Department would like to welcome the following new visitors:

Research Staff:

• Dr Ainius Lasas , Senior Research Fellow, Media & Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe Project (started 01/10/11). Please see a profile on page x.

Administrative Staff:

• Kimberley Adams, Undergraduate Studies Officer (started 01/12/11)

• Charles Harper, Project Administrator, Media & Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe Project (started 05/12/11)

Other:

• Dr Cristina Parau, Part-time teaching cover (Departmental Lecturer) for European Politics and Society (01/11/11 to 31/07/12)

• Dr Scot Peterson, Part-time Graduate Training Officer (started 21/11/11)

The following Administrative Staff have left the Department and we wish them well:

• Nicola Shepard, Project Administrator, Media & Democracy (left 30/10/11)

• Elizabeth Griffith, PPE Administrator (left 11/11/11)

PEOPLE

Rebecca Reilly-CooperI joined the Department of Politics and International Relations in September 2011 as Departmental Lecturer in the Theory of Politics. Prior to this, I was at the University of Manchester for five years, where I completed my doctorate in political theory, and taught a range of topics in moral and political philosophy.

I have research interests across a broad spectrum of topics in contemporary political and moral philosophy, including normative and applied ethics, meta-ethics, contractualism in moral and political theory, and distributive justice. My particular areas of specialization are political liberalism, public reason, democratic theory, moral psychology, and the philosophy of emotion. My doctoral thesis was an examination of the idea of public reason and its role in political liberalism, and more specifically, explored the role played by emotion and sentiment in liberal theories of public justification. Moral and political philosophy has traditionally been suspicious or hostile to the idea that emotion and sentiment might have a legitimate place in our ethical decision-making. In my work I aim to show that this distrust is misplaced, and that recognition of the importance of feeling and emotion for moral judgement need not entail a rejection of the search for impartiality or rationally grounded moral principles. My current research expands upon this work, and explores how recognition of the importance of feeling and

Continued on page 4

DEPARTMENTAL NEWSWIRE, HILARY TERM 20124

David Leopold

Some readers may think that I have left it rather late to introduce myself, having been in Oxford for many years. I studied PPE as an undergraduate, later did graduate work in political theory – writing my doctoral thesis under the penetrating and humane supervision of the late, and much-missed, G.A. Cohen - and subsequently held a variety of fixed-term college and departmental posts. However, since September 2011, I have been a University Lecturer in Political Theory, and Fellow of Mansfield College. It is this last and most recent appointment which gives me the excuse for saying a few words about myself here.

I am a political theorist with interests in the history of political thought. My published work has focused mainly on nineteenth-century authors, including the Hegelian anarchist Max Stirner, the English designer and poet

William Morris, and – the one famous enough not to need a label – Karl Marx. My work is concerned with the structure and merits of these authors’ arguments, and it is driven by the conviction that historical texts can have interesting, profound, and thought-provoking things to say to political theorists.

Sometimes people are surprised to learn that I have written about Karl Marx. This is not perhaps because they are sceptical about the theoretical interest of his work, but because, given the scale of the surrounding commentary, they wonder whether there is anything left to say. It is a perfectly reasonable but mistaken thought. The twentieth century was in many respects a disaster for Marx scholarship; both the existing editions of Marx’s own texts and much of the secondary literature now need to

be rescued from decades of Soviet, and anti-Soviet, misinterpretation. As a result, there exists a genuine opportunity for serious and creative scholarship in this area.

Having recently published a book on Marx’s early writings, I am currently working on his critical engagement with the so-called ‘utopian socialism’ of Charles Fourier, Robert Owen, and others. Marx’s views on utopian socialism are often misunderstood. His assessment of the utopians is much more complex, and much more positive, than is usually thought. The social and political thought of the utopian socialists themselves is also ripe for reassessment. Their writings, whilst occasionally eccentric and fantastical, nonetheless contain much serious reflection on both the nature of the ideal society, and its relevance to the ‘non-ideal’ circumstances in which their contemporaries found themselves.

I consider myself very privileged to be doing this work in Oxford. The wealth of the library resources (especially for those working on historical topics), and the benefits of teaching such bright students, are widely recognised. Perhaps less obvious, but hugely valuable nonetheless, is the opportunity of working with, and alongside, so many colleagues whose work I respect.

PEOPLE

Rebecca Reilly-Cooper, continued from page 3sentiment in our practical reasoning might be rendered compatible with the search for objectivity in ethics.

I am also greatly interested in issues surrounding the proper extent of liberal neutrality, and am currently thinking about what the appropriate liberal response should be to social and cultural practices that seem to undermine the freedom and equality of citizens who, apparently voluntarily, choose to engage in such practices. In particular, I have a side project focusing

on contemporary beauty norms and those social practices and conventions that contemporary feminist writers have labelled ‘raunch culture’. The aim is to determine the extent to which such cultural norms and patterns of behaviour undermine the political equality of those who engage in them; and further, whether a critique of such practices can coherently be made on neutral grounds, or whether we can only object to raunch culture and stringent beauty norms by reference to perfectionist values.

In 2011-2012, I am delivering lectures on the Theorizing the Democratic State section of the first year Introduction to Politics paper, as well as teaching the MPhil papers Text and Interpretation, and The History of Liberal Thought in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. I am convening the Political Theory Research Seminar in Trinity Term and, in later years, I will be delivering lectures on the Honours course Bentham to Weber. I am also affiliated to University College, where I provide some tutorial and seminar teaching in political theory.

DEPARTMENTAL NEWSWIRE, HILARY TERM 20125

Pastures new:Sara Binzer-Hobolt

Dr Sara Hobolt has left the DPIR to take the Sutherland Chair of European Institutions at the European Institute, LSE on 1 January 2012. Sara arrived in the DPIR in 2005 as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in ReMiSS. Less than a year after her arrival she was appointed to a Tutorial Fellowship at Lincoln College in conjunction with a University Lectureship in Comparative European Politics.

In little more than six years since the completion of her prize-winning Cambridge doctorate Sara has become one of the most influential political scientists in Europe. Her numerous publications in prestigious journals, her prize-winning monograph on European referendums, her emerging scholar award from APSA’s Elections, Public Opinion & Voting Behavior section (the first person outside of the USA to be so recognised), and the large EU and ESRC grants that she has brought to the Department, all testify to the depth and breadth of her achievements in a remarkably short space of time. But Sara has excelled not only with respect to external recognition: her departmental and college teaching has been outstanding, her work supervising theses beyond the call of duty, and even her participation in committees has been undertaken with efficiency and good humour. Sara will be greatly missed, not only for her exceptional talent, dynamism and selfless collegiality but also for her boundless enthusiasm and charm. We would like to wish her well in her new position and to celebrate her achievement in obtaining, at only 33, a full professorship at the LSE.Geoffrey Evans

As a MDCCE Senior Research Fellow, my affiliations are to the Department of Politics and International Relations and St Anthony’s College.

Until recently my academic interests focused on the role of historical trauma and moral emotions in International Relations. For my PhD thesis at the University of Washington, I investigated the role of historical guilt in NATO and EU enlargements to Central and Eastern Europe. In 2010, the revised thesis was published as a book by Palgrave Macmillan entitled European Union and NATO Expansion: Central and Eastern Europe. Later, as a postdoctoral fellow at the United Nations University in Tokyo, I continued examining how the elite perceptions of state victimhood influence interstate relations. Among a number of case studies, I looked at the effects of the Rwandan genocide on US-Rwandan relations and the Srebrenica genocide on Serbian-Dutch relations.

In my current position at Oxford, I am pleased to focus again on the region that I am most familiar with – Central and Eastern Europe. While trying to

untangle the media-democracy nexus, I am particularly interested in how citizens’ trust in institutions and media influence their political behavior and subsequently the state of democracy as such. This new area of research is a natural shift for me because by education and profession I am both a political scientist and a journalist. For the last decade I worked as a freelance correspondent for the Lithuanian National Radio and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (Lithuanian Service) and as a regular contributor to the Lithuanian press.

PEOPLE

Ainius Lasas

New Baby! Congratulations to Cindy Skach and her partner on the birth of their son Louis!

DEPARTMENTAL NEWSWIRE, HILARY TERM 20126

Research Centre and Programme Announcements

Research Bulletin Board

Centre for International Studies (CIS) Director: Professor Kalypso Nicolaïdis http://cis.politics.ox.ac.uk

• CIS Events

• CIS welcomes the following visitors:

•Dr Sonja Grimm, University of Konstanz•Dr Diego Muro, Institut Barcelona d’Estudis

Internacionals (IBEI)

Global Economic Governance Programme (GEG) Director: Professor Ngaire Woodshttp://www.globaleconomicgovernance.org

• GEG Events

Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Fellowship Programme (GLF) Director: Professor Ngaire Woodshttp://glf.politics.ox.ac.uk

Profiles for the Programme’s three Global Leader Fellows for 2011-13 are now online: Dr Anar Ahmadov (Azerbaijian), Dr Luara Ferracioli (Brazil) and Dr Jin Jiyong (China).

Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC)Directors: Professor Jennifer Welsh, Mr Dapo Akande (Faculty of Law) and Dr David Rodinhttp://www.elac.ox.ac.uk

Events• ELAC looks forward to co- hosting another interesting

series of Tuesday lunchtime seminars this term with the Changing Character of War Programme. Speakers in Hilary Term include Professor Fernando Teson (Florida State) on Targeted Killing and Professor Daniel Joyner (Alabama) on Iran’s Nuclear Programme and International Law.

• ELAC is also planning several other special seminars, discussions and film screenings in the coming months, on subjects such as the Responsibility to Protect, Arms Trade Control, and Reconciliation and Conflict Resolution in East Timor. Visit the ELAC website or sign up to the mailing list to receive further details of these.

• All ELAC Events• ELAC welcomes the following visitors:

•Dr Ann-Christin Raschdorf, UNAMI Baghdad, Iraq•Mr Rodolpho Valente Bayma, CARE International in

Afghanistan

The ‘Responsibility to Prevent’ projectThe ELAC research project ‘The Responsibility to Prevent: Developing Ad-hoc and Systemic Strategies’ came to an end in 2011, with a final event in Oxford on 12 December. The keynote address was given by Edward Luck, the UN Special Advisor on the Responsibility to Protect, and representatives from Government, Academia and NGOs were amongst the participants at this high-level meeting. This two-year project was funded by the Australian Responsibility to Protect Fund, and focuses on a comprehensive strategic framework for understanding and implementing measures to prevent mass atrocities, and analyzes the effectiveness of preventive strategies. More information about the project is available on our website, and ELAC hope to continue research on this important theme in the future.

Centre for Political Ideologies (CPI)Directors: Dr Elizabeth Frazer and Dr David Leopoldhttp:// cpi.politics.ox.ac.uk

• CPI EventsPlease see a report on the CPI conference The Politics of Interpretation & The Interpretation of Politics on page x.

• CPI welcomes the following visitor:

•Dr Mathias Thaler, Centro de Estudos Sociais, Universidad de Coimbra, Portugal

Oxford Centre for the Study of Inequality and Democracy (OCSID)Director: Professor Nancy Bermeohttp://ocsid.politics.ox.ac.uk

• OCSID Events

RESEARCH

DEPARTMENTAL NEWSWIRE, HILARY TERM 20127

Research Centre and Programme Announcements, continued

Research Bulletin Board

Public Policy Unit (PPU)DirectorResearch Director: Professor Iain McLean http://ppu.politics.ox.ac.uk

• PPU Events

Centre for the Study of Social Justice (CSSJ)Director: Professor Simon Caneyhttp://social-justice.politics.ox.ac.uk

• CSSJ Events

• CSSJ welcomes the following visitors:

•Dr Louise Bamfield, Independent Researcher•Miss Ina Lehmann, University of Bremen

Oxford-Sciences Po Research Group in the Social Sciences (OXPO)Director: Dr Florence Faucherhttp:// oxpo.politics.ox.ac.uk

Events• The 2012 OXPO Doctoral Seminar in International

Relations will be held on 17th May in Oxford. It will invite ten PhD students from the University of Oxford, from Sciences Po and from GIGA to present papers on BRIC-related topics, under the broad heading of “Around and Beyond the BRICS”. We aim to select and discuss in detail ten doctoral student papers that present both original empirical work and address theoretical or conceptual issues involved in the analysis of the BRICS, of emerging powers, or the idea of a challenge to a western-dominated international order. Case studies can either cover one or a combination of countries. Further information

• Nicolas Delalande (Sciences Po-Nuffield Fellow), Taxation, Democracy and State Formation in France, 1870-1940 7 February, 17:15 at the Maison Française

• All OXPO Events

OXPO Visitors Schemes

Every year, Sciences Po hosts two Oxford academics in the social and political sciences for one month each as Visiting Professors. OXPO also seeks to help Oxford doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers in the social and political sciences who wish to carry out research in France, particularly by facilitating access to the Sciences Po library and with a university attachment if required, and by providing as many academic contacts and introductions as possible. The deadline for applications to visit Sciences Po in the academic year 2012-13 is Sunday 25 March 2012. Information about

•Visiting Professorships•Visiting Studentships

Call for papersThe 2012 OXPO Doctoral Seminar in International Relations will be held on 17th May in Oxford. It will invite ten PhD students from the University of Oxford, from Sciences Po and from GIGA to present papers on BRIC-related topics, under the broad heading of “Around and Beyond the BRICS”.

Paper proposals should address one or several of the following issues: interpretations of sovereignty; representativeness within international organizations; financial and monetary regulation; trade liberalization; internationalization of social welfare; international security; and global environmental governance.

We aim to select and discuss in detail ten doctoral student papers that present both original empirical work and address theoretical or conceptual issues involved in the analysis of the BRICS, of emerging powers, or the idea of a challenge to a western-dominated international order. Case studies can either cover one or a combination of countries. Please submit your paper proposals (up to 250 words) by 15th March 2012 to Professors Andrew Hurrell, Zaki Laidi and Karoline Postel-Vinay.

Oxford Research Network on Government in Africa (OReNGA)http://orenga.politics.ox.ac.uk

• OReNGA Events

RESEARCH

DEPARTMENTAL NEWSWIRE, HILARY TERM 20128

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ)Director: Dr David Levyhttp://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk

• RISJ Events

• RISJ welcomes the following visitor:

•Prof Patrick Barwise, London Business School

Media and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe (MDCEE)Director: Professor Jan Zielonkahttp://mde.politics.ox.ac.uk

Events• The MDCEE project hosted a popular seminar on The

organisation of Capitalism and the Media in Western and Eastern Europe on Thursday 1 December 2011 at Nuffield College, Oxford, welcoming speakers from Budapest, Warsaw and the UK.

• Does Ownership Matter? Media ownership, journalism and democracy in a time of transition.The MDCEE project, in conjunction with the Axess Programme on Journalism and Democracy, was delighted to host a one-day conference in Oxford, on Friday 02 December 2011.The conference programme can be found here and further details, including a podcast, will be available shortly on the project website.

• During Hilary Term, the project will co-present a seminar on New Directions in Chinese Media Studies (19 Jan) and host a two-day conference on Media, Democracy and the Rule of Law in Central and Eastern Europe (10-11 Feb).

• Plans are also underway for a conference on The Media, Democracy and Political Culture which we hope to hold in March, in Perugia.

• Further details of all events will be posted at MDCEE Events

Visiting Fellows•MDCEE welcomes the following Visiting Fellows:

•Prof Martin Krygier, University of New South Wales•Prof Radoslaw Markowski, Institute of Journalism

and Social Communication, Jagiellonian University•Prof Jacek Kurczewski, Institute of Applied Social

Sciences, Warsaw University•Prof Joanna Kurczewska, Institute of Philosophy, The

Polish Academy of Sciences

•MDCEE is also very pleased to welcome back two current Visiting Fellows for Hilary term.

•Prof Epp Lauk (University of Jyväskylä, Finland)•Prof Paolo Mancini (University of Perugia)

Anglo-German ‘State of the State’ Fellowship Programme, 2010-11Director: Dr Radoslaw Zubekhttp://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/index.php/research-projects/anglo-german-project.html

Oxford Spring School in Quantitative Methods for Social ResearchDirector: Professor Geoffrey Evanshttp://springschool.politics.ox.ac.uk

Research Bulletin BoardResearch Centre and Programme Announcements, continued

RESEARCH

Research Funding deadlines

Research funding opportunities are listed on the website at: http://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/research/support/deadlines.asp.

If you would like to apply for any of the schemes, please contact Nicola Froggatt (nicola.froggatt@politics.ox.ac.uk) and Rasangi Prematilaka (rasangi.prematilaka@politics.ox.ac.uk) by the dates given in the ‘Contact RST by’ column at the latest.

DEPARTMENTAL NEWSWIRE, HILARY TERM 20129

New Knowledge Exchange Officer roleThe Department is currently recruiting for a Knowledge Ex-change Officer to develop and support its knowledge exchange and impact (KEI) activities.We are seeking to appoint an effective communicator, experienced in both the principles of academic research and with an understanding of its potential relevance to the public, private and charitable sectors, in the broadest sense, to provide support for its members in processes of KEI. We hope the post-holder will develop the ability to act as a trusted source of support and advice for individual scholars and will work to generate contacts and link into policy networks (including government agencies, NGOs and private think-tanks and agencies with interests in aspects of public policy). The post holder will be a part of the DPIR’s research support team.

The role is conceived of as an opportunity to help DPIR researchers to build new external collaborations and partnerships and to ensure that the Department (and cognate areas of the Division) is better prepared for the key challenges it faces in communicating and exploiting its research for public benefit and influence.

The appointee will lead and participate in a wide variety of initiatives designed to facilitate and showcase the two-way exchange of knowledge between DPIR’s researchers and the private, public and civil society sectors. The successful candidate will bring to this role skills and experience in building professional networks, demonstrable knowledge of KE and research impact, and an ability to develop contacts and networks in the policy world.

The post is full-time and fixed term for 4 years. It is funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) and is available from 1st March 2012.

Rasangi Prematilaka

CPI Conference ‘The Politics of Interpretation & The Interpretation of Politics’

In September 2011, the CPI drew the academic year to a close with one of the largest conferences since its inception in 2002. The international conference brought together over fifty established and younger scholars from Canada, China, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The conference was devoted to one of the most important intellectual paradigms of humanities and social sciences scholarship—the interpretation of texts. Even though theories about law and literature, philosophy and political thought, history and theology all rely on textual interpretation, approaches to textual interpretation are seldom subjected to critical scrutiny across disciplinary divides. Moreover, there has virtually been no interdisciplinary exchange about the question of whether these approaches are ideologically sustained, and if so, what consequences this has for our understanding of texts. The two-day international conference on ‘The Politics of Interpretation & The Interpretation of Politics’, organized by Jens Olesen, sought to redress these imbalances.

In six panels structured around ‘Hermeneutics’, ‘Contextualist Approaches’, ‘Feminist Interpretations’, ‘Deconstruction’, ‘Philosophy, Law & Interpretation’, ‘Strauss and Esoteric Reading’, as well as one panel devoted to graduate students and early

career researchers, experts in their respective approaches engaged in lively discussions which benefited from the diversity of perspectives of the speakers and participants. Issues such as the role of intentions in the interpretation of texts, the question of how much, if any, contextual information is required for their understanding, and whether ideologically charged approaches induce interpreters to systematically ignore some aspects of texts, whilst emphasizing others, were among the questions raised and discussed.

Interdisciplinary fluidity and transnational perspectives on the politics of textual interpretation constituted one of the conference’s major strengths. Most of its papers spoke across the disciplines rather than to field-specific internal dialogues, thus demonstrating the pertinence of cross-disciplinary collaboration.

In light of the enthusiastic reception and the high quality of the conference, audio recordings of its presentations have been published on the Department’s website. More information about the publication of the conference’s proceedings will be released on the CPI website in due course.

Jens Olesen, DPhil Student in Politics

From left to right: Professor Michael Freeden (Oxford), Jens Olesen (Oxford), Professor Jean Grondin (Montréal), Dr Carsten Dutt (Heidelberg), Professor Dieter Teichert (Konstanz/Lucerne)

RESEARCH

DEPARTMENTAL NEWSWIRE, HILARY TERM 201210

Politics in Spires blog now has over 80 posts!“I have found posting on the Department blog to be an interesting way of trying out ideas informally. Blog posts reach a broad audience and offer Department members an opportunity to reach a diverse group of readers.”Scot Peterson, Lecturer in Politics at Balliol College and academic

member of blog oversight committee

Politics in Spires (http://politicsinspires.org), the collaborative blog between DPIR and POLIS, Cambridge, now has over eighty blog posts! The site boasts recent contributions from Rana Mitter, Scot Peterson, David Anderson, Sarmila Bose, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Kirsty Hughes and many other authors, including DPIR and POLIS students and alumni. The blog’s three Graduate Ambassadors, A. Blake Ewing (DPhil Politics), Cailin Crockett (MPhil in Political Theory) and Maria Repnikova (DPhil in Politics), have been very active; they have posted blogs on a variety of themes, from US policy on the use of medicinal marijuana (http://politicsinspires.org/2011/12/rocky-mountain-high/) to event reviews (“The Rights of Journalism and the Needs of Audiences”: Onora O’Neill on the Rise of Corporate Media).

We are very keen to have feedback (i.e. comments) on the blog posts, so that the readers can engage directly with the authors – please encourage your students to contribute in this way! I am also looking for new authors for the blog, both academic and student, and am happy to provide further information on request. The blog format is very flexible – as you will see from the examples below – Scot Peterson, Lecturer in Politics at Balliol College and academic member of blog oversight committee says, ‘I have found posting on the Department blog to be an interesting way of trying out ideas informally. Blog posts reach a

broad audience and offer Department members an opportunity to reach a diverse group of readers’.

Here are some of the topics that Politics in Spires has covered so far:• Political Reform in Brazil: Challenges

and Opportunities (Luara Ferracioli)• Religious freedom, religious equality

and religious establishment: a toxic brew (Scot Peterson)

• Cameron taking UK out of Europe without a referendum? (Kirsty Hughes)

• One small step for a Chinese, one big step for China. Is the space race really a sign of China’s new confidence? (Rana Mitter)

• The Myth of ‘Sixty Years of Oppression’ (Reem Abou-El-Fadl)

•Mutualism and social democracy (Patrick Diamond)

• Talking with terrorists? A Q&A with Sir Graeme Lamb (Jan Lemnitzer)

• Yemen’s Winter of Discontent (David Anderson)

• No News is Good News in Poland (Jan Zielonka)

Do take a look!

Click on the image to visit the blog!

HEA/JISC Funding for Blog Case StudyThe DPIR has just secured funding of £2,000 from to complete a case study titled ‘The Politics in Spires blog’, examining ‘OER and student as producer’. The award will be transferred on completion of a case study of up to 7,000 words by the end of April 2012. A paid role of Graduate Editor will be funded by the HEA/JISC award until July 2012, to provide additional editorial assistance and to support work on the case study.

NEWS AND VIEWS

Follow us on Twitter!@PoliticsinSpire

DEPARTMENTAL NEWSWIRE, HILARY TERM 201211

Oxford Alumni Travel Programme tours are accompanied by trip scholars, who are experts in their field. They usually specialise in a field related to either the destination or theme of the tour. Trip scholars are asked to give an informal daily lecture, pitched towards the enthusiastic amateur. They are asked to participate in the core programme of the tour, and be amenable to socialising informally with the group. Alumni enjoy learning from the academics, and gaining interesting and unique insights into the destination.

• Trip scholars are invited to travel free of charge, and may bring a companion (as long as they are willing to share accommodation).

• Some trip scholars find it beneficial to add their own holiday or research onto the beginning or end of a tour. This can be incorporated into the flight schedule at no extra charge.

• Trip scholars have the opportunity to

Oxford Alumni Relations Office: Travel Opportunities for Academics

Student photographersThe Department is in touch with several volunteer student photographers, who have kindly offered to give their time to increase our stock of images for use on the website and in publications. We have requested the following:• Photo-diaries: images representing a week in the life of a student (undergraduate and graduate)• Images of groups of students at work in libraries• Lectures and seminars etc. (you may be approached to sign a permission form)• College and Oxford shotsWe hope to put together an exhibition at the end of Hilary Term: watch this space!

NEWS AND VIEWS

Photo: Bagan, Myanmar, Burma

discuss their current research with a self-selected group of interested alumni, who are interested in maintaining involvement with the University and hearing out about recent academic developments. Groups are typically small, usually with a maximum of 20 participants.

We are currently seeking new trip scholars, and are looking for new itineraries. Itineraries can be designed to include areas of particular interest to a trip scholar, and alumni particularly enjoy unique elements to a tour, such as private visits and behind-the-scenes tours. If you are interested in becoming a trip scholar, or in designing a new trip based on your area of expertise, please contact Cathy Spinage in the University Alumni Office:cathy.spinage@alumni.ox.ac.uk or phone 01865 611613.

If you are planning conference or research travel in the UK or abroad our alumni groups would love to hear from you! We have 200 organised alumni groups world-wide whose most frequent request is for Oxford academic speakers. Please do let Joby Mullens know if you would be willing to speak to alumni about your work. We will pay transportation expenses within the UK. jobymullens@alumni.ox.ac or phone 01865 700004.

To view our current travel brochure visit www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/travel

DEPARTMENTAL NEWSWIRE, HILARY TERM 201212

Distinguished Friends of Oxford: Call for NominationsThe Distinguished Friend of Oxford Award was initiated in 1997 to provide the University with a means of formally recognising individuals who have acted as exceptional volunteers for the benefit of the collegiate University or its colleges.

Christine Fairchild, Director of Alumni Relations, has put out a call for nominations for the 2012 Distinguished Friend of Oxford Award. These awards are made each year to a group of people who have offered significant time and effort to benefit the collegiate University. Their service can be over a lifetime or in recognition of their support at a rather young age – distinguished service has no age limit! And service comes in many shapes and sizes. It need not be restricted to monetary donations. It can be in the form of galvanizing a committee through leadership and vision, spearheading a significant project, advising on how best to take an initiative forward or opening Oxford’s doors to others. Ideally, we

are eager to recognise a broad range of exemplary volunteers – men and women from a variety of backgrounds, geographic locations and experiences.

A few caveats:• Nominees need not be alumni of

the University but must not be current employees.

• Nominations should include the following:•Name of nominator, their

contact details and connection to Oxford

•Name of nominee, their contact details and connection to Oxford

•A brief description (usually between 250 and 300 words) of the service for which the nominee should be recognised and its impact

The process is as follows:• All nominations must be sent to

the attention of Christine Fairchild, Director of Alumni Relations, NO LATER THAN 3 FEBRUARY 2012.

• Nominations will be reviewed first by the Portfolio Executive Group of the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Development and External Affairs. Secondly, they will be reviewed by the Committee for Development and Alumni Relations on 21 February.

• Once all nominations have been reviewed and (hopefully!) approved, notification will be made to both the nominator and the nominee.

• Award recipients will be recognised at a special ceremony hosted by the Vice-Chancellor on the Friday of Alumni Weekend (14 September 2012).

If you would care to discuss this process further or if you have specific questions about the Awards or a candidate, please contact Christine Fairchild: christine.fairchild@alumni.ox.ac.uk

For further information on the Award and a list of past recipients, click on https://www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/dfo.

Distinguished Friend of Oxford award scrolls

Professional Networking Event for Alumni: Public Policy and Public Life1 December 2011, Oxford and Cambridge Club, London.

The University Alumni Office organised the event in collaboration with the Department for Oxonians who are interested in the formation of public policy, and the standards we apply to people in public life. Photo: Toby Whiting

Speakers included David Hine (Christ Church), who researches public ethics and the machinery of public integrity enforcement in western Europe, Mark Philp (Oriel), currently working on issues relating to political conduct and corruption, and Patrick Diamond (Nuffield), former Head of Policy Planning in 10 Downing Street and Senior Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister, currently working on

a book about prime ministerial power in British politics, and undertaking separate research on the changing nature of the policy-making process in UK government.

The event has received very positive feedback and the Department is keen to follow it up with other subject areas.A summary of the talks can be viewed here.

NEWS AND VIEWS

DEPARTMENTAL NEWSWIRE, HILARY TERM 201213

This is the first issue of a newly-designed Newswire - we hope you enjoyed reading it!If you have announcements, notices or suggestions for editorial pieces for Trinity Term’s issue of Newswire, please contact Kate Candy, kate.candy@politics.ox.ac.uk.

Copy deadline: Noughth week, Trinity Term 2012

New graduate admissions e-brochure

The graduate admissions e-brochure is now online. Janice French and Kate Candy would like to thank all of you who contributed to the project: we hope that you enjoy the finished product. The brochure will be refreshed for the 2013 graduate admissions deadline - we will be in touch with you in good time to request updates to information.