Trinity Hall Research Articles

Why are smart cities proving to be so hard to deliver?

Why are smart cities proving to be so hard to deliver?

A Forgotten Muhlenberg School: Trinity Hall in Washington, Pennsylvania

ABSTRACT Trinity High School is an unusual name for a public school. Located in Washington County, Pennsylvania, it is a lasting reminder of Trinity Hall, a largely forgotten Episcopalian boys' school that operated between 1879 and 1906. Today Trinity Hall tends to be overlooked by scholars studying Philadelphia-born priest educator William Augustus Muhlenberg. Instead, examinations of Muhlenberg's influence tend to focus on the five New England schools known collectively as St. Grottlesex. Rediscovering Trinity Hall offers historians an opportunity to correct errors in local tradition, examine ways Muhlenberg's approach was adapted over time, and evaluate ways Trinity Hall helped southwestern Pennsylvanians, like Carnegie and Heinz, move from regional to cosmopolitan elite. Finally, it provides a second church school example from the Allegheny Mountains to complement studies of St. James School near Hagerstown, Maryland.

John Edgar Dalby

John Edgar Dalby attended Manchester Grammar School and studied medicine at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps for two years after the war. Later, he...

Samuel Hallifax (1733–1790)

Trinity Hall, Cambridge was founded in 1350 by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, for the study of canon law and civil law, as provided in its statutes. It later developed a direct connection with Doctors’ Commons in London, the College of Advocates practising in the church and admiralty courts. In the period 1512–1856, of the 462 admitted as advocates, 85 were from the Hall, including 15 masters and 45 fellows. From 1558 to 1857, the Hall had 9 out of about 25 Deans of Arches: two under Elizabeth, three at the end of the seventeenth century, three in the eighteenth century and one in the nineteenth. It has also provided more than 24 diocesan chancellors. As a result, within Cambridge University, Trinity Hall became the ‘nursery for civilians’, and the usual home for the Regius Professor of Civil Law. Among the first 12 of these (1540–1666), the Hall had 5. From 1666 to 1873, all of the next 12 holders were Trinity Hall by origin or adoption. Uniquely, all four of those holding this chair from 1757 to 1847 were clergy. These included Samuel Hallifax, Regius Professor of Civil Law 1770–1782. What follows deals with the life and career of Hallifax; his legal treatise An Analysis of the Roman Civil Law Compared with the Laws of England (with particular reference to its treatment of ecclesiastical law), its use and later editions; and the part played by it in a development which saw Trinity Hall become the centre for the new Civil Law classes (1816–1857), the forerunner of the modern Cambridge Law Tripos.

A New Way to Suffer: Girard, Rancière, and Political Subjectification

Research Article| May 01 2019 A New Way to Suffer: Girard, Rancière, and Political Subjectification Iwona Janicka Iwona Janicka University of Warwick IWONA JANICKA is Early Career Innovation Fellow with the Institute of Advanced Study at the University of Warwick, UK. She was British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow with Warwick (2015–18) and held visiting fellowships with the Hannover Institute for Philosophical Research (Germany) and the Post-human Aesthetics research group at Aarhus University (Denmark). As Gates Scholar she completed her PhD in French at the University of Cambridge, Trinity Hall, in 2014. Her monograph, Theorizing Contemporary Anarchism. Solidarity, Mimesis and Radical Social Change (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017), deals with the concept of universality and social transformation in most recent philosophical thought. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Contagion: Journal of Violence Mimesis and Culture (2019) 26: 161–178. https://doi.org/10.14321/contagion.26.2019.0161 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Iwona Janicka; A New Way to Suffer: Girard, Rancière, and Political Subjectification. Contagion: Journal of Violence Mimesis and Culture 1 May 2019; 26 161–178. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/contagion.26.2019.0161 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressContagion: Journal of Violence Mimesis and Culture Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © Michigan State University Board of Trustees Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Robert S. Paton

Angewandte Chemie International EditionVolume 56, Issue 45 p. 13936-13936 Author ProfileFree Access Robert S. Paton First published: 05 July 2017 https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201706565AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Graphical Abstract “If I were not a scientist, I would be working in a record store. My favorite piece of music is Steve Reich's New York Counterpoint ...” This and more about Robert S. Paton can be found on page 13936. Robert S. Paton The author presented on this page has recently published his 10th article in Angewandte Chemie in the last 10 years: “Enantioselective Silver and Amine Co-catalyzed Desymmetrizing Cycloisomerization of Alkyne-Linked Cyclohexanones”: R. Manzano, S. Datta, R. S. Paton, D. J. Dixon, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017, 56, 5834; Angew. Chem. 2017, 129, 5928. Date of birth: December 1981 Position: Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford E-mail: robert.paton@chem.ox.ac.uk Homepage: paton.chem.ox.ac.uk ORCID: 0000-0002-0104-4166 Education: 2004 MSci, University of Cambridge 2008 PhD with Jonathan Goodman, University of Cambridge 2009 Postdoctoral research with K. N. Houk, University of California, Los Angeles Awards: 2015 RSC Harrison–Meldola Memorial Medal; 2015 ACS COMP Division Outstanding Junior Faculty Award; 2014 Silver Jubilee Award, Molecular Graphics and Modelling Society; 2014 ACS Organic Division Academic Young Investigator; 2015 Thieme Chemistry Journal Award Research: Catalysts and ligand design; contact ion pairs; epigenetic mechanisms Hobbies: Music collection; DJing; trivia If I were not a scientist, I would be working in a record store. My favorite piece of music is Steve Reich's New York Counterpoint. My favorite foods are (kal-guksu), (gimbap), and (sujebi). My favorite quote is “It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong” (Feynmann). The most significant scientific advance of the last 100 years has been the discovery of penicillin. The biggest problem that scientists face is that “people have had enough of experts” (Brexiteer politician Michael Gove). My favorite piece of research is John Snow's use of statistics in 1854 to pinpoint the source of a London cholera epidemic to a communal water pump. Guaranteed to make me laugh are Stewart Lee; Aziz Ansari; a dog on a skateboard. If I could go back in time and do any experiment, it would be to discover molecular chirality with Pasteur. My greatest achievement has been meeting my wife. My favorite place on earth is Trinity Hall, Cambridge. My 5 top papers: 1“Computational ligand design in enantio- and diastereoselective ynamide [5+ 2] cycloisomerization”: R. Straker, Q. Peng, A. Mekareeya, R. S. Paton, E. A. Anderson, Nature Communications 2016, 7, 10109. (Theory-led optimization of stereoselective ligands, validated for higher-order cycloisomerizations.) 2“Catalytic enantioselective synthesis of indanes via cation-directed 5-endo-trig cyclization”: C. P. Johnston, A. Kothari, T. Sergeieva, S. L. Okovytyy, K. E. Jackson, R. S. Paton, M. D. Smith, Nature Chem. 2015, 7, 171. (Geometric restriction is not always decisive in competitive kinetically controlled ring-closing reactions.) 3“Enantioselective Desymmetrization of Prochiral Cyclohexanones via Organocatalytic Intramolecular Michael Additions to α,β-Unsaturated Esters”: A. D. Gammack-Yamaguta, S. Datta, K. E. Jackson, L. Stegbauer, R. S. Paton, D. J. Dixon, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 4899; Angew. Chem. 2015, 127, 4981. (Calculations enabled the development of a highly enantioselective primary amine catalyst.) 4“A Counterion-Directed Approach to the Diels–Alder Paradigm: Cascade Synthesis of Tricyclic Fused Cyclopropanes”: E. Kiss, C. D. Campbell, R. W. Driver, J. D. Jolliffe, R. Lang, T. Sergieiva, S. Okovytyy, R. S. Paton, M. D. Smith, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2016, 55, 13813; Angew. Chem. 2016, 128, 14017. (Synthesis and computation show how counterion coordination controls diastereoselectivity.) 5“Correlating Reactivity and Selectivity to Cyclopentadienyl Ligand Properties in Rh(III)-Catalyzed C−H Activation Reactions: An Experimental and Computational Study”: T. Piou et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139, 1296 (A predictive tool for C−H functionalization.) Volume56, Issue45November 6, 2017Pages 13936-13936 ReferencesRelatedInformation

‘Italian porredge Seasoner’

NEARLY two-thirds of the way through his lengthy, excoriating attack on Gabriel Harvey, Have With You To Saffron Walden (1596), Thomas Nashe calls his victim an ‘Italian porridge seasoner’.1 The reference, like so many in the work, seems obscure, complicated and confusing at first glance. However, it would seem to have a logical explanation, one that reveals the sophisticated and allusive nature of Nashe’s polemic. ‘An Italian porridge seasoner’ is surely a poisoner. In the passage immediately prior to the reference Nashe ridicules Harvey’s attempts to bring their quarrel to an end in the autumn/winter of 1595, by inviting him to his college, Trinity Hall.2 Nashe imagines a scene in which he rushes in with other hungry college fellows crying ‘Doo you want anie guests? What, nothing but bare Commons [i.e. standard fare for a common/college meal]?’3 Nashe imagines that they would all have much to fear from Harvey’s hospitality because ‘he would have lent me a precious dram more than the ordinarie, to help digestion; he may be such another craftie mortring Druggier, or Italian porridge seasoner, for anie thing I euer saw in his complexion’.4

Comparability: manufacturing, characterization and controls, report of a UK Regenerative Medicine Platform Pluripotent Stem Cell Platform Workshop, Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 14-15 September 2015.

This paper summarizes the proceedings of a workshop held at Trinity Hall, Cambridge to discuss comparability and includes additional information and references to related information added subsequently to the workshop. Comparability is the need to demonstrate equivalence of product after a process change; a recent publication states that this ‘may be difficult for cell-based medicinal products’. Therefore a well-managed change process is required which needs access to good science and regulatory advice and developers are encouraged to seek help early. The workshop shared current thinking and best practice and allowed the definition of key research questions. The intent of this report is to summarize the key issues and the consensus reached on each of these by the expert delegates.

Among Actions, Objects, and Ideas: The Telescope in Thomas Tomkis’s Albumazar

An engine to catch starres: Thomas Tomkis and Natural Philosophy (1) Ibumazar is a play filled with things, from mundane household goods to lists of ancient and contemporary alchemists and magi to the eponymous astrologer's collection of astrolabes, horoscopes, and almanacs. It is also the first play in English to feature a scene with a telescope onstage. (2) However, whether many of the things in Thomas Tomkis's (c. 1580-after 1615) farce physically appeared onstage for its March 9, 1614 premiere at Cambridge's Trinity Hall is uncertain. The questionable material status of Tomkis's stage properties becomes significant when Albumazar is examined in a context of the history of as well as the history of theatre. The original college production demonstrates the playwright's cultural awareness of the emergent disciplinary distinction of astronomy through the incorporation of its star technology: the telescope. (3) King James I (1566-1625)--witch-hunter, author of Daemonology (1597), and royal guest at Albumazar's premiere--likely held a derogatory opinion of the telescope because of its potential use as a tool in the occult craft of astrology. The space between the textual narrative and the telescope scene as it might have been embodied by actors in 1614 reveals the delicate balance that Tomkis achieved by referring to truthful elements of astronomy while poking fun at astrology. The manner in which the telescope was performed--as a physical prop or mimed as part of a dumb show--indicates the range of Tomkis's engagement with the tools and concepts of the science in the only performance of the play recorded during his lifetime. The science advanced the idea of experimentation and experience as a means of exploring the natural world. (4) This method prioritized embodied encounters and observations of natural phenomena (including things astronomical) over contemplation of Aristotelian causes thereof. The science began to emerge with Galileo Galilei's (1564-1642) empirical observations and was developed in England most famously by Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), who preceded Tomkis at Trinity College, from 1573-1575. (5) Staged representations of the telescope throughout the seventeenth century evidence a gradual shift in popular opinions about the science and those who adhered to its philosophy. Tomkis's use of the telescope in the play references a host of overlapping traditions of science, magic, education, and authority that were at odds with each other at the time of the play's premiere. In 1614, astrology and astronomy were not entirely distinct disciplines and neither was completely condoned, or forbidden, by religious and scholarly authorities. Astrology had historically been taught at European universities, but the church and university considered certain aspects of astrology less offensive than others. (6) Act 1 of Albumazar features a telescope (referred to throughout the play as aperspicill) and an otacousticon (a hearing aid). (7) These devices situate the play at a pivotal moment in the history of as reports of new discoveries made through the use of Galilean tubes spread across Europe. (8) The traditional narrative of the telescope's invention goes that in 1608, Dutch spectacle-maker Hans Lipperhey (1570-1619) was granted a patent for his telescope design from the States General in Hague, Holland, and so the chapter of the telescope was added to a global history of astronomical technologies. (9) Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) announced his application of the telescope to the practice of astronomy in 1610 with the publication of Sidereus Nuncius (The Starry Messenger). (10) What followed was a European battle of philosophies over the veracity of the celestial objects made visible through the telescope's lenses waged throughout the seventeenth century. (11) At the time, knowledge gained through the use of telescopes was not universally accepted because discoveries of new stars and planets, as well as the ability to trace their movements with greater accuracy, challenged a Ptolemaic (geocentric) model of the universe that was still popular within the academy and the church. …

Magmas Erupted during the Main Pulse of Siberian Traps Volcanism were Volatile-poor

This work was supported by a Natural Environment Research Council (NE/H012648/1) and a Natural Environment Research Council Ion Microprobe Facility award. S.S. acknowledges Trinity Hall (Cambridge, UK) for providing a Mann Studentship towards her PhD studies. The Centre for Physics of Geological Processes, University of Oslo, provided the fieldwork funding.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments Felicity Henderson (bio), Sachiko Kusukawa (bio), and Alexander Marr (bio) these essays arise from a conference, “Curiously Drawn,” held at the Royal Society on June 21–22, 2012. The meeting was part of the activities of a research network, “Origins of Science as a Visual Pursuit,” that sought to bring together historians of science and historians of art to examine the historical role of images in the early Royal Society (see picturingscience.wordpress.com). This project, including the publication of this volume, was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom. We are grateful to the speakers and participants for their enthusiasm, and in particular to Professor Michael Hunter for acting as commentator-at-large to bring together the various themes that emerged from the meeting. We would like to record our special thanks to Keith Moore, Joanna McManus, Rupert Baker, and Joanna Corden at the Royal Society for their generous help, and to Susannah Gibson, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, for assisting with the activities of the network. We are grateful for the patience, support, and enthusiasm of Susan Green, the Director of the Huntington Library Press, in seeing through the publication of this volume. [End Page vii] Felicity Henderson felicity henderson is Lecturer in Archives and Material Culture at Exeter University. Her research focuses on the early history of the Royal Society, and she is currently preparing a scholarly edition of Robert Hooke’s diary for Oxford University Press. Sachiko Kusukawa sachiko kusukawa is Fellow in the History and Philosophy of Science, Trinity College, Cambridge. The author of Picturing the Book of Nature: Image, Text, and Argument in Sixteenth-Century Human Anatomy and Medical Botany (2012), she is now working on the graphic practices of the early Royal Society, for which she has been awarded a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, U.K. Alexander Marr alexander marr is University Lecturer in the History of Art, 1400–1700, at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity Hall. He specializes in early modern art and architecture, particularly their intellectual and scientific aspects. He is the Director of the research project “Genius before Romanticism: Ingenuity in Early Modern Art & Science,” funded by the European Research Council. Copyright © 2016 The Johns Hopkins University Press

Unusual Suspect, Unlikely Hero: A Life in the Reign of Alarm Francis ‘Ornament’ Wrangham (1769–1842)

Like many other young liberals of the 1790s victimized by William Pitt’s ‘Reign of Alarm’, Francis Wrangham is remembered today, if at all, only as a footnote to a more famous life: in his case, William Wordsworth’s. Wrangham was a year ahead of Wordsworth at Cambridge, a far more successful student than the poet, indeed a sometime victorious rival over the academic star of the Class of ‘90, the brilliant John Tweddell. Wrangham won the Brown Prize at Magdalen in 1787 and graduated third Wrangler from Trinity Hall in 1790. He was a brilliant classicist and liked the competition: he won five more prizes as an alumnus, between 1794 and 1812. It was as a classicist that he entered Wordsworth’s life. Between 1795 and 1797 the two of them collaborated on an imitation of Juvenal’s eighth satire, on the theme of true nobility – ‘virtue’ is its ‘one and only’ name. This is Juvenal’s rough satire (his tonal signature among the great Roman satirists) on the corrupt nobles of his time, who so little deserve their titles. Wrangham and Wordsworth translated and updated Juvenal, producing an outspoken diatribe against the behavior of the most ‘noble’ personages in England, not quite touching the King, but coming close: the Prince of Wales, and the dukes of Northumberland, Norfolk, and Manchester all come in for rough handling – especially in the parts composed by Wordsworth. The satire is very up-to-date for 1795, including snide remarks about Pitt’s spy system, especially its alarmist attacks on ordinary people, while grand dukes and duchesses are allowed to get away scot-free with the illegal gambling tables they ran at home for their friends:

Rethinking the scope and necessity of energy subsidies in the United Kingdom

Energy subsidies have the potential to dominate the debate in the energy sector until at least 2020. This article aims to advance thinking and research in the area of energy subsidies from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective. It covers the issues of: what energy subsidies are; what institutions are involved; what is the EU perspective on subsidies; and how they should be formulated as 2020 approaches. This short review on energy subsidies is in part based on the discussion and debate from an International Energy Law Conference held in February 2014 at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge.

An Assemblage of Collegiate Ceramics: Mid-Nineteenth Century Dining at Trinity Hall, Cambridge

A large assemblage of ceramics related to dining at Trinity Hall, in which many of the vessels were marked with the name and/or the crest of the college, was recovered during recent excavations undertaken at Newmarket Road, Cambridge. The material, which was produced c. 1845–77 and deposited c. 1877–80, indicates that three distinct dining services were employed by Trinity Hall at this time. In addition to shedding considerable light into dining at this mid- nineteenth century college, the assemblage also indicates how ceramics were employed to visually denote status differences within the college. Other material within the assemblage, allied with the location of its disposal, provides significant information on how the material moved between its contexts of use and deposition. This also allows insights into how such large assemblages may be categorized and interpreted.

EDITORIAL: AN HOMAGE TO TREVOR WEST

Trevor West [1938-2012] EDITORIAL: AN HOMAGE TO TREVOR WEST Martin Mathieu The first time I met Trevor was as a postgraduate student at the MathematicalInstituteof the University of Tübingen.My supervisor, Professor RainerNagelwas,as usual,busywithseveralinternational visitors, and Trevor was one ofthem.Duringmyundergraduate studies,Rainerhad, unsuccessfully, tried on variousoccasionsto send me abroad fora shortspell; however, I had resisted, mainlyforfamily reasons.But on thatday,fatestruck. We weresitting aroundthe tea tablein Rainer'soffice and Trevor, whowas a good friend ofRainer's,leisurely mentioned that he was lookingfora temporary replacement forRichardTimoney, whowouldbe spendinghissabbaticalin theUS inthenextsemester. WhileI was notfully listening, Rainermusthavementioned mynameto Trevor;because suddenlyhejumped up and ranintothesecretary's office to makea phonecall. When he came back aftera fewminutes,he had spokento the Head of Departmentat Trinity and happilyreported thathehad fixed meup to spendthenextMichaelmas Termat Trinity! Therewas no wayforme to escape from this. As a resultof thiscoup, I travelledwithmythensmall family(mywifeand myoldestdaughter)to Dublin bycar and boat to takeup residence in Trinity Hall in September1984 forthe restof that calendaryear.I was put to teachingthe introductory courseon FunctionalAnalysis,whichwas quite a task,giventhat I wasonlyinmysecondyearofpostgraduate studies.However, I enjoyedtheteaching and the lifein Dublin a lot, and evenmade it downto UCC laterin the yearto visitRobinHarte. (Comingfrom Germany, wewereglad to see thatwe couldstart off on themotorway from Dublin,onlyto realisethatitfinished after twomilesout ofthecity.)DespiteTrevor'swarnings, I evenmanagedto writea jointpaperwith Robinduring thatvisit(publishedintheProceedings oftheAmericanMathematical Societyin 1986),themainresultofwhichwas in factconceivedin a pub. This first visitto Irelandplayeda decisiverolein myprofessional and indeed personallife.With Trevor'shelp on thisand lateroccasions,I got introduced to the Irishmathematicalcommunity and Irishway of life.In fact,Trevoris one of the threeIrish men responsibleforbringing me overto Ireland: he initiated thefirst contactand visit.After that,thelate GerardMurphystartedto organise meetings on operatortheory and operatoralgebrasat UCC, and I becamea regular participant, not the least sinceI had fallenin lovewithIreland.In 1990,Gerard also hostedmytwo-month visitto UCC, and wewrotea jointpaper,thusstarting a newresearch direction ofmine.After Gerardhad mademereturn to Ireland(again *Corresponding author, e-mail: m.m@qub.ac.uk doi:10.3318/PRIA.2013. 113.06 Citeasfollows: Martin Mathieu, Editorial: Anhomage toTrevor West Mathematical Proceedings ofthe Royal Irish Academy 113A(2) (2013), i-ii;doi:10.3318/PRIA.2013.113.06 Mathematical Proceedings ofthe Royal Irish Academy ,113A(2),i-ii(2013)© Royal Irish Academy ii Mathematical Proceedings oftheRoyalIrishAcademy and again), it was TonyO'Farrellwho finally made me stay,by first arranging a one-year temporary positionforme at MaynoothwhenI was out ofa job in 1996, andthensupporting a MarieCurieFellowship application, whichallowedmeto stay in Maynoothforanotheryear.In 1998,I movedup northto takeup a permanent positionat Queen's University Belfast. Overthe years,Trevorwas a greatinspirational sourceforme and mymathematicalinterests and, ofcourse,I studiedthe 'LittleRed Book' in everydetail. Moreover, together withothers, he helpedmeto understand, and to integrate into, Irishsociety, bothsouthand north(he gave me a copyofRoy Garland's book on GustySpence). To someextent,he certainly was a rolemodelforme in myearlier years,and I am glad to say that I feelfullyat homein Irelandby now. (That I am, meanwhile, somewhatacceptedheremayshowin the factthat I was elected Member oftheRoyalIrishAcademyin2010,amtheeditorofitsMathematical Proceedings (thusfollowing in a fewofTrevor'smanyfootsteps), and presently serve as thePresidentoftheIrishMathematicalSociety.) The last timeI saw Trevorwas at a conference heldin Edinburgh in December 2009 to markthe retirement ofAlastairGillespieand Allan Sinclair.He was still in good formand fullof his usual humour.It was hard forme to imaginethat therewouldcomea timewhenhe no longerwouldbe withus. I was shockedand surprised to hearofhispassinginOctober2012.As GandalfsaysintheFellowship oftheRing, 'All we haveto decideis whatto do withthetimethatis givento us.' I am convincedTrevormade verygood choices,and I am glad to haveknownhim. This issueofthe Proceedings mayserveas a thank-you to himfrom all ofus. ...

Remembrance Day: A sermon preached in the Chapel of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 13 November 2011

This sermon, preached on Remembrance Sunday 2011 in the Chapel of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, addresses some of the particular conflicts and paradoxes which war, and the commemoration of it as an act of public, annual national remembrance, pose for Christians and Christianity. It considers the often troubling relationship between the ‘big words’ of Christianity – sacrifice, love, body, blood, glory, redemption, for example – and their connections with, or appropriation by, nation states as powerful tools for military or propagandistic ends. It considers, too, some of the implications of the uncomfortable and painful fact that for many serving men war gave them some of their richest and most valued experience, and asks how we square the circle of acknowledging human courage and self-abnegation without glorifying the conflicts which called them forth.

Neil Lessels Dallas

Neil Lessels Dallas was born in Bradford and educated at Uppingham. He graduated from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and completed his medical training at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. In the...

A Poet's reich: politics and culture in the George circle

Stefan George (1868-1933) was one of the most important figures in modern German culture. His poetry, in its originality and impact, has been ranked with that of Goethe and Holderlin. Yet George's reach extended beyond the sphere of literature. In the early 1900s, he gathered around himself a circle of disciples who subscribed to his vision of comprehensive cultural-spiritual renewal and sought to turn it into reality. The ideas of the George Circle profoundly affected Germany's educated middle class, especially in the aftermath of the First World War, when their critique of bourgeois liberalism, materialism, and scholarship (Wissenschaft) as well as their call for new forms of leadership (Herrschaft) and a new Reich found wider resonance. The essays collected in the present volume critically re-examine these ideas, their contexts, and their influence. They provide new perspectives on the intersection of culture and politics in the works of the George Circle, not least its ambivalent relationship to National Socialism. Contributors: Adam Bisno, Richard Faber, Rudiger Gorner, Peter Hoffmann, Thomas Karlauf, Melissa S. Lane, Robert E. Lerner, David Midgley, Robert E. Norton, Ray Ockenden, Ute Oelmann, Martin A. Ruehl, Bertram Schefold. Melissa S. Lane is Professor of Politics at Princeton University. Martin A. Ruehl is Lecturer in German Thought and Fellow of Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge.

Does It Matter If the House of Lords isn't Reformed? Perspectives from a Symposium at Trinity Hall, Cambridge

In May 2011 the Coalition government published a draft bill for reform of the House of Lords, proposing an upper chamber composed of 80% elected and 20% appointed members serving for single 15‐year terms. These plans reflect aspects of the stated positions of the main political parties, votes in the House of Commons, and broader political and scholarly debates over the past decade. Nevertheless, there is significant opposition from across the political spectrum, and there is a significant possibility that the proposed reforms will not be enacted before the next general election. This article draws on the views of participants (including three current peers) in a Symposium at Trinity Hall, Cambridge to argue that the likely failure of the reforms may be less disastrous than many suppose. Especially since the 1999 reforms, the House of Lords is in many ways a more active and legitimate chamber than is commonly realised.

Brian Alec Latham

Brian Alec Latham was born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex where he spent a happy childhood. There were no siblings. His was at school as a border at Bishops Stortford College, where...