"High-stakes" humanities research recognised in Vice-Chancellor's Oration

Four Oxford Humanities research projects were singled out in the Vice-Chancellor's annual Oration to Oxford University this week.

Professor Louise Richardson, Vice-Chancellor, said these kinds of project extend the arts in ways that open up dynamic new conversations". She mentioned:

  • A collaboration between the Faculty of Music and the Faculty of Engineering to catalogue and publicise Frederick Delius’s work.
  • A project in the Faculty of History to explore the Jewish country house, partnering with the National Trust.
  • Research in the Faculty of Classics which argued for the use of Classical rhetorical tools to improve the analytical and ‘oracy’ skills in the national curriculum.
  • A study in the Faculty of English that included a virtual exhibition about Christian Cole, one of Oxford’s first Black African undergraduates; Alain Locke, the first African-American Rhodes scholar at Oxford; and Oscar Wilde.

Professor Richardson added: “The arts and humanities do high-stakes, often life-saving work too: it is simply that we cannot compute emotional resonance, the value of communication and argument in quite the same way as we calculate medical outcomes. But I do know that my blood pressure falls when I listen to Frederick Delius’s ‘In a Summer Garden’."

The full Oration can be read here.