T H E D L C H O N O R A R Y F E L L O W S

Honorary Fellow: Derek Parfit

Professor Parfit is Emeritus Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford, and has taught as a visiting professor of philosophy at New York University, Harvard, and Rutgers. He is the author of Reasons and Persons, a groundbreaking study of morality and personal identity, and the monumental two volume work On What Matters. The latter has been described as the most significant work in moral philosophy since Henry Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics. In recognition of his extraordinary contributions to the field of ethics Professor Parfit was awarded the Rolf Shock Prize for Logic and Philosophy by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2014. Professor Parfit has also expressed an interest in Buddhist philosophical thought, elements of which have often been considered deeply commensurate with his own work.

Honorary Fellow: Marina Cantacuzino

Ms Cantacuzino, who began her career as a freelance journalist, became drawn to the issue of forgiveness and the struggle for reconciliation during the prelude to the second Gulf War. Her work collating the testimonies of victims and perpetrators of horrendous violence resulted in the widely celebrated F-Word Exhibition, first launched in London in 2004, which has since been displayed in over 550 venues worldwide. The exhibition tells the stories of people whose lives have been shattered by violence, tragedy and injustice and who are learning to forgive, reconcile and move on. The narratives which formed the main body of the exhibition have since been collected into a single volume, The Forgiveness Project: Stories for a Vengeful Age, which includes a preface by the Reverend Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Alongside the F-Word Exhibition, Ms Cantcuzino established the Forgiveness Project, an award-winning organisation that aims to build understanding, encourage reflection and enable those who have suffered severe trauma to restore value to their lives through the effort to forgive.

Honorary Fellow: Simon Baron-Cohen

Simon Baron-Cohen is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the university of Cambridge and the present director of the Autism Research Centre (ARC). Professor Baren-Cohen is considered to be Europe’s foremost researcher into autism-spectrum conditions. He is the author of Mindblindness (1995), The Essential Difference (2003) Prenatal Testosterone in Mind (2005), and over 400 scientific articles. In his most recent book, Zero Degrees of Empathy (2011), which received wide praise in both the popular and academic press, Professor Baron-Cohen draws on years of research to argue that radical evil can be best understood as a failure in empathic awareness. As the creator of the films Mind Reading and The Transporters, devised to help children with autism learn emotional recognition, Professor Baron-Cohen has been nominated for two BAFTA awards.

Honorary Fellow: Alexander Stoddart

Alexander Stoddart is Her Majesty’s Sculptor in Ordinary in Scotland. He is known for figurative neoclassical sculptures, his most famous works including the bronze statues of David Hume and Adam Smith on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. In Oxford Stoddart is responsible for the bronze frieze at the Sackler Library depicting an allegory of traditionalist and modernist values. He was awarded a Doctorate by the University of Paisley in 1997, an Honorary Doctorate by Glasgow University in 2006 and is Honorary Professor in the Department of Arts and Media, University of Paisley. In addition to his renowned artworks he has given numerous talks on the relation of contemporary and historical art to wider society, and to the world’s great spiritual and philosophical traditions.

Honorary Fellow: Professor Julius Lipner

Professor Lipner began his career at Birmingham University before moving to the University of Cambridge in 1975, where in due course he became Professor of Hinduism and the Comparative Study of Religion. He has lectured widely in the UK and abroad, and has been appointed Visiting Scholar and Visiting Professor in a number of universities both nationally and internationally. Professor Lipner has published a number of books and many journal articles and has made several radio and TV appearances. He is also a member of the editorial board of several international journals. His special fields of study are Vedantic thought, the intellectual milieu of 19th century Bengal, and inter-cultural and inter-religious understanding, with special reference to the Hindu and Christian traditions. One of his research projects at present is the theory and practice of Hindu image-worship. It is one of the stated aims of the centre to further the understanding of compassion within the context of the great world religions.