Latest news with #Birkbeck
The Guardian
21 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Claire Callender obituary
As an expert on student funding and graduate experiences of indebtedness, my sister, Claire Callender, who has died of cancer aged 71, made significant contributions to the debate about student funding at a local and international level, and played a central role in government policy and public discussion for three decades. At the time of her death Claire held joint professorships at UCL Institute of Education and Birkbeck, University of London. She was appointed OBE for services to higher education in 2017. She was born in London, a twin of Ne'eman, and the daughter of Lydia (nee Berkman) and Martin Callender, who had been a Lt Col in the British army in India during the second world war and went on to become an economist and management consultant. The war and the Holocaust cast a giant shadow over the family, and had a profound influence on Claire, shaping her sense of Jewish identity and her lifelong dedication to social justice. Claire attended Notting Hill and Ealing high school and completed a degree in social administration and sociology at Bristol in 1979. After a period as a community worker in the Beit She'an Community Centre in Israel, she received her PhD in gender and social policy at the University of Wales in 1988. When tuition fees were introduced in 1998 into what had been a free higher education system, Claire became a staunch advocate of maintenance grants and dedicated herself to drawing attention, in public and to policy makers, to the challenges that resulted from student debt. Claire's first chair appointment was at London South Bank University as professor of social policy (1998-2008) and early in the Blair years she spent time in the Cabinet Office on secondment as head of research in the women's unit. She reported to numerous parliamentary select committees, and all the major reviews of student funding that took place in the UK after 1997, including the most recent review, the Augar report of 2019. In 2006-07 she was a visiting scholar at the Harvard graduate school of education, and was a Fulbright New Century scholar in 2007-08. Her post as professor of higher education policy at Birkbeck began in 2008, followed by the professorship of higher education studies at the Institute of Education (which later merged with UCL) in 2010. In 2014, under the leadership of Simon Marginson, Claire was named deputy director of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE) and was central to CGHE research management. Claire's contributions to research scholarship included more than 125 books, reports and chapters, more than 30 peer-reviewed journal papers, and numerous conference and seminar presentations. She was renowned for her generosity as a mentor to young researchers, and for the warmth that she evoked in old and new acquaintances. With her longtime partner, Annette Zera, an educationist, Claire loved to travel - there was not a corner of the globe they hadn't visited – and she also enjoyed cooking, gardening and going to the theatre. Claire is survived by Annette, Ne'eman and me.
The Guardian
12-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
On my radar: Kit de Waal's cultural highlights
Born in Birmingham in 1960, Mandy Theresa O'Loughlin is better known as author Kit de Waal. After a career as a magistrate specialising in adoption and foster care, she studied creative writing at Oxford Brookes University. Her debut novel, My Name Is Leon, was published in 2016, winning the Kerry Group Irish novel of the year award. De Waal, who chairs this year's judging panel for the Women's prize for fiction, is a fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, where she set up a scholarship for writers from marginalised backgrounds. Her latest book, The Best of Everything, is out now (Tinder Press. Dr Strangelove, Noël Coward theatre This was just extraordinary. Steve Coogan, who played Dr Strangelove and three other characters, has such stage presence that you don't notice it's a translation. You think of him as a comedian, but he's a really, really good actor. It's not the same as the film, but it translates very well. The set was incredible. Obviously, there are resonances between what's going on now and Dr Strangelove. It's cleverly done – a brilliant production. Sean Foley, who adapted and directed it, is a genius. Two Women Wearing Cosmetic Patches, Compton Verney, Warwickshire Compton Verney is a beautiful art gallery. At the moment it's displaying this unusual 17th-century painting: often you've got a white woman next to a black woman, but the black woman is subservient. This is one of the few paintings where both women are the same size and position. They're wearing these little spots of paper in the shape of a sun, moon and stars. They were a vanity thing: 'Oh, look at me. I look fabulous.' They look very strange, in fact – like when a man has shaved and he's got a bit of toilet paper on his face. Scott Matthews I recently went to see Scott Matthews, a folk singer I absolutely adore. He has won an Ivor Novello award but he's very under the radar. I've probably seen him five times. He's a sign writer by trade, so a friend of mine got him to write out the lyrics to my favourite song of his, calligraphy style. It's called Mona, which was the inspiration for my second novel: it's about a woman who doesn't come home, and it's about yearning. His music's fantastic, but the lyrics are extraordinary. I think the only person who has lyrics as good is Joni Mitchell. Paris Noir, Centre Pompidou At the weekend I'm going to Paris, and I can't wait. This is an exhibition of 150 black artists in France from 1950 to 2000, tracing their influence on French life, Paris and the international scene. I saw that it was coming and I couldn't have got tickets any faster. I think it's great to have something dedicated to black art at such a prestigious venue. I really applaud them for doing that. The work being showcased in the publicity material looked incredible. Rachmaninov 2nd Piano Concerto by Candlelight, St Mary le Strand, London I go to hear this at least once a year – it's my favourite piece of music. I call it the theme music to Brief Encounter, which is probably a bit of an insult. It's a wonderful pairing of music and film: it speaks about sadness and deep love. I first saw the film when I was 18, and since then I can't bear to just hear one of the three movements. If ever I put it on, I make sure I've got 33 minutes to myself, so I can hear the whole thing. Whitby Abbey Last weekend, I went to Whitby and took the 199 steps up to Whitby Abbey to see where Bram Stoker got the inspiration for Dracula. It's very beautiful, atmospheric. I can absolutely see why he got the idea for a vampire from there. It's a gothic ruin on the top of a hill, overlooking the sea. It's black stone. While he was waiting for his wife to join him in Whitby, he found a book that talked about this count in Romania who used to kill his enemies with a stake through the heart, and he just put two and two together.
The Guardian
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Basil Hiley obituary
My father, Basil Hiley, who has died aged 89, was a theoretical physicist who was particularly renowned for his research collaborations with the American David Bohm, working with him on the foundations of quantum mechanics. Together they published many articles emphasising the wholeness of the quantum process and on the concept of Bohm's 'implicate order', which proposes a deeper, underlying reality where everything is interconnected and enfolded, contrasting with the 'explicate order' of our everyday, unfolded world. That work culminated in their book The Undivided Universe: An Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Theory (1993), which offered a radical perspective on quantum mechanics, aiming for a more intuitive and coherent understanding of the theory's meaning. Basil was born in Burma (now Myanmar) to James, a major in the Indian army, and his wife, Sybil (nee Toller). He spent much of his early life in India until in 1947, at the age of 12, his family came to the UK. Attending Brockenhurst County grammar school in Hampshire, he developed a flair for maths and physics and went on to gain a physics degree at King's College London. He stayed there to complete a PhD before joining Birkbeck College in 1961 as a research assistant to Bohm. Basil remained at Birkbeck, researching and lecturing, for the next two decades, and in 1995 was appointed to the chair in physics. When the college closed its physics department in 1997 he retired, but continued his research as an unpaid emeritus professor at University College London, working generously with a new generation of physicists who were keen to take his ideas forward. The originality of his work was recognised in 2012 by the Majorana prize, awarded to those who have shown 'peculiar creativity, critical sense, and mathematical rigour' in theoretical physics. In 2020 he was a key contributor to the documentary Infinite Potential: The Life and Ideas of David Bohm, and he also appeared in an episode of the BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time titled The Measurement Problem in Physics (2009). The Antony Gormley sculpture Quantum Cloud, unveiled in London in 1999, is said to have been inspired by some of Basil's work. Basil held his last seminar two days before his death. On the day he died he had spent the morning doing some physics and the afternoon listening to AFC Bournemouth, the team he supported, winning 5-0 against Nottingham Forest. He was predeceased by his wife, Sylvia (nee Hart), whom he married in 1959 after they had met at school. He is survived by their two children, Andrew and me, and two grandchildren.
