Honorary Fellow Professor Helen Cooper with Amanda Brookfield (1979), Alison Mercer (1991) and Anna Lawrence Pietroni (1991)

Univ celebrated “35 Years of Women in Univ” on Friday 21 and Saturday 22 November.

Honorary Fellow Professor Helen Cooper, Univ’s first female Fellow, gave a lecture “Breaking Through, Leading the Way” and novelists Amanda Brookfield (1979), Alison Mercer (1991) and Anna Lawrence Pietroni (1991) took part in a panel discussion entitled, “Studying with Professor Helen Cooper: Univ and Beyond”. The celebrations included the formal display of a commissioned portrait of Professor Cooper, which will be installed in the College Hall.

Anna Lawrence Pietroni (1991) said: “I have come away invigorated by many stimulating conversations and encouraged about the future of women at Univ. I am, once again, reminded of how fortunate I am to have had the privilege of studying at Univ and I look forward to continuing some of those conversations and deepening the connections I made this weekend.”

Jennifer Wood, Second Year DPhil Candidate in English Literature, said: “It has been an honour and a privilege to be involved in the ’35 Years of Women in Univ: Breaking Through, Leading the Way’ celebrations. As a college, it is critical that we reflect on things as they were if we wish to appreciate most fully things as they currently are (and indeed continue to envision things as they ought to be), and these celebrations have enabled and encouraged this sense of college-wide reflection. As a doctoral student in English Literature, being given the opportunity to sit at High Table beside Professor Helen Cooper was a personal highlight. At dinner, we discussed literary quotations to live by, in response to which Professor Cooper offered the following remarkable quotation from Sir Thomas Malory: ‘Take the adventure that shall fall to you.’ This quotation, just like the celebrations themselves, will stay with me for a long time.”

Published: 23 November 2014

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