Exonians come together to enjoy Social Sciences subject dinner

Members of Exeter College came together in November for the Social Sciences Subject Dinner. Before guests moved to Exeter College Hall, they were treated to four speakers hosted at the FitzHugh Auditorium at Cohen Quad, with the evening later concluding with a final talk.  

The speakers were a mix of DPhil students, made up of Georgia Speechly (2022, DPhil Law), Michaela Kalcher (2021, DPhil History) and Rhys Southan (2020, DPhil Philosophy), and lecturers Nicholas Waghorn (Philosophy) and Dr Marilena Anastasopoulou (History).  

Georgia Speechly’s current research focuses on obstetric violence and human rights in South Africa. With a Master of Law (LLM) from Darwin College, Cambridge, as well as Bachelor degrees from Stellenbosch University, South Africa, Georgia previously worked as a judicial law clerk at the Constitutional Court of South Africa and as a candidate attorney at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, Cape Town. Georgia has also served as a legal researcher for the United Nations in the Supreme Court Chamber of the Extraordinary Chamber in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) and was a visiting student at the University of Helsinki. She is an admitted attorney in the High Court of South Africa. 

Michaela Kalcher is a historian of the French Revolution and the long eighteenth century. Michaela’s doctoral research uses over sixty previously ignored diaries to explore the subjective experiences of ordinary men and women across France living through the revolutionary decade. 

Rhys Southan previously completed a BPhil in philosophy at Oxford – which was also through Exeter College. He did his undergraduate degree at the University of Texas at Austin, which was a double major in film and philosophy.  

Nicholas Waghorn has taught a variety of papers in contemporary and historical philosophy over the years, and his research has focused on the meaning of life, the nature of death, and primitive concepts such as ‘thing’, ‘existence’, and ‘reality’. Between 2009 and 2022 Nicholas was a Fellow in Philosophy at St Benet’s Hall, Oxford. Since then, he has been a Research Fellow at Blackfriars Hall, a Lecturer at St Peter’s College, and, most recently, Lecturer in Philosophy at Exeter. 

Dr Anastasopoulou’s research explores the way migration forms memories, identities, and attitudes. Her forthcoming book monograph, Flight, Fight, and Fraternity: A Century of Asia Minor Refugees in Greece (Oxford University Press), is a comparative – intergenerational and interregional – history of the 1922-24 memories and identities of forced displacement that examines the multilayered relationship between contemporary attitudes and refugee past. This study has received prestigious awards in the context of academic conferences. Dr Anastasopoulou holds a DPhil in History and an MSc in Migration Studies from the University of Oxford.  

An excellent evening was had by all and Williams at Exeter student Benham Cobb said of the Social Sciences subject dinner “To me it was the quintessential Oxford experience: absorbing, thought-provoking research by fellow college students while enjoying a proper meal in formal attire.”