New British Academy Fellows

13 July 2004

Three Oxford fellows have been newly elected to the British Academy this month: Dr Ann Jefferson, University Lecturer (CUF) in French and Fellow of New College; Professor Jane Lewis, Barnett Professor of Social Policy and Fellow of St Cross College; and Professor Ritchie Robertson, Professor of German and Fellow of St John’s College.

The British Academy is the National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Established by Royal Charter in 1902, it is an independent society promoting the humanities and social sciences. It is composed of Fellows elected in recognition of their distinction as scholars in those fields.

Dr Ann Jefferson’s research interests lie in the field of 19th- and 20th-century fiction, autobiography, criticism and theory. She is currently working on the relations between biography and the literary from Rousseau to the present day under the aegis of her Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship.

Professor Ritchie Robertson is interested in a wide range of authors and topics in the period from 1750 onwards, notably Kafka; Heine; Romanticism; German-Jewish writing; and Austrian literature, especially Viennese theatre and 20th-century fiction. His current projects include collaborating with German colleagues on a new annotated edition of Kafka; work on the reception of Scandinavian literature by Kafka and other turn-of-the-century authors; and a study of the Austrian Enlightenment and the survival of its ideals down to the twentieth century. He is Germanic Editor of the Modern Language Review.

Professor Jane Lewis’s research interests are focused mainly on gender and social policy; family policy; the voluntary sector; community care and health policy; and the history of social policy. During the past decade she has produced research work on lone mother families; the implementation of the community care policy in the UK; the ‘gendering of welfare regimes’; the nature of the voluntary/statutory partnership in the UK over time; and, most recently, on individualism and commitment and risk in marriage and cohabitation, and childcare and work/life balance in comparative perspective.

Election to Fellowship of the British Academy comes as the culmination of a rigorous selection process. The number of Ordinary Fellows elected in each year is limited by statute to 35. There are currently 770 Ordinary Fellows. Corresponding Fellows, scholars of international distinction, currently number 306. There are, at present, 15 Honorary Fellows.

More information about the British Academy may be found at the British Academy website . http://www.britac.ac.uk