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Jose Harris

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Jose Ferial Harris, FBA, FRHistS (née Chambers; 23 January 1941 – 13 September 2023) was a British historian and academic. She was Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford from 1996 to 2008, and a fellow and tutor at St Catherine's College, Oxford, from 1978 to 1997.

Early life and education

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Born Jose Ferial Chambers in 1941 at Bedford, she attended the Dame Alice Harpur School in Bedford before going up to Newnham College, Cambridge in 1959. She placed in the first class of both parts of the Historical Tripos,[1] graduating in 1962 with a Bachelor of Arts degree (proceeding by convention to Master of Arts in 1966).[2] She won the Helen Gladstone Scholarship (1962), Dr Ethel Williams Prize (1962) and the Gamble Studentship (1963) and went on to complete a doctorate at Cambridge, under the supervision of Professor Richard Titmuss of the London School of Economics;[1][3] her PhD was awarded in 1970.[1][2]

Career

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Between 1964 and 1966 Chambers was a lecturer in history at University College London.[1] She was elected to a research fellowship at Nuffield College, Oxford, in 1966.[4] In 1969, she left Oxford and was appointed to a lectureship in the Department of Social Administration at the London School of Economics. Promotion to senior lecturer followed in 1974. In 1978, she was elected to a fellowship at St Catherine's College, Oxford, where she was also a college tutor. She was appointed Reader in Modern History at the University of Oxford in 1990, and was promoted to Professor of Modern History in 1996.[4] She relinquished her tutorial fellowship and became a professorial fellow of St Catherine's in 1997.[5] She retired from her professorship in 2008 and was made an emeritus professor at the university; she was also an emeritus fellow at St Catherine's (where she had been the vice-master from 2003 to 2005).[4]

Personal life and death

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In 1968, she married James Harris, a legal scholar.[1][6] Together they had one son. Her husband predeceased her in 2004.[7]

Harris died in her sleep on 13 September 2023, at the age of 82.[8][9]

Honours

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According to the historian Lawrence Goldman, Harris was "the foremost historian of the welfare state in Britain and the biographer of its architect, William Beveridge ... Many historians have written about the social institutions that formed the welfare state; many have written biographies of key contributors to public welfare. But very few have understood and explained the intellectual history of modern social policy, and none did it so fluently and with such a sure grasp of modern philosophy".[10]

Harris was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1993.[11] As of 2021, she was also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.[12] She gave the Ford Lectures at the University of Oxford in 1996–1997 on "A Land of Lost Content? Visions of Civic Virtue from Ruskin to Rawls".[13] She was the subject of a festschrift, Lawrence Goldman (ed.), Welfare and Social Policy in Britain Since 1870 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).

Bibliography

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Books

  • Harris, Jose (1972). Unemployment and Politics: A Study in English Social Policy, 1886–1914. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780198223559.
  • Harris, Jose (1977). William Beveridge: A Biography (1st ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780198224594.
  • Harris, Jose (1984). Beatrice Webb: The Ambivalent Feminist. London: London School of Economics. ISBN 9780853280903.
  • Harris, Jose (1993). Private Lives, Public Spirit: Britain, 1870–1914. Penguin History of Britain Series. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 9780140125481.
  • Harris, Jose (1997). William Beveridge: A Biography (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206859.001.0001. ISBN 9780198206859.
  • Tönnies, Ferdinand (2001). Jose, Harris (ed.). Community and Civil Society. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. Translated by Harris, Jose; Hollis, Margaret. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511816260. ISBN 9780521561198.
  • Harris, Jose, ed. (2003). Civil Society in British History: Ideas, Identities and Institutions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199260201.001.0001. ISBN 9780199260201.
  • Beveridge, William (2012). Harris, Jose (ed.). Le Rapport Beveridge: Le Texte Fondateur de l'État Providence. Translated by Bessières, Michel. Paris: Perrin. ISBN 9782262035181.

Peer reviewed articles and chapters

Encyclopedia articles

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Newnham College Register, 1871–1970, vol. 3: 1951–70 (Cambridge: Newnham College, 1990), p. 110. OCLC 14716878.
  2. ^ a b Cambridge University List of Members up to 31 July 1998 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 338.
  3. ^ Jones, Stuart (30 October 2023). "Jose Harris obituary". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  4. ^ a b c "Harris, Prof. Jose Ferial", Who's Who (online ed., Oxford University Press, 2020). Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  5. ^ "Emeritus Fellows", St Catherine's College, Oxford. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  6. ^ Bernard Rudden, "James William Harris (1940–2004)", Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 138 (2006), pp. 125–143.
  7. ^ "Harris, Prof. Jose Ferial, Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford, 1996–2008, now Emeritus; Fellow, St Catherine's College, Oxford, 1978, now Emeritus (Vice-Master, 2003–05)". Who's Who 2020. Oxford University Press. 1 December 2019. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  8. ^ Zaleski, Alexandra (15 September 2023). "Professor Jose Harris (1941-2023)". St Catherine's College. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  9. ^ "Professor Jose Harris obituary". The Times. 14 October 2023. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
  10. ^ Lawrence Goldman, "Professor Jose Harris, FBA, historian", Faculty of History, University of Oxford, 3 October 2023. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
  11. ^ "Professor Jose Harris FBA", British Academy. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  12. ^ "Fellows – H" (Royal Historical Society). Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  13. ^ "Ford Lectures in English/British History", Making History (Institute of Historical Research). Retrieved 8 June 2021.