Beyond the Quads
oxford and upward
Last year, Nick Juravich, AB'06, was one of three graduates of the College to be named a Rhodes Scholar, bringing Chicago's total number of Rhodes Scholars to 42. Michelle Caswell checked in with Nick at Oxford to hear his thoughts on the differences between Oxford and Chicago.
What have you been studying at Oxford?
I'm in a two-year master's of philosophy program
in economic and social history. My program consists
of two core courses—one in history and social
science methodology and one in statistical analysis
and quantitative methods—and four "advanced
papers," which are similar to graduate seminars at
Chicago. The main component of my degree,
however, is a 40,000-word research paper, and
that's the most exciting part for me. At Chicago I
researched the Rainbow Beach Wade-Ins, a series
of protests that took place in the South Shore
neighborhood in 1960 and 1961 to desegregate
Rainbow Beach. I'm still captivated by social protest
and its historical origins and impact, so I'm
thrilled that here at Oxford I'm going to be able to
continue studying human rights movements. I'm
working with Stephen Tuck, who is a historian of
20th-century American and British race relations
and human rights movements, and he's just begun
a project with a coalition of historians in Britain
and the U.S. to document social protest for human
rights after World War II in an international context.
My research project will hopefully become a
small component of this project, and will focus on
the Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963, in which Afro-
Caribbean immigrants in Bristol organized a boycott
opposing the hiring practices of the Bristol
Bus Company. Bristol is less than two hours away
from Oxford, so just as I did in Chicago, I'll be
able to immerse myself in this history through
interviews, documents, and archives that are available
there.
How does Oxford differ from the University of
Chicago, in your opinion?
The two institutions have a lot in common—
they're both serious research universities that place
a premium on undergraduate instruction, and
they're also both places that are proud of their particular
role in scholarship throughout history.
However, that's about where the comparison stops.
Chicago is firmly rooted in the American tradition
of a broad liberal education spanning many disciplines,
even more so than most American universities
thanks to the Common Core. British education
and Oxford in particular are much more specialized;
most historians I work with here have been
studying history exclusively since they were 18.
The result is what you'd expect: American graduate students here tend to bring a much broader, interdisciplinary
approach to their studies while British-
educated students have developed extraordinary
depth and focus by the time they've graduated.
My experience at Chicago has been a real blessing, because all the thinkers on philosophy of social science and method that we've read in my core courses here at Oxford are rooted in the traditions of thought I was exposed to in my Social Sciences and Humanities classes. Because of my familiarity with foundational social science texts, much of the more oblique philosophy I've read here— writers like Foucault and Lakatos—has been accessible to me and I've been able to connect these abstract concepts to concrete problems of historical research more clearly.
And on a related note,
how has Chicago's
international focus
prepared you for this
type of international
experience?
When I graduated from the University of Chicago,
I knew I had a great education. After two terms at
Oxford, I know that I have a world-class education.
As much as I've been challenged by a new
culture, I can't think of better preparation than a
Chicago education. I'm not sure if it's specifically
the international focus that I rely on as much as
the lessons of the Common Core: when in doubt,
read the words on the page, read the argument
sympathetically, understand it, break it down, and
then apply a whole host of methods and begin to
critique it. From casual conversations to class, I'm a
better thinker now than I was four years ago, and
that's due to the way I was taught at Chicago.
At Chicago, you were captain of the cross
country team, and were actively involved in the
human rights program. Have you been able to
maintain that level of activity at Oxford?
I still push myself to the absolute limit and try to
do as much as I can. I run with the Oxford Cross Country Club, which is very different than running
in Chicago. After only a mile you're slogging
through ankle-deep mud on a tiny path between
sheep farms and forest preserves. Getting to the
top of one of the hills around Oxford and looking
out over the valley with the spires above the
trees is breathtaking. I also currently volunteer
for a group called the Bridging Project, which
provides tutoring in English and basic schooling
to youth refugees and asylum seekers. This has
been a very important part of being at Oxford for
me; it's given me a chance to learn about immigration
and racism in the U.K., and it's reminded
me constantly that there is a whole world beyond
the spires.
What are your goals after Oxford?
I think I'm going to go for a JD/PhD in the U.S.,
with an eye towards practicing as a human rights
lawyer before seeking an academic position. But
I'm not set on anything particular—the older I
get, the more convinced I am that it's more important
to follow your passions academically and professionally
rather than plan too far ahead. I want
to make a meaningful contribution to social justice
and human rights—whatever form that takes
is fine with me. There's that Chicago Human
Rights program influence for you.
