Celebrating the Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair in Women's History

The Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair in Women's History was established at the University in 2020 to mark the centenary year of the admission of women to degrees at Oxford. Since August 2024, it has been held by Professor Sarah Knott, a historian of women, gender and reproduction, and a Professorial Fellow at St John’s. Professor Knott and the College were honoured to welcome Secretary Clinton for these celebrations.

Across the two days, a programme of events – organised in collaboration with the History Faculty and the Centre for Women's, Gender, Identity and Queer history – explored various aspects of Professor Knott’s research on care and social reproduction.

A roundtable discussion on Monday 24 November brought Professor Knott together with colleagues from the Kinsey Institute, Indiana, to explore of what it means for the research centre to serve as a ‘safe repository’ of knowledge and materials relating to sexuality, gender, and reproduction.

Professor Knott’s Inaugural Lecture, held at Examination Schools later that evening, traced the emergence of ‘care’ as a liberatory feminist concept in the 1980s. In this lecture, Professor Knott made a compelling case for an intellectual history of care that places women at its core. The conceptual significance of ‘care’ was developed further in a panel discussion on Tuesday 25 November, in which Professor Knott and her research collaborator, Professor Kirsten Swinth, discussed the politics of care with Secretary Clinton and Ai-jen Poo, an influential labour leader and advocate for the rights of domestic and care workers in the United States. The panel demonstrated the immediate importance of putting care-giving of all types, from child care to elder care, at the centre of political debate.

A formal dinner at St John’s on 24 November offered an august opportunity to celebrate the Chair in Women’s History and to reflect on the importance of such a prestigious chair existing at an otherwise perilous time for scholars of gender and reproduction.