An Interview with Professor Anna Sapir Abulafia Part 3/5

‘Increasing Support for Postgraduates’

An Interview with Anna Sapir Abulafia

Director of Graduate Studies, Professor of the Study of Abrahamic Religions

by Olga Puzanova

Anna Sapir Abulafia, who took over as Director of Graduate Studies at the Faculty earlier this year, shares her thoughts about the Faculty and its diverse graduate programmes and explains how graduate students can make the most of the vibrant research community at the Faculty.

Research degrees can be lonely. Are there opportunities for graduate students to interact with each other?

Plenty. What I would love is for more graduates to benefit from what the Faculty offers. We have a very good graduate study room for graduates to work in. We have a whole area for them to meet and have coffee together; we have the termly graduate lunches that are well-attended—I’d like them to be even better attended—and the Wednesday Club run by Graham Ward, which is great… But I would love to see more DPhils at the graduate research seminars. It is a great opportunity for graduates to interact with other graduates and senior members of the Faculty. Plus, I would like graduates to have a slightly wider view of things. You never know what you might learn or whom you might meet, and I see it happening at the research seminar run by myself. Graduates who would have never met each other or senior members otherwise, realise that they might be doing different things, but have other common interests, and that’s very valuable.