Carrying a torch for the arts

As part of Professor Richard Cooper's research into Renaissance French and Italian literature, court festivals and ceremonies have always interested him.

Next Monday (9 July 2012), a date which falls four hundred years after the festivals on which he is an expert, Professor Cooper will play a key role in a what is arguably the largest, longest modern-day ceremony: the Olympic Torch relay.

'Having been closely involved in University sport for decades, it is a great honour to be one of Oxford University's torchbearers', said Professor Cooper, who is a member of the Faculty of Medieval & Modern Languages and Brasenose College and was selected by Samsung to be an official torchbearer.

‘Combining my interests in University sport and in court festivals, it is a great honour to be one of Oxford University’s torchbearers in what has become, over three-quarters of a century, a colourful part of Olympic ceremonial, and a modern-day counterpart of the Tudor royal progress.’

The Olympic torch comes to Oxford on 9 and 10 July.

Top image: Professor Richard Cooper prepares for an official Samsung torchbearer photo (credit: Zoe Fenella Rose Hudson). Bottom image: A venue for Tudor ceremony: the Cartoon Gallery at Hampton Court Palace, by James Stephanoff (US Public Domain)