Queer Places:
University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2JD, Regno Unito
Holywell Cemetery, St.Cross Rd, City Centre, Oxford OX1 3TP, Regno Unito
Sir Cecil Maurice Bowra
CH,
FBA (8 April 1898 – 4 July 1971) was an English classical scholar, literary critic
and academic, known for his wit. He was
Warden of
Wadham College, Oxford, from 1938 to 1970, and served as
Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Oxford from 1951 to 1954.
Bowra was homosexual. As an undergraduate in Oxford in the 1920s, Bowra was known to cruise for sex.[62] He used the term "the Homintern"[62] and privately referred to his leading position in it, also calling it "the Immoral Front" or "the 69th International".[63]
He had a relationship with Ernst Kantorowicz. Kantorowicz left Oxford in July 1934 and Bowra went to visit him in Heidelberg, where he was staying with his female partner, Baby. Then, after the Oxford fall term, Bowra went to Berlin to see Kantorowicz and they lived in Kantorowicz's apartment for the period between Christmas and New Year's. A passage in a letter from Kantorowicz to Bowra of 1943 reminisces about talks they had on their "honeymoon."
Bowra retired in 1970, but continued to live in rooms in the college that had been granted to him in exchange for a house he owned.[39] He became an honorary fellow of Wadham and was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law.[33] He died of a sudden heart attack in 1971[64] and was buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford.[65]
My published books:
