From Aberdeen to Oxford

Fergus Kerr OP was born in Scotland in 1931 and presently resides in the Dominican community in Edinbburgh, Scotland. After studies at the University of Aberdeen, and national service in the Royal Air Force, he spent a year teaching at the Dominican school at Laxton before entering the Order of Preachers in 1956. After ordination he served as Regent of Studies and Prior of the Dominican communities in Oxford and Edinburgh. In 1994 and 1995 he delivered the Stanton Lectures at the University of Cambridge, published as Immortal Longings: Versions of Transcending Humanity (1997). While Regent of Studies at Blackfriars, Oxford he founded the Aquinas Institute, which continues to promote the theological vision of St Thomas in the University of Oxford and beyond. As a contributor to, and later editor of the journal, New Blackfriars, he published widely on a varied range of topics, some of which are to be found in this present volume. He has been awarded honorary degrees by the University of Aberdeen and the University of Edinburgh, and he is an Honorary Fellow of the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh. Fergus' published works include: After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002); Theology After Wittgenstein (London: SPCK, 1997); Work on Oneself: Wittgenstein's Philosophical Psychology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008); and Thomas Aquinas: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).