Francis Christopher Oakley, L.H.D., Litt.D., LL.D., is a scholar and professor of medieval history, who additionally served as president of Williams College from 1985-1993. Born in Liverpool, England in October, 1931 to Irish immigrants, he remained in Liverpool during the German bomb raids of World War II while his older siblings were sent to the countryside. His mother, Siobhan, was a homemaker and his father, Joseph, worked at a local sewing factory.
After receiving his B.A. degree from Oxford, he went on to do graduate work at the University of Toronto's Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies. However, before he could pursue his Ph.D. he had to go back to England to fulfill his mandatory, one-year of military service. He subsequently was admitted to the Yale University History Department and received his Ph.D. in 1961.
After teaching history for two years at Yale, Oakley came to Williams College (Williamstown, Massachusetts) in 1961 as a lecturer in history, then became a full professor in 1970 and Edward Dorr Griffin Professor of the History of Ideas in 1984. Oakley was co-founder in 1969 of the Interdepartmental Program in the History of Ideas, serving as its chair in 1974-76, 1985, and 1989–1990, and was dean of the faculty from 1977 to 1984. He became president of Williams on July 1, 1985 and completed his term of office on December 31, 1993.
A former president of the New England Medieval Conference (1983–84), and currently chairman of the Board of the American Council of Learned Societies, he is the author of numerous books and more than a hundred articles and book reviews on topics in medieval history and higher education. He serves on the editorial boards of The Journal of the History of Ideas and of Orion: Nature Quarterly. In 1986 he was elected Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America and, in 1991, Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
In his most recent book, "Empty Bottles of Gentilism" - the first volume in his groundbreaking trilogy on the emergence of western political thought - Oakley explores the roots of secular political thinking by examining the political ideology and institutions of Hellenistic and late Roman antiquity and of the early European Middle Ages. By challenging the popular belief that the ancient Greek and Roman worlds provided the origins of our inherently secular politics, Oakley challenges conventional understanding of the history of political theory in a fundamental way. Grounded in a period of history not much cultivated by historians of political thought, this book lays the foundations for Oakley's next two volumes, which will develop his argument that it is in the Latin Middle Ages that we must seek the ideological roots of modern political secularism.
Other recent books include: "Kingship: The Politics of Enchantment" (2006); "Natural Law, Laws of Nature, Natural Rights: Continuity And Discontinuity in the History of Ideas" (2005); and "The Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church 1300-1870" (2004).
He is currently finishing up his trilogy and remains very active in the academic and arts communities. He is married Claire-Ann Lamenzo of Hartford, Connecticut. They have one daughter, Deirdre Oakley, who retained her maiden name and is a sociologist at Georgia State University; as well as three sons including Christopher, an architect in Chicago; Timothy, an executive chief at Disney; and Brian, an environmental financing consultant in Washington, DC.
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John Chandler |
President of Williams College 1985–1993 |
Succeeded by Harry C. Payne |