Difference between revisions of "Liam Hudson (1933-2005)"
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In 1977, Hudson left Edinburgh to become Professor of Psychology at Brunel University. | In 1977, Hudson left Edinburgh to become Professor of Psychology at Brunel University. | ||
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| + | *'Obituaries: Professor Liam Hudson', The Telegraph, 21 March 2005 [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1486082/Professor-Liam-Hudson.html], accessed 12 December 2014] | ||
Revision as of 12:35, 12 December 2014
Liam Hudson (1933-2005) held the Bell Chair of Education at Edinburgh University from 1968 to 1977.
Born in London, Hudson was educated at Whitgift School, and went on to do National Service in the Royal Artillery. He won a scholarship to read Modern History at Exeter College, Oxford, but soon switched to Philosophy and Psychology. After graduating, he conducted postgraduate research at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. in 1964 he was appointed director of the Research Unit of Intellectual Development at King's College, Cambridge.
In 1968, Hudson succeeded John Gustave Pilley (1899-1968) as Professor of Education at Edinburgh University, taking the Research Unit of Intellectual Development with him. By this stage, he was beginning to challenge the scientific approach to education taken by experimental psychologists. He rejected attempts to distinguish innate personality types and measure aptitude, and was thus hostile to the work of Sir Godfrey Hilton Thomson (1881-1955) and the Godfrey Thomson Unit for Educational Research at Moray House College of Education. Particularly in his book The Cult of Fact (1972), he argued that academic psychology overlooked the role of myth and cultural stereotype, attitudes to authority, role-play and self-image in forming of individual identity.
In 1977, Hudson left Edinburgh to become Professor of Psychology at Brunel University.
Sources
- 'Obituaries: Professor Liam Hudson', The Telegraph, 21 March 2005 [[1], accessed 12 December 2014]
His other works include Human Beings (1975); Bodies of Knowledge (1982) and a novel, The Nympholepts (1978). From 1987 to 1996, he was a visiting professor at the Tavistock and Portman clinics.
The Way Men Think (1991) Intimate Relations (1995), co-written with his wife Bernadine Jacot, Hudson addressed psychological issues in a humanist, heterodox manner that owed as much to artistic, biographical and literary themes as to experimental psychology. For that reason, many of his fellow psychologists found them confusing and full of loose ends, to which Hudson would probably have replied "but that's precisely the point".
Liam Hudson is survived by his second wife, , and by their daughter and three sons.