Jon Nixon obituary

My husband, Jon Nixon, who has died aged 72 from sepsis and pneumonia, was a university professor, mentor and author. During a distinguished teaching career, he touched many lives.

Jon began his career in the early 1970s as an English teacher at a school in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, before becoming head of drama at Woodberry Down comprehensive school in north London (1975-81).

From 1981 onwards, he held research, professorial, visiting and honorary positions at the universities of Canterbury Christ Church, Stirling, Sheffield, Liverpool Hope and Middlesex, and the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the Education University of Hong Kong.

He wrote widely on education as a public good, and on ideas that took in friendship (Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Friendship, 2015), political action and intercultural thinking (Rosa Luxemburg and the Struggle for Democratic Renewal, 2018), and narratives of memory.

His writing and his academic career encompassed drama, education, social and political theory, literary analysis, and cultural and intellectual history. Curious about people and ideas, he loved to talk. Colleagues remember him as generous in spirit and a kind mentor, with an extraordinary skill in shedding light on all the delicate shades and nuances of artists, writers and thinkers.

After his retirement in 2010, Jon visited Hong Kong periodically to give lectures and attend conferences at the Centre for Lifelong Learning, and to work with colleagues on various publications. He also taught at summer schools in Copenhagen for three consecutive years, and spent short periods in Uppsala, Helsinki, Vienna and Strasbourg, speaking at conferences and teaching on courses.

Jon and I met in Kendal at an art exhibition in 2006 and were married two years later. In 2007 he moved to Cumbria and loved going for a daily walk by the river in Kendal, looking for otters and herons, and the return of the swallows, enjoying conversations with those he met on his way, before returning home to write.

Born in Pocklington, east Yorkshire, to Rhoda (nee Dent), a renowned Methodist speaker in her youth, and Ernald, a Methodist minister, Jon attended Queen Elizabeth school in Kirkby Lonsdale, and won a scholarship to study English at Pembroke College, Oxford, where he directed and acted in plays.

Jon is survived by me, his children, Hannah, Ben and Isaac, from his marriage to Elizabeth O’Brien, which ended in divorce, his stepchildren, Jonathan, Amy and Jessica, from my previous marriage, his grandchildren, Kofi and Arlen, and his sister, Judith.