The Killam awards

It was a very special honour for me to be selected for a Killam award. The fellowships, scholarships, and other awards granted by the Killam Trusts are a wonderful and unique Canadian institution, which, I think, are essential to attracting and fostering of research and teaching talent at every level of study in Canada. The Killam awards facilitate not only deep research in one field, but create a range of opportunities for cross-pollination between disciplines and for learning to communicate research effectively, both within and beyond the academy. I hope to continue an association with the Killam Trusts in the future.

The University of British Columbia

UBC is, I think, one of the most exciting institutions in the world today to conduct classical and philosophical research. The joint department of Classical, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies spans West and East and sports a rare nexus of expertise; if you want to understand a phenomenon like Platonism, which crosses linguistic and cultural boundaries (ranging from Greek and Latin to Arabic, or from the pagan to Christian and Islamic traditions), this is an ideal place to explore it. At the same time, interdisciplinary programs across the university in fields like Cognitive Systems and Human Evolution, Culture and Cognition (HECC) make for a diverse and energized research community in any area of intellectual history, humanities, and philosophy. As the work of my Killam mentor, Prof. C. W. Marshall, on both ancient drama and modern popular culture goes to show, UBC is a place to bring diverse research cultures together and ask new questions.