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Evan King (BA'10, King's; MA'12, Dalhousie)

"What drew me in fully was seeing that I could study Augustine and do Latin at the same time 鈥� that brings reading alive in an entirely new way. That鈥檚 a skill you take away, no matter what, when you graduate."

Now a second-year doctoral candidate in late medieval philosophical theology at University of Cambridge (UK), Evan King reminisces about doing his master鈥檚 at Dal. 鈥淚 spent a couple of summer months writing my thesis in the basement of St. Peter鈥檚 Cathedral in Charlottetown, P.E.I.,鈥� he says.

Life at St. Peter鈥檚 鈥減rovided some good daily routines,鈥� Evan recalls. And since his thesis focused on Meister Eckhart, a medieval theologian, philosopher and mystic, the location was appropriate. 鈥淚n my thesis, I wanted to take Eckhart seriously as a philosopher and understand how his Christian mystical thought harmonizes fully with his reading of Aristotle through Peripatetic Muslim and Jewish commentators.鈥�

From Shelburne, N.S. originally, Evan realized soon after taking courses at Dal that the Department of Classics offered something special. 鈥淭hat one can study late medieval thought in a Classics department is pretty rare,鈥� he says.

Currently, Evan is delving into a fourteenth-century Latin text about the Greek Neoplatonist, Proclus. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really the best of both worlds: I鈥檓 keeping in touch with the late antique philosophy I really enjoy while seeing how various traditions are formed around an origin 鈥� how the origin has been interpreted and translated.鈥�

Evan also looks back fondly on the seminar courses offered by his thesis supervisor, Dr. Wayne Hankey. 鈥淗e always made it clear that in seminars, 鈥業 don鈥檛 do the work, you do the work,鈥欌�� says Evan. 鈥淚t was really about giving students the role of teaching themselves and one another. Through doing that, one starts to develop his or her grasp of a text or topic.鈥�

This also happened for Evan during his teaching assistantships in the Classics Department. 鈥淭As are given real responsibility,鈥� he says. In tutorials, 鈥淚 actually had the opportunity to try to translate what I heard in lectures.鈥�

As for life after Cambridge, Evan says, 鈥淚鈥檇 love to teach ancient philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, but equally their Neoplatonic and Peripatetic commentators. Philosophy, especially when done historically, encourages us to develop a more responsible relation to the world because it situates us more firmly within it, and that merely by reading attentively.鈥� It鈥檚 a counterpoint, he says, to 鈥渢oday鈥檚 distracted way of looking at the world, when we鈥檙e not always aware of our own assumptions.鈥�

鈥淭hat鈥檚 the benefit of looking to the past,鈥� he concludes. 鈥淚t allows us to see that we do have our own assumptions, about ourselves, the world, and about God, that things haven鈥檛 always been this way, and that ours might not be the best assumptions to hold.鈥�