ABOUT ME

I'm an associate professor in Classics and Philosophy at the University of British Columbia; I'm also joint general editor of the Ancient Commentators translation project, and Professor-in-Residence at UBC's Totem Park residence.

I study the philosophers of the ancient Graeco-Roman world, especially the vibrant intellectual traditions that emerged around Plato and Aristotle during their lives and later, during the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. I am particularly interested in the practice of philosophical education (paideia) in late antiquity, and the role that philosophy – ancient and modern – can play in cultivating public citizenship and human flourishing.

My recent books study the ancient reception of two classic "first books" in philosophy, Aristotle's Categories and Plato's Alcibiades, which respectively trained students in the rudiments of logic and virtue. Recently, I’ve also begun to work a little in cross-cultural philosophy, at the intersection of Platonism and Buddhism.

I'm also currently working on several projects in teaching & learning, learning technology, and community-engaged learning.

• My papers and CV online

• My teaching

• Contact me

background

I was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, and completed my undergraduate degree in Classics (2004) at UBC’s Department of Classical, Near Eastern & Religious Studies.

I subsequently completed my master’s degree (2006) and doctorate (2009) at the University of Oxford. I began teaching at UBC in 2010.

Land Acknowledgement

Our university is situated on the traditional and ancestral land of the Musqueam people, which has never been ceded.

Introducing Greek Philosophy

I’ve shared several presentations and interviews about Ancient Greek philosophy, myth, and music on YouTube here.

Projects

• Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series (co-editor since 2013)

• Greek Philosophy on YouTube

• Teaching and Learning in the Humanities

• Space for iPad: An app for notes and ideas

BOOKS

• Aristotle's Categories in the Early Roman Empire. Oxford University Press, 2015. (OUP • Google Books Preview)

• Olympiodorus of Alexandria: Life of Plato and Lectures 1-9 on the First Alcibiades. Bloomsbury Academic, 2014. (Bloomsbury • Google Books Preview)

• Olympiodorus of Alexandria: Lectures 10-28 on the First Alcibiades. Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. (Bloomsbury • Google Books Preview)

Selected papers

• Introduction to Olympiodorus on Plato First Alcibiades 10–28 (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016).

• Ammonius and His School, in Andrea Falcon (ed.), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Aristotle in Antiquity (Brill, 2016), 394–414.

• The Ethics of Self-Knowledge in Platonic and Buddhist Philosophy, in G. Davis (ed.), Ethics without Self, Dharma without Atman (Springer, 2018).

• Andronicus of Rhodes on Aristotle’s Categories. Uncorrected draft of chapter 2 in Aristotle’s Categories in the Early Roman Empire (Oxford Classical Monographs).

• Universals, Education, and Philosophical Methodology in Later Neoplatonism. Uncorrected draft of chapter forthcoming in R. Chiaradonna and G. Galluzzo (eds.), Universals in Ancient Philosophy (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2013).

• “Pliable Platonism”? Olympiodorus and the Profession of Philosophy in Sixth-Century Alexandria. Uncorrected first draft of contribution forthcoming in R.C. Fowler (ed.), Plato in the Third Sophistic (De Gruyter, 2014).

• My papers and CV