The Department of Philosophy wishes a warm welcome to its incoming Chair Prof. Jack Zupko. Formerly the chair of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Winnipeg, Zupko begins his tenure at the University of Alberta on July 1, 2013.
Jack Zupko extends the following message:
"I'm delighted to be joining the University of Alberta Philosophy Department this summer as its new Chair.
Though born and raised in southern Ontario, I've spent the majority of my academic career in the United States, attending graduate school at Cornell and then teaching at several institutions, from a large state school to a private research university to a smaller, urban university aimed at serving non-traditional students.
The University of Alberta Philosophy Department attracted me because it has so many of the features I liked about these other programs: it is nicely sized, with a breadth of faculty research interests and the teaching coverage that goes along with it. People are doing important and exciting work here. At the same time, I came away from my campus visit with the sense that teaching and serving students really matters to the faculty and staff here. That, to me, is a very good sign, and I mention it only because I'm often surprised by its absence in programs that are bigger and better known.
As a historian of philosophy specializing in the Middle Ages, I look forward to adding to the historical heft of the Department, as well as to offering a range of courses and seminars in medieval philosophy-a field so ably covered in recent years by Martin Tweedale. I'm currently finishing the Latin edition + English translation of Book III of the De anima commentary of John Buridan (c. 1300-1361), part of the critical edition of this influential work. And together with the historian of logic, Edward Buckner, I've just completed Time and Existence: Duns Scotus' Commentaries on Aristotle's Perihermenias'. This is the first English translation of Scotus' two commentaries on De interpretatione. It will appear next year with The Catholic University of America Press, which has also published the five volumes of Scotus' Opera Philosophica.
Finally, and quite fortuitously, I recently published papers in two volumes that also happened to feature papers by University of Alberta philosophers Jenny Welchman and Martin Tweedale. Another good omen on my reading."