The University of Queensland appointed Dr. Alastair Blanshard as the inaugural Paul Eliadis Chair of Classics and Ancient History.
The Chair is named after Dr. Paul Eliadis, a UQ graduate, who established the position earlier this year through a generous donation.
What prompted Dr. Eliadis philanthropic gift was his passion for classics and due to his Greek heritage, decided to support his “alma mater” by ensuring the teaching of classical languages and ancient history.
Dr. Eliadis welcomed the appointment of Dr. Blanshard and stressed the importance of maintaining a society’s cultural memory.
“To me, any Western university that doesn’t have a department that teaches the classics does not have a birth certificate,” Dr Eliadis said.
Dr Blanshard, who earned a Master of Arts from UQ in 1996, and a PhD from The University of Cambridge in 1999, is an internationally recognised leader in the field of classical tradition, and a series editor for the ‘Classics after Antiquity’ monograph series published by Cambridge University Press.
Greek cultural history, Greek rhetoric and law, epigraphy, ancient sexuality are some of Dr. Blanshard’s research interests, who expressed his enthusiasm for being selected for the Chair.