Dr Sophia Vasalou has been awarded a British Academy research grant, for her project ‘Magnanimity: An Intellectual History’.
The project, supported by a £5,985 British Academy grant, focuses on the virtue of magnanimity (or “greatness of soul”, as it has been called), a topic with a distinguished but insufficiently explored philosophical history. Magnanimity was one of the most prominent elements of the ancient ethical tradition to filter into the Christian and Muslim worlds, and has since undergone a series of revisions and re-evaluations.
The aim of this project is to chart the history of magnanimity and lay the foundations for assessing its ethical significance. By organising a conference, to be hosted at the University, Dr Vasalou will bring together a number of UK and US scholars working on different strands of this history, who will collaborate on a collection of papers to be published with a university press. Dr Vasalou has also been awarded a further £1,000 for the conference by The Mind Association, a learned society which promotes philosophy research. The one-year project will start in August 2016.