'Academic superstar' wins top research award

NZ's top research award, the Rutherford Medal, has gone to Brian Boyd, whose work spans Shakespeare to Nabokov to Popper, & weaves arts and sciences together.

The 2020 Rutherford Medal has been won by an English professor at the University of Auckland, a polymath whose work has been published world-wide in over 20 languages.

It is the first time a researcher from the humanities has won New Zealand's top research award.

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A fascination with Nabokov

Distinguished Professor Brian Boyd is most well-known for his work on Vladimir Nabokov.

He says his fascination with the Russian-American writer - best known for his novel Lolita - began in his first year at university. "I went on to write my PhD on him, his widow saw it and thought it was the best thing written on him, so she invited me to sort out his archive."

Boyd says that he wrote a biography of Nabokov and initially thought that would be the end of it, but his fascination with the author has continued unabated.

"Since 1993 ... I have to tried to work on things other than Nabokov, but I think I've published or edited another 16 books on him."

"Many people," says Boyd, "think Nabokov was the greatest writer of the 20th century and I do too."

"I think what is unique for me in Nabokov is that he tries to provide the reader with the same excitement of discovery that he felt in his work as a scientist."

Nabokov was a world-leading lepidopterist, studying moths and butterflies.

"You can read and discover new levels in his work - and keep on discovering them," says Boyd, who comments he is still making new discoveries in a work of Nabokov's that he has read about a hundred times.

An admiration for Karl Popper

Professor Boyd says he is also a big admirer of Karl Popper, who many claim was the greatest philosopher of the 20th century.

Popper was living in New Zealand during the Second World War when he wrote his influential book on totalitarianism, The Open Society and Its Enemies, which historian Michael King described as the most influential book to come out of New Zealand.

Popper was also a highly regarded philosopher of science, although Boyd thinks he is undervalued.

"I still think that his reputation is not nearly as high as the quality of the material deserves," says Boyd, who has been working for many years on a biography of Popper.

Evolving stories

Evolution has been a recurring theme of Boyd's work, as it was for both Nabokov and Popper, and he has a body of work relating literature and evolution…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details