Symons Award for Excellence in Teaching

The 2008 Symons Award for Excellence in Teaching was presented to Dr. Emilia Angelova, a professor of Philosophy at Trent, during the morning Convocation ceremony on Thursday, June 5.

Dr. Emilia Angelova joined Trent’s Department of Philosophy in 2003 as an assistant professor. Prior to coming to Trent, she taught philosophy at Sofia University in Bulgaria and at the University of Toronto at Scarborough. Prof. Angelova earned a B.A. and M.A. in Philosophy from Sofia University, and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto.

This award recognizes Prof. Angelova for her teaching, mentoring and support of students in the undergraduate and graduate programs at Trent University. The nominations, submitted by faculty, staff and students, speak to the individual attention she provides, her ability to provide students with the “space and confidence to explore course material,” and her ability to instill “a desire for learning” which inspires students to do “further research” and “yearn to maintain that desire.”

As a member of Trent’s Department of Philosophy, Prof. Angelova regularly teaches such courses as the introduction to 19th and 20th Century existential philosophy, introduction to feminist philosophy, and 20th Century hermeneutics and deconstruction. She has also taught a graduate seminar in French Feminist Theory at the Centre for Theory, Culture and Politics at Trent.

Her main areas of interest are 20th Century Continental Philosophy (especially Heidegger, Derrida, French Feminist theory) and Kant, with a special focus on imagination and the aesthetic. Her other interests include 19th Century continental philosophy (Hegel and Marx) and poststructuralist ethics. Upon coming to Canada in the early 1990s, her doctoral work at the University of Toronto was on Heidegger and Kant.  At present she is working on a book on Kant, temporality and the imagination. Her previous work has published on Wittgenstein and Gadamer, and she has translated texts from Heidegger and Schelling into Bulgarian. More recently she has published on Deleuze, and French Feminism.

Established in 1976, the Symons Award for Excellence in Teaching is Trent’s most distinguished teaching honour. The award is presented annually to a faculty or staff member who displays exemplary teaching, as well as exemplary concern for students. This is the 31st year that the Symons Award for Excellence in Teaching has been conferred.